Written by Dake
Editor|Yang Bocheng
Source | Produced by hydrogen consumption
ID | HQingXiaoFei
On the beauty track, the throne has changed again.
According to public data, in the first quarter of 2024, the GMV of Hanshu Tmall platform was 179 million yuan, the GMV of Douyin platform was 2.007 billion yuan, and the total GMV of the dual platform was 2.186 billion yuan, and the GMV of Proya Tmall platform was 1.247 billion yuan, the GMV of Douyin platform was 762 million yuan, and the total GMV of the dual platform was 2.009 billion yuan. According to relevant data, L'Oreal's sales on Douyin in the first quarter were only 500 million to 750 million yuan, down 11.81% from the previous quarter. Han Shu has become a well-deserved brand of TOP1 in total GMV of dual platforms.
Han Shu, who embraced Douyin, seemed to have opened the "second pulse of Ren Du" in business. Compared with the data of the same period last year, Han Shu achieved 60% of the GMV of the Douyin platform last year in only one quarter, which is even close to the GMV of the L'Oreal brand Douyin in the whole of last year, which can be described as "unbeatable" on the Douyin platform. According to the 2023 financial report data, Han Shu's GMV through the Douyin platform reached about 3.34 billion yuan last year, an increase of about 374.4% over the same period in 2022.
What kind of business code has Han Shu unlocked, and what kind of consumption inspiration can it bring us?
Climb to the top of the TikTok throne
Han Shu has his own traffic password
Almost everyone undeniably believes that Han Shu's success is to hug the "big thick legs" of Douyin.
According to the "2024 China Cosmetics Industry Development Trend Report", in 2023, the total turnover of skin care and makeup categories on Taobao, Tmall, Douyin, and JD.com, the three major online e-commerce platforms, will reach 424.879 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 3.87%. Among them, the transaction scale of Tao and Jingdong Beauty was 227.022 billion yuan and 50.585 billion yuan respectively, down more than 11% and 15% year-on-year. On the contrary, Douyin beauty transactions were 140 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 59.49%. On the skin care and beauty track, Douyin has grown steadily and achieved remarkable results.
Focusing on Douyin is the key to Han Shu's catch-up. Seizing the tonality of Douyin's platform, Han Shu adjusted the traffic style in a timely manner on the basis of making full use of the growth rate of the Douyin market, and formed a set of his own methodology - adopted the method of short dramas and brand self-broadcasting, did not take the KOL promotion route, used short dramas to open up the Douyin audience market, and used super cost-effective box products as the main popular products, weakened the dependence on top talents, created a self-broadcast number matrix, and successfully leveraged Douyin traffic.
At the beauty industry conference at the end of last year, Lu Yixiong, founder and CEO of Shangmei, also taught his methodology to the outside world for the first time, including betting heavily on Douyin, focusing on Han Shu, focusing on daily sales rather than big promotions, and avoiding competing products, he said, "The reason why we succeeded on Douyin is because we found our own model." ”
Han Shu's out-of-the-circle has a lot to do with the explosion of "short dramas". Seizing the opportunity of short dramas, in 2023, Han Shu will cooperate with 6 female talents to create a total of 22 serialized short dramas.
From February to September 2023, Han Shu invested in 5 short dramas by short drama creator Jiang Qiqi's "Dress Up with Growth", "Heartbeat More Than a Moment", "A Beam of Sunshine and a Beam of Love", "All Love and You", and "You Will Be Popular".
Image source: Han Shu Weibo
Matching the traffic of short dramas, Han Shu quickly built more than 30 short video matrices, acting as a model worker in the live broadcast industry in the way of "the sun never sets", and at the same time intensively placing short video slices, anchoring the audience of short dramas to "brush their faces", driving steady growth in sales.
However, as international brands and beauty brands such as Proya and Tangerine have entered the short drama track and re-established themselves among the beauty brands on the "same running line", Han Shu has gone the opposite way. Recently, a "real-name" circle of friends of Lu Yixiong, the founder of Han Shu's parent company Shangmei Co., Ltd., surprised the outside world, "After November 2023, Han Shu basically no longer does short dramas." ”
It is rumored on the Internet to be Lu Yixiong's circle of friends
If you don't make short dramas, the performance is still high, what kind of sales password did Han Shu grasp?
The key to success is the "people" behind it -
The "small-town" ladies behind the surging spending power
Recently, the term "small-town lady" has become popular. This group of people with low wages but "rich and leisure" in third- and fourth-tier cities are being targeted by more and more brands with the tide of consumption downgrade.
But in a sense, Han Shu has already "shot" - according to Yien short drama audience survey data, the core audience of micro-short dramas is women under the age of 30, of which low- and middle-income people account for more than seventy percent. According to the audience portrait disclosed by the creator of the short drama Jiang Qiqi, the group aged 0-18 accounted for 30.18%, the group aged 18-23 accounted for 29.52%, the group aged 24-30 accounted for 20.99%, and in terms of gender, women accounted for 60%. This is the user group that Han Shu hopes to focus on.
Yi'en skit audience survey
According to the National Bureau of Statistics, 70% of China's population in the sinking market accounted for 70% of the total population in 2022. According to QuestMobile's research data, the largest permeable space in the sinking market is precisely the beauty and skin care category, where there are more unmet beauty and skin care needs. This is undoubtedly a huge "cake" for beauty and skin care brands.
