When tattoo stickers are no longer "old-fashioned".
Text/Wang Yaqi
Editor/Zheng Yawen
At the age of 19, Davinci quietly tattooed a name on his chest. is his girlfriend's English name.
A string of short English, which is very low-key hidden in layers of clothes, is not visible. But the overflowing signals are all the arrogant "likes" of young people, "Isn't it a bit of a middle two?" He recalled embarrassedly.
In Davinci's memory, tattooing was a self-indulgent and crazy thing. In the summer vacation after the college entrance examination, many of my classmates had more patterns on them. The feeling of not caring about other people's eyes is, in his words, "addictive".
This novel experience laid the groundwork for his future tattoo business. In two years, he went from a clear college student riding an electric car to deliver everywhere to a grizzled but accomplished small boss. Relying on tattoo stickers with an average customer unit price of more than 20 yuan, Davinci saved the first "1 million yuan" in his life. Since the beginning of summer this year, his business has continued to rise, and his monthly sales have reached more than 4,000 orders.
More and more young people wear tattoos to concerts and music festivals. Fomi, who has been in the tattoo sticker business for 8 years, revealed that more than 80% of the people who come to buy tattoo stickers are girls, and there are many "Generation Z" and white-collar workers aged 18-35. "Whenever an old fan asks me, can the tattoo sticker I ordered be delivered before the XX number? I knew there was another big music festival or concert coming. ”
Unlike Davinci, who entered the industry in 2021 because of the popularity of herbal tattoo stickers, nearly 500 of the more than 600 tattoo stickers in Fomi store are color tattoo stickers. In Fomi's view, tattoo stickers are fashion items that show off their personality and temperament. With the popularity of styles such as "summer dopamine", tattoo stickers have become an embellishment of daily life from a niche cultural product. In 2023, Fomi's "Youliu Uliao" will be on the top 3 of Taobao's personalized tattoo sticker stores, with an omni-channel transaction of more than 4 million yuan.
Over the years, Fomi has often received feedback from fans, such as stars in the entertainment industry, Ju Jingyi, Fan Chengcheng, Zuo Hang of the TF family, Chen He, ...... They have all pasted the patterns they created. "Someone who genuinely likes our designs is what we value the most than selling."
Broken circle of herbal tattoo stickers, young people's business
"Either you don't go on or you repeat it." Davinci, who was born in 2001, decided early on to study e-commerce.
When he was in the third year of junior high school, he used his mother's ID card to open the first Taobao store and moved the popular micro-business products to the store; When he was in his third year of high school, he fell in love with Pinduoduo again, selling the hottest "ZIPPO" lighter that year; In his freshman year, he majored in e-commerce and contacted a slipper factory to design an "original slipper". Relying on the money he has saved since he was a child and the money he earns from his part-time job, Davinci has been tossing and turning on this road.
But his experience in e-commerce has always been based on the core word "loss".
Davinci was not born into a business family. When he was at his poorest, he spent all the money he earned on the store, eating a pack of quick-hot rice with pickles at the cost of one yuan a pack of Pinduoduo. opened a company and a factory, and treated him as his own son's uncle, who was the object of his greatest admiration, "I don't want to take the career exam, I don't want to be a civil servant." Every time, I feel that I am only one step away from the success of my business."
At the end of 2021, Davinci, who had saved some money, began to move again. "I want to make tattoo stickers, firstly, because of the low cost of stockpiling, secondly, because it is easy to make designs and make popular models, and thirdly, because herbal tattoo stickers were very popular on Douyin that year, but the market was not saturated."
An herbal tattoo patch is a type of tattoo patch that uses plant extracts to react with amino acids on the surface of the skin to form a pattern on the skin. Its color is similar to black inky blue, and compared with colored tattoos attached to the surface of the skin, the non-reflective characteristics have become an important reason why it is out of the circle - many people take a fancy to it as "real" enough. This has made many male users also keen on tattoo stickers.
