Can washing your face become a new beauty business?
Recently, "FBeauty Future Traces" found that the "wash your face" business is on fire. According to public information, the head brand of the face wash bar, "Wash Face Cat", which was established in 2018, has opened 1,700 stores in less than 6 years, and another brand "Face Bear" has signed 1,300+ stores in 14 months, all of which have exceeded 1,000 stores.
In addition, there is also a face wash bar brand "Face Wash Yisen" completed an angel round of financing of 50 million yuan in June last year. At the same time, more than a dozen similar projects have sprung up.
In the context of the difficulty in the growth of traditional offline business, why can the face washing business achieve rapid expansion in just a few years? What is the core of the face washing business? Is it a short cut of a wave of "leeks" and disappear? Can it become a new engine to drive the growth of offline business?
At the moment, there doesn't seem to be a definitive answer.
Gross profit up to 90%?
The business model is low-cost and easy to replicate
According to the statistical analysis of the "2023-2028 Beauty Industry Competition Pattern and the "14th Five-Year Plan" Enterprise Investment Strategy Research Report published by the China Research Institute of Puhua Industry Research Institute, the statistical analysis shows that in 2022, the size of China's life beauty market will be about 800 billion yuan, and by 2025, this data is expected to exceed "trillion".
Despite the huge market, traditional beauty salons have gradually entered a bottleneck of development under the background of high average consumption price and homogeneous services. However, there has always been a market demand for cinema services.
On the other hand, offline entities in the beauty industry are less efficient than online in selling goods, and experience and service have gradually become the new positioning of offline entities, after all, consumers have no way to wash their faces online. It was against this background that the face wash bar was born.
Generally speaking, the face wash bar is a low-profile version of the "mass-market beauty salon", which provides light beauty items such as deep cleansing, hydration and moisturizing, whitening and skin rejuvenation, and lightening fine lines in a clearly marked manner. The service duration of a project is about 1 hour, and the price of a single item is about 50 to 150 yuan, mainly for young consumers born in the 90s and 00s.
This seemingly simple business has expanded rapidly in just a few years, and we can find some clues from the project details:
1. Small-scale, low-cost, high-return.
"The total investment in first-tier cities is about 15 to 180,000 yuan, the gross profit of the product is as high as more than 90%, and there is no problem with a profit of 20,000 to 30,000 yuan a month, and it can be returned in about 8 months. A staff member of a washing bar brand said.
Low cost and high return are the key to attracting franchisees for this type of face wash bar brand. It is understood that taking the face cat brand as an example, its franchised stores are often about 40 square meters as the standard, and the beds, labor, and equipment are recommended 4X4X4 mode, that is, 4 beds, 4 artificial, and 4 equipment. There are only 6 items in the overall operation, (one basic cleansing item plus 5 additional items), and the additional items mainly include hydration and moisturizing, whitening and skin rejuvenation, eye care, etc.
The model of the face bear is also very similar, except that 4X4X4 becomes 3X3X3, all of which aim to control the operating costs of a single store within a low range. The appearance of its stores is also clearly different from the luxurious decoration of traditional beauty salons, most of which are bright and simple in style.
So, how is the total investment of about 150,000 yuan and more than 90% of the gross profit calculated?
"FBeauty Future Traces" learned through research that this kind of face wash bar brand basically does not charge franchise fees, and the upfront costs are mainly used for store rent, employee salaries, equipment deposit rent, and the purchase of wash beds, store design fees, etc.
Taking the face cat as an example, the total investment in first-tier cities is about 150,000 to 180,000 yuan, including the equipment deposit, the cost of the washbed and the store design fee that the franchisee needs to pay to the brand in the early stage, plus a set of store rent and staff salary.
The algorithm of 90% gross profit margin is also very simple, and the revenue of a project service can indeed exceed 90% after removing the cost of consumables of less than 10 yuan. A staff member of a face bar brand said, "50,000 products can probably bring you 180,000 to 200,000 sales." ”
The products here refer to the essential oils, cleansers and other skin care products used in the project, some face wash bar brands will produce their own, and others will not produce their own face wash bars, which mainly provide consumers with products from some well-known skin care brands.
2. Easy to copy and low threshold.
Like many franchise projects, face bar brands often provide related supporting services, including store site selection, design, decoration, personnel training, material distribution, activity support and other aspects of packaged services to lower the threshold for opening stores.
At the same time, brands advertise that such services are very easy to use, and that store staff without any relevant skills and experience can master the skills after a short period of training, and there is no requirement for literacy.
