Ms. Estee Lauder must not have imagined that her idea of using "small samples" to open up the market 70 years ago not only derived a huge business, but also became the target of various municipal regulatory bureaus and platforms one after another.
Just recently, Douyin issued the "Announcement on the Special Governance of Packaged Cosmetics and Cosmetics Samples", which said:
According to the "Regulations on the Supervision and Administration of Cosmetics" and other laws and regulations, cosmetics operators are not allowed to prepare cosmetics on their own, and the platform rules also clearly stipulate that the sale of "sub-packaged cosmetics" is prohibited.
Immediately, #各大平台禁止售卖分装化妆品#冲上热搜第一, this once again aroused the industry's attention to the business of small sample economy.
When the sample makes the live broadcast room have the magic of buy one get one free, and at the same time makes the new offline beauty collection store stand out, the sustainable sales model and supporting market guidelines still seem to be nowhere to be found.
Douyin strictly controls "samples"
Douyin moved the real character this time.
In the "Announcement on the Special Treatment of Packaged Cosmetics and Cosmetic Samples", it stipulates:
1. Cosmetics operators are not allowed to prepare cosmetics on their own.
Merchants publish/sell through the platform national laws and regulations, or sell goods or information that are clearly prohibited from being published in the details of goods/information prohibited by the "Implementation Rules for Merchants to Release Prohibited Goods and Information", and the relevant products will be banned and removed from the shelves.
If the merchant violates the rules repeatedly and fails to rectify them, the platform has the right to restrict the store from publishing products.
2. Merchants need to carry out self-inspection and rectification work related to samples.
From March 27, 2024, cosmetics samples operated on the platform shall clearly display the product packaging containing the product name, the name of the registrant or filing person, and the net content in the product image.
All merchants and creators need to immediately carry out relevant self-inspection and rectification work, and the platform will deal with merchants/creators who publish the above products in violation of regulations in accordance with the "Implementation Rules for Publishing Prohibited Commodities and Information" and "Rules for the Management of E-commerce Creators' Violations and Credit Scores". If the situation is bad, the platform will take measures such as refunding, freezing the payment, and closing the e-commerce permission.
Screenshot from Douyin E-commerce Learning Center
In short, businesses involved in the sale of samples are required to strictly indicate the product name, filing person/producer, cosmetics production license and other information.
Will brands be affected?
"Will the brand be banned from selling small sample products?" This is one of the issues that people in the industry are concerned about after the above regulations come out.
Judging from Douyin's regulations, what it explicitly prohibits is the business of packaging cosmetics, not "killing everyone with one shot".
Up to now, on Douyin, such as Shiseido, L'Oreal, Procter & Gamble, 3CE and other international brands, Naturedo, Winona, Osman, etc. are still selling sample products on Douyin, of which the highest sales have exceeded 100,000.
However, the main focus of such officially sold products is "trial", and the detail page of all products is marked with the product name, production license number, filing/approval number, net content, name of registrant/filing person, whether it is expiring, etc.
"It can be understood that Douyin bans merchants who fill small doses of cosmetics by themselves, and controls sample products that are not sold in compliance. A person in the industry said.
Judging from the Douyin shelf e-commerce search, in addition to the above-mentioned official channel products of the brand sold in compliance, there are no packaged sample products sold by individual merchants and factories.
However, in the content field, there are still many individual businesses that attract consumers by publishing the packaging process through short videos, packaging and packaging samples, and then bypassing the platform to contact consumers privately, and finally reach a deal.
Most of the sample products sold through content e-commerce are liquid foundations, eye shadows, highlighters, concealers, etc. With the help of the sample model, most merchants can sell more than 1.5 times the total price of the original price of the product.
There are still many individual merchants who bypass the platform to sell sub-packaged samples in the Douyin content e-commerce field
As of press time, such videos have not been taken down.
The small sample economy is difficult to smell again
The strict supervision of the sub-packaging sample essence confirms the explosion of the sample economy.
According to a report released by the consulting firm NPD Group, as early as 2018, skincare products and cosmetics samples have developed into a huge market in the United States, with annual sales of 1.2 billion US dollars (about 8 billion yuan) at that time.
In China, cosmetics samples were initially sold by individual buyers in salted fish, and then the huge demand and considerable sales revenue attracted many individual merchants to join, and they began to sell beauty samples on Taobao. Some unofficial stores have 100,000 fans.
"Southern Weekly" once reported that Zhang, who used to work in a cosmetics company, joined the team of selling cosmetics samples very early, and mainly sold big-name samples through WeChat groups, "There are more than 30 kinds of categories, and the single purchase price is generally within 100 yuan, and each piece can earn 20 yuan to 50 yuan." ”
After making money online, the emergence of beauty collection stores directly pushed the sample economy to the forefront.
The most direct proof of this is the emergence of HARMAY. In 2017, HARMAY opened its first physical store in Shanghai, and selling samples is one of its major features. In the following years, colorists, black holes and other beauty collection stores appeared one after another, without exception, continuing the practice of selling big brands and samples of Huamei.
The excitement is followed by a rapid cooling. Since last year, new beauty collection stores have been closed one after another. "This kind of store is 'out of the circle' with big-name samples and high-value scenes, but limited by this model, the consumer repurchase rate is not high, and the stickiness is not enough. The person in charge of an enterprise in Guangzhou said.
"The bigger problem is that the sample products have been in the gray area for a long time. The above-mentioned industry insiders said that the samples of individual C stores, including new beauty collection stores, are not authorized by the brand, and the sources are different, and more and more young people realize that the unit price of such samples is relatively higher.
"If we can't solve the problem of channels and supply of goods, it is difficult to sustain the small economic ecology. He said that coupled with the increasingly strict supervision of the platform, the small sample economy that has been praised is difficult to find.
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