After deciding to sell tattoo stickers, Davinci looked at a lot of styles, and he found a circle of tattoo artists in the local area, took the good styles sold online to the tattoo artists, and asked them to follow the drawings, and then contacted the factory to make samples and make them. But the first batch of tattoo stickers did not go smoothly on the shelves. "I only realized later that it was an infringement to do so. Many of the more than 100 styles painted in the first batch are suspected of plagiarism. He also figured it out, "One wrong step at the beginning, one wrong step later, these tens of thousands of yuan are destined to be wasted."
After disposing of the first batch of tattoo stickers, Davinci asked the tattoo artist to draw a batch of drawings that cost 200-300 yuan per picture and made more than 100 new styles, "but in the first two months, they couldn't be sold at all." At that time, the product styles on the market were relatively simple, biased towards middle-aged and elderly people, so I wanted to make younger styles and felt hopeful."
Perhaps because the experience of starting a business was too tortuous and unlucky, a friend of Davinci decided to post a post to help him.
It was a community of young people. "My friend said that the scene where I drove an electric car and went to deliver to her in person was too funny, and it may be that the college student's entrepreneurship aroused everyone's empathy. All at once, there was an influx of people to support me. On the first day of posting, Davinci sold more than 200 orders, and then the business spread to 100 percent. In the first year of the post-00s "male college students' tattoo stickers, the first half of the year ended with self-doubt of "am I not suitable for e-commerce", and in the second half of the year, it ended with "more than 800,000 yuan sold".
From 2022 to 2023, Davinci's annual turnover is nearly 1 million yuan. In the first four months of this year, the monthly sales of small things with a unit price of about 25 yuan can reach more than 4,000 orders steadily, and a turnover of more than 300,000 yuan has been created. "Actually, it still costs a lot." Davinci found that while the barrier to entry for tattoo stickers is not high, it is not easy to do. "The cost of promotion is almost 1,000 yuan a day. To really do a good job in this industry, the core is to rely on creativity and design. ”
Stylized skin ideas, from chasing hot styles to leading trends
Fomi, who has been in the industry for many years, has a deeper understanding of the importance of tattoo design.
Since the beginning of this year, with the rise of dopamine and other styles, color tattoo stickers have ushered in rapid growth. "If a herbal tattoo sticker is a gateway to the garden. Then the color tattoo sticker is that garden, with richer designs and color expressions. ”
As early as 2012, Fomi began to get involved in e-commerce. He first made Hangzhou women's clothing, and later turned to be the store manager of the trendy brand "INXX". The experience of working in a trendy brand made him curious about tattoo stickers. In 2016, Fomi, who was still at "INXX" at the time, decided to make tattoo stickers – starting with a side hustle. This side hustle was quickly turned into a regular job. In 2018, Fomi discovered that he was already earning more than twice his salary for tattoo stickers. That year, Fomi resigned to start "Youliu Uliao", and the profit in the first year exceeded 400,000 yuan.
Design is the most important thing, he never doubted it. But being original is only the first step, and outputting a unique aesthetic and style on the basis of originality is the key to this business.
"At the beginning, it was still a hit mentality." Fomi described that making a hit is like chasing the market, and it must meet the preferences of the vast majority of people before sales can go up and become a hit. "But a lot of people are trying tattoo stickers for the first time and haven't seen too many works. It's not like women's clothing, it's full of styles, and everyone knows what they like. ”
In 2017, Fomi began to work on a stylized store, defining the style of her works as "girly heart".
Over the years, "Youliu Uliao" has steadily cooperated with more than 20 designers. At first, the source of the designer was a tattoo artist, but gradually unable to meet the needs of diverse painting styles, Fomi began to expand the range. "From an illustrator and a graffiti artist to an art teacher who is good at oil painting...... Sometimes a design draft costs 2,000 yuan. Fomi has his own set of criteria for choosing a designer - "It's like playing a game, I don't want to be able to do it in three ways." What we are looking for is a certain style of painting that has expertise and a distinct style. ”
"What kind of picture is suitable for the body and looks good", "What elements should be presented with what brushstrokes and styles", "How to express the thickness of highlights, gradients, and lines to be more delicate"......
After starting to emphasize style, Fomi became half an expert in tattoo design. He doesn't chase hits anymore, and he doesn't look at the operational data in the background much. Leading the trend and outputting aesthetics made him enjoy it and had a new sense of achievement.