In addition, the brand will also provide relevant traffic empowerment for franchised stores, such as group buying and event updates on platforms such as Meituan and Douyin, all of which are semi-managed by the headquarters, and the stores only need to provide services.
3. Low-cost face washing projects attract traffic and improve the repurchase rate and profitability.
So, how do stores attract customers to spend, and where are the main profit points?
It is understood that brand stores such as Wash Cat and Face Bear are all drained with affordable basic face wash items. For example, according to the Meituan platform, among the group purchase items of Wash Face Cat, the "60-minute Facial Cleansing and Hydration" item priced at 62.9 yuan shows that 825,000+ have been sold, and the "Clear Face + Super Bubble Wash" of Wash Bear shows that 211,000+ have been sold.
Screenshot from Meituan platform
However, this kind of preferential items can only be purchased once per mobile phone account, and after consumers come to the store for basic consumption, the store staff will often recommend customers to do other additional services and card consumption.
Therefore, like traditional beauty salons, the repurchase of old customers is the core of the long-term operation of the beauty industry. The key to the gap between the same stores in the face bar in terms of performance lies in the conversion rate and repurchase rate of high customer order items, and the repurchase rate is affected by the flow of people in the location of the store, including the online praise rate and store service quality.
In order to increase the repurchase rate of each customer, face bar brands often formulate higher frequency consumption recommendations. For example, according to the official website of Wash Bear, the recommendation frequency of each item is roughly 1 time per day, 1 time per week, 3 times a week, etc. The price of Meituan, its "super bubble brewing" project, is 91.9 yuan, and if calculated according to its recommended frequency of 1 time a day, a consumer will spend about 33,534.5 yuan per year (365 days).
Screenshot from the official website of Wash Bear
The brand will also encourage stores to carry out single-store marketing on platforms such as Douyin, and attract consumers through the creation of single-store IP.
With a low cost of 150,000 yuan to open a store, the project also provides a full range of services to franchisees, and such a high profit margin, at a glance, this kind of face washing project is very attractive.
More than 45% of male consumers are male
Experience empowers offline retail
It is undeniable that service and experience are indeed the outlets of offline entities. The face-washing bar project standing on the tuyere caters to the cost-effective needs of current consumers in the field of professional beauty to a certain extent, and some stores can indeed eat the dividends of the market, and even eat through some male consumer groups.
On the one hand, although it is a lite (lightweight) professional service, this kind of combination of light equipment and products can indeed give consumers a completely different skin care experience, regardless of the real effect, this skin care experience is far better than traditional home skin care products.
Some practitioners said that consumers' pursuit of a higher quality of life will not change, and the current physical stores create a better beauty experience through services, and their own household cosmetics are 1, and home cosmetics + in-store service is 1+1>2.
Therefore, even if most face washing bars do not have the core technology of equipment and products, they can still attract a large number of consumers with services and experiences.
On the other hand, service and experience are indeed the rigid needs of the transformation of some traditional offline stores.
In the era when the selling price cannot match the online, the probability of consumers entering offline stores to buy products is decreasing. Under the same selling logic, offline stores do not have advantages, and must use services and experiences to create different value for consumers.
Therefore, today's retail stores especially need to rely on this service model to attract consumers to the store. For example, more and more CS stores are starting to provide similar services, and big-name skin care products such as Helena are also accelerating the opening of beauty salons in shopping malls, all with the aim of empowering offline sales with experience.
From the business level, however, now the offline is becoming more and more affected by the Internet, the profit of pure sales is low, and the efficiency of the store is also very low, and the best choice to improve the efficiency is service.
The most important thing is that the offline skin care market has increased demand for service and experience.
Wash bars are mainly aimed at the 80% of the mass market, rather than the 20% of high-end customers that beauty salons compete for, and there is a lot of vacuum in the professional skincare field. The face-washing cat project just fills the gap in the market for the public, especially male consumers, to carry out professional skin care offline.
It is understood that the proportion of male consumers of this type of face wash bar is as high as more than 45%. Male consumers often turn away to traditional beauty salons, but the market positioning of the face wash bar with clear prices and the main "no routines, no sales" just meets the needs of male consumers with beauty needs.
For them, the face wash bar is similar to leisure services such as foot massage, bath, massage, etc., which is a good place to relax, relieve fatigue, and improve "appearance" at the same time. Many face bar brands also offer men's service packages specifically to attract male consumers.
According to the Xiaohongshu platform, the notes related to "Wash Your Face" have reached 1.92 million+, and many users have shared their experience in the Wash Your Face Bar, which has a high degree of discussion.
There are many practical business problems
Is "Let's Wash Your Face" sustainable in the future?
