"Track Narrowing"
Qingyan learned from the Ali asset platform that at 10 o'clock this morning, a batch of cosmetics under Puli (Shanghai) Information Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Puli Information") and a batch of various small jewelry auctions ended, but because no one bid, they all ended in failure.
It is understood that this is the second time that these two targets have been unsold within a month. Judging from the reason for the auction, this auction belongs to the asset disposal after the bankruptcy liquidation of Puli Information. According to public information, Puli Information includes the PRAYTY brand, which is a new generation of beauty new retail brand integrating e-commerce, live broadcast and offline stores, and has reached strategic cooperation with many well-known beauty and personal care brands at home and abroad.
So, why did Puli Information enter bankruptcy liquidation?
He has been invested by Vipshop
Bankruptcy liquidation proceedings have been initiated
According to the national enterprise information credit publicity system, Puli Information was established in 2017 with a registered capital of 1.08 million yuan. In addition, according to the public information of the enterprise, Shanghai Cauliflower Culture Media Co., Ltd. is the largest shareholder of Puli Information, holding 50% of the shares; The second largest shareholder is Wei Mingjie, who is also the founder and actual controller of Puli Information, with an actual beneficial stake of 68.13%; In addition, Beihai Vipshop Investment Co., Ltd. holds 2.49% of the shares.
Judging from the founder's resume, according to public information, Wei Mingjie once founded a reliable small program for social e-commerce and has many years of entrepreneurial experience in the e-commerce and retail industry. In 2018, after the launch of reliable and good things, the highest daily new users were 2 million+, and the highest monthly GMV was 300 million+, and it has successively received investment from Xinbang and Vipshop, making it a leading company in WeChat ecological e-commerce. At the same time, the core management team of Puli Information has diverse and complementary backgrounds, mostly from the e-commerce, retail and service industries.
In 2020, the new beauty retail brand "PRAYTY" under Puli Information was established. Qingyan noticed that on December 11, 2020, PRAYTY Park Liguan Weibo released the first tweet of "PRAYTY Park Lisi South Road Store Officially Opened". According to the article, on the opening day, Zhang Jiayi of the investment department of Vipshop, Xu Danei, the founder of Xinbang, and others jointly cut the ribbon for the pop-up store of Park Li Sinan. 13 days later, PRAYTY's second pop-up store (Shanghai Guohua Plaza store) was officially opened. According to media reports at the time, the single-store turnover of the pop-up store exceeded 1 million in the first week, and paid members accounted for more than 20%.
On October 1, 2021, PRAYTY opened its first offline official flagship store in Shanghai Shimao Plaza (No. 829 Nanjing East Road), with a new store area of about 380 square meters. According to public reports, PRAYTY's flagship store is divided into nine sections, namely boutique perfume, brand skin care, cutting-edge personal care, trendy makeup, fragrance workshop, etc., covering domestic and foreign big-name skin care products and niche personal care products, in addition to international brands such as Kiehl's, Shiseido, Lancôme, etc., domestic brands such as Yuze and Kefumei are also among them.
▍Screenshot from PRAYTY Puli official micro PRAYTY Puli flagship store (Shanghai Shimao Plaza)
In addition, PRAYTY's own brand also occupies a certain proportion. It is understood that the RAYTY Puli "Incense Workshop" section mainly sells Pu Li's perfumes and fragrances, with a price range of 69-399 yuan. At the same time, RAYTY's own brand also includes beauty instruments, cleaning and care products, etc., and the price is less than 100 yuan.
In terms of channels, PRAYTY's sales channels include offline stores, mini programs, Douyin and WeChat communities. According to public information, PRAYTY has considerable experience in supply chain operations and online operations. During the epidemic in 2020, before opening the first store, PRAYTY had taken the lead in establishing a 2,000-square-meter live broadcast base in Shanghai, and reached cooperation with a number of mainstream MCN institutions, with the first-hand resources of many celebrities and head KOLs, creating a monthly Douyin sales scale of 10 million+ for many beauty brands.
Optimistic about the triple opportunities of channels, offline traffic and supply chain, Wei Mingjie, the founder of PRAYTY, was once full of confidence in the operation model of PRAYTY stores. "Open a 'POP store' of less than 200 square meters in the business district of first-tier cities, and a larger 'PRO store' in emerging cities such as Suzhou, Wuxi, Hefei, etc., and then gradually sink to the second- and third-tier cities, and eventually become a 'complex of boutique beauty channel brands and independent life aesthetics brands'." Wei Mingjie once said in an interview with the media.
However, the good times did not last long, and less than 3 years after the establishment of the PRAYTY Puli brand, Puli Information filed for bankruptcy liquidation. According to the National Enterprise Bankruptcy and Reorganization Case Information Network, as early as December 26, 2023, the Shanghai Pudong New Area People's Court has ruled to accept the bankruptcy liquidation case of Pu Li Information, and appointed the Shanghai branch of Beijing Jia Yuan Law Firm as the administrator of the case.