The national style tattoo stickers that have become popular in the past two years, "Youliu Uliao" has been laid out very early. And when peers are making national style products, Fomi looks at the two-dimensional style again. "We also negotiated with the agent of 'Perfect World' some time ago, but the overall cost was hundreds of thousands of yuan, so we didn't negotiate." He said with a bit of pity.
In many ways, the operating logic of the tattoo sticker and women's clothing industry is very similar, with "new" as the core driving force.
Relying on the mature design resources precipitated in the past 8 years, "Youliu Uliao" will produce more than 200 original styles a year, which are basically concentrated in spring and summer. At the beginning of this year, Fomi launched more than 130 new models at once. "Once the design is complete, there are really two things that look at the production: clarity and color. As long as it is original, there will be no problem with the clarity of vector graphics. But color grading is very important, and it depends on the master's craftsmanship. We often fight with factories, for example, some gouache style, the color mixing technology is not good, and the product is difficult to pass. ”
With excellent design capabilities, strict quality control and a new speed ahead of its peers, "Youliu Uliao" has gradually become the top 3 in the category of personalized tattoo stickers, with more than 200,000 single tattoo stickers sold in 2023 and a transaction of more than 4 million yuan.
"I don't think it's a volume", because originality is always the core
"In the past, I was actually a person with a weak sense of life." Fomi described himself as an extroverted and confident personality, born in an ordinary family and graduated from an ordinary second book.
Joining the fashion brand awakened a part of his self-awareness. "Some people are born with high emotional intelligence and are very humorous. But some people don't. In the past, Fomi used to put himself in a corner to reduce his sense of existence, and when his friends called him to travel, he would go too, but his inner thoughts were not interesting, and many things were relegated to the category of "boring" because they were bland.
And doing the tattoo sticker pushed him again and completely changed him. In search of design and creativity, he began to observe the world. "Now that I'm in my 30s, I'm more curious and receptive to a lot of new things."
Perhaps because of this, more and more businesses and even designers have entered the industry, which has not given him much anxiety. "Half for business, half for self-worth. To this day, it's not just about selling goods. ”
He often makes some casual decisions, such as once he "caught" a few old fans and found that they would come to cheer every year, so he left a message to the other party and directly mailed all the new products for the next year, "not to make money, but to be happy that they have been there".
Of course, there will still be problems. The original is the most taboo to be plagiarized, and from last year to this year, "Youliu Uliao" has been defending its rights. "More than 20 have been sued this year." Fomi recalled that after buying their new models, some old customers took pictures and shared them on Douyin, and a short video was liked more than 170,000 times, but it was the merchants who quickly copied the pictures and made the version faster than the popularity.
"Because the herbal tattoo sticker has broken the circle, there have been a lot of new peers in the past two years, but I don't actually feel very curly." On the one hand, it is because Fomi still prefers more varied color tattoo stickers, and herbal tattoo stickers are relatively rare. On the other hand, it was also because he noticed, "Eight years ago, I made tattoo stickers, and a lot of people asked me, what is a tattoo sticker? Where does this stuff come from? Now, eight years later, they still ask. But the industry is not as easy as it seems."
Taking goods from the factory is the logic of selling goods, but staying at the level of selling goods, it is difficult to go on this track for a long time. After figuring this out, the mentality of being plagiarized and stolen instantly calmed down a lot. It is time to defend rights and defend rights, and the others should just follow their own path.
Davinci is preparing his dissertation and plans to set up his own company and recruit a design team after graduation. Fomi's pace of life is more like a search for beauty, "In the first half of the year, the store is new, and in the second half of the year, I run around, going to Shanghai to see the sycamores, and Nanjing to see the cherry blossoms." Things that didn't feel special before, now I think it's beautiful when I look at them."
Music festivals, concerts, markets, ...... Tattoo stickers have become the "finishing touch" of young people's style outfits, and this unique skin idea is making its way into everyday life. Tattoos, which used to be labeled as "subcultures" and somewhat stigmatized, are gradually being recognized.
Entering May, tattoo stickers ushered in the peak season of sales. The tattoo sticker is not expensive, it is a typical high emotional value product, and the design full of "girlish heart" supports the bright colors in the girls' photos, and is about to light up another colorful summer.