According to archaeological data, women account for more than ninety percent of Han Shu consumers, 28% are 24-30 years old, 37% are 31-40 years old, and 54% are in third- and fourth-tier cities. This group of people is price-sensitive consumers, and they constitute the main consumer force of Han Shuhong's waist.
Han Shu's "Red Man Waist Series" is precisely a "big item" for Douyin's target group in third- and fourth-tier cities with an income of 5,000-7,000 yuan last month, skin care needs such as anti-aging and whitening, and price sensitivity.
First of all, in terms of efficacy needs, Han Shuhong's waist anchors the "anti-aging" needs that this group of people are really concerned about. This product, with anti-sugar, anti-oxidation and anti-wrinkle as its core selling points, is very relevant to the needs of consumers in terms of mind. At the same time, Han Shu's advertisements in Douyin skits all reinforce the iconic product of the red waist, and reinforce the impression of the product as a "big item" by constantly repeating it in the memory of consumers.
Nowadays, just like Helena's black bandage, SK-II's fairy water, Proya's ruby essence, etc., the red waist has become Han Shu's signature item. In 2023, the sales volume of the Red Man Waist series on Douyin will exceed 3 million sets, dominating the TOP1 of the six major lists on Douyin, and the omni-channel sales will be as high as 5.04 million sets.
Secondly, in terms of price demand, Han Shu's "high cost performance" also caters to the expectations of this main consumer group. For the "small town ladies", although they are willing to spend money, the price is still a "sensitive area".
At the same time, the popularity of "lady cream" among small town ladies also shows the lack of education of big-name cosmetics. This is exactly Han Shu's room to play - the price of Han Shu's red waist is 399 yuan, including five major products of cleansing, water, milk, essence and cream, plus water and milk gifts of the same specification, as well as masks, eye creams and other gifts, a total of 14 pieces, covering a full set of skin care processes, completely aiming at the consumption psychology of consumers.
At the same time, Hanshu continues to strengthen the brand impression through a series of elements such as packaging and price. With the brushing of faces in major short dramas, "Han Shuhong" has become a symbol implanted in consumer cognition.
At the same time, unlike many brands that are riveting their efforts to make big promotions, Han Shu basically gave up the big promotions to ensure the stability of the price of "399". For consumers, if they regularly promote low-price sales, they will consciously suppress their short-term consumption needs. Price stability brings enough security to consumers, and even in high exposure, consumers will not have a bad impression of the brand because of comparison.
At the same time, the price of 399 has become a "price anchor" and a benchmark for consumers, and there are almost no products at home and abroad that can achieve this price, thereby boosting the recognition of consumers.
Grabbing consumers through emotional needs, and formulating a practical large-scale single product strategy through consumer insight, such a "magic stroke" allowed Han Shu to successfully use the traffic of the short drama and continue to fly in the wind, and it is foreseeable that it can fly for a while. But if you want to "fly" for a long time, Han Shu still has to break through several difficulties.
Continued high growth
Han Shu's key challenge
Looking at Han Shu's "development line", if you want to achieve long-term development, there are undoubtedly several questions that need to be answered urgently.
How to spill over the potential energy of Douyin to other channels?
With the peak of Douyin's traffic dividend and the "overcrowding" of the short drama track, Han Shu is exploring a new development path.
At the beginning of this year, Lu Yixiong put forward the strategic focus of Shangmei Group in 2024: "Strengthen Douyin, re-recruit Tmall, and return to offline." The strategies of "heavy soldiers on Tmall" and "returning to offline" can be called Han Shu's "make-up lessons" for his previous development strategies. Han Shu's core development is focused on the Douyin platform, but its presence on Tmall and offline channels is relatively weak. In particular, offline channels may carry a "basic disk" of brand stability.
How to ensure that the brand continues to "catch" the small town lady?
Han Shu's traffic is surging because of short dramas, but throughout the history of the development of the beauty track, many brands are the same, such as "old Internet celebrities" Hua Xizi and Perfect Diary. But now, they are "success and traffic, failure is also traffic", Hua Xizi's reputation was damaged due to a live broadcast accident, and it was difficult to develop, Perfect Diary struggled due to high publicity costs and unstoppable streaming, Han Shu's performance in marketing was better than theirs, but he did not change the essence of "traffic for sales". How to firmly capture the "small town ladies" and establish enough user stickiness and brand loyalty is also the answer that Han Shu needs to adapt.
How to copy Han Shu's model to other brands?
Relying too much on the brand of Han Shu is undoubtedly risky for the group. Once there is a problem in the channel, it will directly affect the revenue. Looking at the performance of other brands under Shangmei, Yiye's revenue last year was 357 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 32.7%, and the proportion of total revenue also decreased from 19.8% to 8.5%. The revenue of the maternal and infant brand Red Elephant also fell sharply, down 42.6% year-on-year, and its proportion also dropped from 24.5% to 9%.
At the same time, although the new page of the skincare brand focusing on sensitive skin has increased by 498.0% year-on-year, the current volume is still small, only one-thirtieth of Han Shu.