The fourth in the special series of "War Epidemic 2.0"
CBO reporter Zhang Zhao
Since the outbreak of the epidemic in 2020, cosmetics stores have begun to accelerate their evolution. Now that two years have passed, facing the impact of the epidemic again, can the cosmetics stores in Shanghai and surrounding provinces hold on?
The impact of the epidemic in Shanghai on all links of the beauty industry chain has been highlighted, and the local offline channels in Shanghai have closed their stores and closed under the management of sealing and control. Zhejiang, Jiangsu and other provinces, which are close to Shanghai, have been affected by the intermittent impact of the epidemic, and business is also struggling.
As the "capillary" of cosmetics retail, the CS channel is always a presence that cannot be ignored. Now two years later, the epidemic has "tested" the overall operation ability of CS channels, and some cosmetics stores have "graduated" and some are still "studying hard".
01
All stores in Shanghai are closed
Jiangsu chains fell by an average of one million yuan per month
EastWest Beauty, a new beauty retail species in Shanghai, has been suspended since the outbreak of the epidemic.
The relevant person in charge of East Point West Point told the "Cosmetics Finance Online" reporter that for the closed stores, community marketing is currently being done, and some stores and shopping malls are linked together, and for orders that can be received, the stores in other provinces assist in the delivery.
"On the whole, except for the Shanghai store, which cannot be opened, the business of stores in other regions has little impact." The person in charge said.
This ability to resist pressure stems from the fact that East Point west point has been paying attention to community marketing since the outbreak of the epidemic in 2020. It is understood that each employee of the chain has a different community on their hands, just to cope with the store that has not been opened for a long time under the epidemic.
"At present, in addition to doing daily spike activities to attract customers, there are also irregular lottery draws and so on. In addition, in the selection of products, East Point West Point uses famous products to attract low prices, coupled with niche brands as the main brand, and its high gross profit supplements the profit point of the store. The person in charge said.
Around Shanghai, since mid-February, the recurrence of the epidemic has prevented most stores in Jiangsu from operating normally, and has suffered the most serious contraction since the epidemic.
Su Zhengdi, general manager of Suzhou Love Makeup Dictionary, told the "Cosmetics Finance Online" reporter that in this two months alone, the loss of the beauty shop is estimated to be between 1 million yuan and 2 million yuan.
What is even more tragic is that Su Zhengdi has also invested in a number of catering shops, and his performance under the epidemic situation is also unbearable. However, the Love Makeup Dictionary did not choose to "lie flat", but let employees still work at home normally, do online sales, and sell goods through live broadcasts and WeChat mini programs.
"Live broadcasting, community, small programs, etc., it can be said that in order to do some performance, the store owner is willing to try any move." A manager of a cosmetics chain store in Suzhou told the "Cosmetics Finance Online" reporter.
02
On the "three-piece set" of live broadcast, community, and mini program
Why is the self-help effect not good?
Cosmetics stores are trying to help themselves graft through multiple channels to increase sales, under these attempts, what is the real effect?
According to Su Zhengjiao, although live broadcasting has been insisting on doing it for several years, the effect is not as good as the WeChat Mini Program. "Every employee has hundreds to thousands of customers On WeChat, one-on-one service, barely able to maintain a little performance."
"At present, the performance can only be OK, to be honest, it is not realistic to rely on this performance, the first is the high cost of express delivery, consumers can not enter the store, can only express delivery." The second is the low profit, the online sales are lower than usual discounts, it can only run the volume, so that the store is still in a normal state of operation, look forward to unsealing it, see if the business behind will be better," Su Zhengwei said helplessly.
The Love Makeup Dictionary represents this type of shop, and although the effect is very small, "it is better to do it than not to do it well." Another type of store will put too much hope on the live broadcast.
At the beginning of the epidemic in 2020, many cosmetics chains joined the live broadcast army. At that time, there were stores of a certain scale in China, almost all of which were trying to broadcast live, and representative stores such as Merrill Lynch Cosmetics and Wang Xiangting would make live broadcast operations flourish. Among them, Wang Xiangting's first live broadcast, Chairman Li Ming personally took the battle, and the number of online viewers of the live broadcast peaked at 118,000 on the same day, which has always been a bright data in the live broadcast stores opened in the industry.
Two years later, as the impact of the epidemic gradually became smaller, some stores did not stick to the live broadcast.
"Mainly professional mismatch, the live broadcast that was tried at the time of the epidemic was carried out in a hurry, which was a helpless move under the established circumstances at that time, after the epidemic, and then do this piece of content, the labor cost is too large, when the store turns back on track, the store is still accustomed to doing the original familiar business model." Some shop owners believe that in the offline physical industry, when they get used to their own model, the barriers between channels are often difficult to cross, and the probability of success on the grafting line is not large.
And the cosmetics stores that insist on live broadcasting are not simply selling the beauty products in the store. For example, a beauty chain store in Hangzhou, the early days of the epidemic tried to live broadcast, now fixed once or twice a week online live broadcast, to this end, its company has also set up a special incubation live broadcast studio, the products sold also extended from beauty products to women's products and headwear, pendants, bags and so on.