"Low threshold, high reproducibility, low cost, high return", this is the main slogan of many face wash bar brands when they join the investment, but everything that is too beautiful often has "distortion".
Mr. Wang encountered a skinny feeling at the practical level.
Two years ago, Mr. Wang invested in a face wash bar, and when he first came into contact with the face wash bar business, he was also attracted by its market positioning and business model, and he had experience in beauty retail, so he wanted to give it a try. However, when the store entered the actual operation stage, the problem was quickly discovered.
First of all, the face wash bar project is highly dependent on manual labor. On the one hand, the training of employees is far from being as simple as imagined, although many face wash bar brands say that employees are "novices" with no relevant experience. But even after training, the seemingly simple face washing service methods are still very different, and it is difficult to form a unity.
At the same time, because the key to the profitability of the face wash bar model is the conversion rate and repurchase rate, the key to promoting conversion and repurchase lies in the service personnel, in addition to the technique, the need for in-depth training in product introduction, consumer communication, service sales, consumer management and other aspects, to cultivate such an employee, the time and money required to invest is not low, and the salary level of a "skilled hand" will be very high.
On the other hand, drainage is still a big problem. It is very simple for a store to use the cleansing project to attract traffic in the early stage, and if a single store wants to invest in platforms such as Douyin, it will be a huge expense, but if it is a low-price drainage, the customers attracted are only for the most preferential group purchase consumption, and the conversion rate and repurchase rate are limited, and the investment in such non-store precision users is much higher than imagined.
This series of problems led to Mr. Wang's investment eventually ending in a loss, he said that there is no threshold, and it may also be homogeneous if it can be replicated, and it is definitely not as simple as imagined to stand out in a bunch of homogeneous stores.
Another person who has been engaged in the business of washing face bars holds the same view, he said: "This kind of project is still in the initial stage, and some projects are even eager to make money, and the unclear profit structure and immature project operation mechanism are all development defects that we are currently facing." This person emphasized that some brands claim that their products can have a gross profit margin of more than 90%, but the actual store rent plus labor costs, water and electricity bills and a series of expenses are calculated, and the net profit of the entry face washing project for drainage is actually very small.
At the same time, all projects are time-consuming and laborious, if you can't give employees enough decals and commissions, it is difficult for employees to have the initiative to do a good job in sales and service, and the fineness of the franchisee's cost control is by no means 90% gross profit The rough algorithm can be satisfied.
Therefore, he believes: "The face wash bar is essentially a game of heavy artificial and private domain, which has a certain risk, even if the project party pulls the expectations of the franchisee to a higher level, the franchisee still makes a full and calm thinking." ”
At the same time, questions about the compliance of the face wash bar have gradually emerged, for example, some face wash bar projects have injections and other operations, although only into the epidermis, but in accordance with relevant regulations, any medical equipment that penetrates the skin will be subject to strictly controlled standards, according to the medical device classification regulations belong to the third class of medical devices, but many face wash bar brands do not have relevant qualifications. At the same time, it is also doubtful whether special cosmetics such as whitening produced by the Wash Bar brand have a cosmetic special certificate.
In terms of its business model, some people in the industry have questioned its incomplete system, lack of scientific research basis, and suspicion of excessive cleaning and excessive skin care.
It can be seen that although the related formats of the face wash bar have a certain scale of development, there is still a long way to go if they want to survive the "reckless period" to achieve long-term stable development, and even become a fixed mode in offline entity operation.
"Branding may be a direction. The above-mentioned person said that the 0 technical threshold advocated today may not be a good direction, how to achieve scientific deepening, scientific research into the bureau, and the formation of a unique skin care system, may be the key to the long-term development of the face wash bar brand. Of course, this is all based on the fact that the brand wants to do long-term business, rather than "running away" after a wave of franchise fees.
It is worth noting that although the overall development of the face wash bar is still in its infancy, the "involution" has begun, and a total of 1,671 related companies have jumped out of the keyword "face wash bar" on the Tianyancha platform. The business model of many face washing bars is very similar, and how to make differences and advantages in the homogeneous market may be the key to the next stage of competition.
What is certain is that "Wash Your Face" has indeed seized the big market of offline face washing and skin care, especially filling the gap in the offline professional skin care market. In the market during the bonus period, there is more prosperity for more enterprises to bloom, and there is enough room for trial and error.
But we also hope to see that with the help of the outlet, the experience and service projects of the face wash bar can find out the way, look at the long-term, and turn to the direction of compliance, service quality, product and device efficacy, etc., instead of becoming "tears of the times" like the popular "cutting leeks" franchise project in the early days.
Author/Wu Wanqing
Editor/Chen Long