03
On the new speed slowed down
CS channel is the lack of "good brand" is the root of the dilemma?
In fact, the current offline beauty stores are facing far more than the decline in customer flow caused by the epidemic, and the new slowdown in products is becoming another stubborn disease trapping stores.
Even in the beauty retail new species stores that sell with a wide range of products, it is difficult to adjust the choice of products. A new retail store in Hangzhou has introduced as many as a dozen makeup brands, and can only start one or two products, which is the overall dilemma of the current offline stores.
The owner of a cosmetics chain store in Wuxi told the "Cosmetics Finance Online" reporter that overall, the brand has indeed slowed down this year, on the one hand, under the influence of the epidemic, it is difficult to do incremental market, the store has not introduced many new products this year, only a few old brands have upgraded products; on the other hand, after the implementation of the new regulations on cosmetics, some brands have affected the new speed of filing.
For example, the current is a good time for sunscreen products to be put on the market, but most brands have not launched new sunscreen products this year. In this context, it has also led to the reduction of sunscreen products in many terminal cosmetic stores, and some cosmetics stores still have new sunscreen products.
The reporter learned through a well-known sunscreen brand that in april of the previous year, the brand will be on a new sunscreen, two sunscreen sprays, so far this year only a new spray product, on the new significant slowdown.
"It is difficult for brands to get new products now, and it is not easy to sell is the key." At present, physical stores are unable to take care of themselves, and if Shangxin cannot bring customer flow and sales to stores, they will choose to wait and see, and are not in a hurry to introduce these products. In this regard, in addition to actively developing new products on the one hand, the brand side can only upgrade some good-selling series on the other hand. Zhao Zhanbin, marketing director of skin care brand Ulisse, told the "Cosmetics Finance Online" reporter.
Another cosmetics agent told reporters that in the first half of this year, the sales of many brands represented by their agents declined, in the short term, because of the impact of the epidemic, in fact, more channels and consumption methods have further changed. "In terms of product innovation, compared with previous years, the sunscreen category has slowed down significantly, and skin care and makeup have also slowed down to a certain extent, which is caused by the market environment."
"The biggest dilemma facing the CS channel is the lack of 'good brands', the lack of brands that can bring consumers together. And such a brand has taken the lead in making efforts online. The agent said.
04
Find your way and hold on!
For cosmetics stores at this stage, being able to survive and wait for the opportunity to turn over is their most helpless and true idea. But waiting does not mean no action, only in difficult times to adjust the direction, in the post-epidemic can better force the market. What are the measures that cosmetics stores should think about at the moment?
1. Deep ploughing operation of effective members
After the decline in natural foot traffic, more and more store owners began to realize that "membership" is a very important strategic asset for the CS channel. It is reported that in stores with better member performance, the proportion of member consumption can reach more than 60%, and the proportion of consumption quota can reach more than 70%.
It can be seen that the membership system of stores has always been an important means to enhance consumer stickiness. From "operating a plate of goods" to "operating a group of people", for cosmetics stores, it has reached the threshold of change, and the way to break the dilemma is that the store must have the consciousness and measures to manage every customer.
2. Online customer acquisition is more critical than selling goods
At present, whether it is live broadcasting, mini programs or communities, most cosmetics stores only regard online tools as relying on online channels to sell goods, rather than obtaining customer traffic through online multi-channels and multiple ways, and then a high degree of deep-level Internetization.
How to attract old customers to buy back in the store and include new customers through online is something that cosmetics stores that need to think about opening up online and offline channels. Some stores grasp content marketing, some stores grasp the experience of benefits, and some stores grasp the old with new sales solutions, and the stores can adapt to local conditions according to their respective positioning and the people covered.
3. Make data one of the decision-making considerations
Nowadays, many cosmetics stores still do not have their own independent back-end system, or the background software can not meet the demand, the first-hand data can not be timely feedback, over time, for the data began to be completely insensitive, and then lost judgment on the entire market.
As a cosmetics store owner, do you know the unit price, repurchase rate, new rate and so on of your store? Do you regularly moderately eliminate products at the bottom of the sales ranking based on background data? Can you use this data for precision marketing and long-term operations? Even, can your store data provide effective information for agents and brands, and push back the optimization of the upstream supply chain? Letting data help you make decisions may be more effective than following the trend with new blockbusters.
4, can not spell the price, sell the value
Today's consumers pay for value, and while price is still a factor influencing the deal, value plays a key role. Some agents believe that "the current consumer demand and the actual services provided by CS terminal stores are obviously not equal." The phenomenon of entering the store in pursuit of "good quality and low price" and "buy one get one free" still exists, but in the eyes of the younger generation of consumers, this does not have long-term appeal.
Undoubtedly, the transformation of cosmetics stores must be the transformation of service categories, combined with store positioning, to provide different services such as experience, care, scenes and even social networking for different customer layers. At the same time, the market demand for BA has also shifted from "sales BA" to "knowledge BA", that is, through their own professional quality to form a subtle understanding of customers, store training for BA should also keep pace with the times.