On the Ali asset platform, Qingyan noticed that at 10 o'clock this morning, a batch of cosmetics and a batch of various small accessories under Puli Information suffered a second unsuccessful auction because no one bid. At the same time, on April 20, 9 copyrights, 26 trademarks, and a batch of cosmetics including C coffee essence mask and water secret washing and care set were successfully auctioned, with transaction prices of 990 yuan, 25,000 yuan, and 500 yuan respectively.
▍Intercepted from Ali Asset Platform
Recently, Qingyan tried to call Pu Li's information for details, and after calling the company's contact information in the company's 2022 annual report several times, the phone was unreachable.
Already in debt
The founders are restricted from high spending
From a cutting-edge beauty collection store supported by capital to the bankruptcy liquidation of the parent company in less than 3 years, this may be related to the poor management of PRAYTY Puli store and falling into losses.
According to the China Judgment Network, in the "Civil Judgment of First Instance of the Decoration Contract Dispute between Shanghai Yihe Props Design and Production Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Yihe Props") and Puli Information, Yihe Props said that on August 30, 2021, Yihe Props and Puli Information signed the "Props Engineering Construction Contract" and "On-site Foundation Engineering Construction Contract" with Puli Information on the construction of the store located in Shanghai Shimao Plaza, Huangpu District, Shanghai, with a total price of 250,000 yuan and 700,000 yuan respectively. On October 7 of the same year, after settling the increase and decrease of the project, the plaintiff and the defendant confirmed that the actual increase in the project cost was 45,000 yuan, with a total price of 995,000 yuan. However, Puli Information only paid 715,000 yuan for the Yihe Road project one after another, and after repeated reminders, the balance has not yet been paid.
In this regard, Park Li Information argued that it leased the store for cosmetics retail, and then closed it in June 2022 due to operating losses. At the same time, there is a reduced part of the decoration project of Yihe props, and Yihe props have no building decoration qualifications, so the signed construction contract is invalid and there is no breach of contract.
In the end, the Shanghai No. 2 Intermediate People's Court held that on October 7, 2021, the plaintiff and the defendant confirmed that the increase or decrease of the construction project and the corresponding project payment were consistent, which was the true agreement reached by the two parties, which was legal and valid, and ruled that Pu Li Information should pay the balance of 280,400 yuan for the Yihe props project and pay overdue interest.
In addition, according to the "Civil Judgment of the First Instance of the Dispute over the Sales Contract between Shanghai Shuangliu Electronic Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Shanghai Shuangliu") and Pu Li, on September 22, 2021, Shanghai Shuangliu supplied a set of indoor P2 full-color screens and 7 TVs and their installation to Puli Information, with a total contract price of 78,000 yuan.
It is worth mentioning that due to the overdue arrears, Pu Li Information has become a historical dishonest person subject to execution twice, and the actual controller Wei Mingjie has also been restricted from high consumption, with a total amount of 394,900 yuan.
In addition, according to the Qingyan investigation, judging from the public branch information, Puli Information has 3 companies, all of which are located in Shanghai. Among them, the Huangpu First Branch of Puli (Shanghai) Information Technology Co., Ltd. and the Yangpu Second Branch of Puli (Shanghai) Information Technology Co., Ltd. have been cancelled in June 2021 and December 2021 respectively, while the Huangpu Second Branch of Puli (Shanghai) Information Technology Co., Ltd. shows "Ongoing Business License Invalidation Statement".
In addition, the Qingyan investigation also found that at present, 10 small programs under Puli Information, such as Mutual Bar Reward, Reliable Good Things, and Comprehensive E-commerce Template Lite, have all been suspended. In addition, the last push of PRAYTY's official account also stayed on January 24, 2022.
Beauty collection store ice and fire
From the peak to the decline, PRAYTY Pu Li has become a hurried passer-by in the explosion of the beauty collection store market.
In fact, the fall of Prayty is not an isolated case. For example, on the Ali asset platform, due to the bankruptcy liquidation of Hangzhou Naturalist Brand Management Co., Ltd., the parent company of Only Write, 100% of the company's 6 companies are being auctioned publicly, of which 5 companies have a starting price of 358,400 yuan and another company has an equity price of 35,800 yuan. It is worth mentioning that at the beginning, the appraisal price of these six companies was 800,000 yuan, and the price can be said to have dropped again and again.
IN ADDITION, THERE ARE PUBLIC DATA SHOWING THAT AS OF AUGUST 2023, NEARLY 170 STORES, INCLUDING HARMAY, HAYDON BLACK HOLE, THE COLORIST, WOW COLOUR, ETC., HAVE BEEN CLOSED.
In just a few years, cutting-edge beauty collection stores have experienced a rollercoaster experience, from the golden development period of 2019-2020 to the bursting of the bubble in recent years, one after another well-known beauty collection stores have closed one after another.
In response to the successive reduction and closure of many beauty collection stores, Liu Mou, a cosmetics agent in Chongqing, said, "Beauty collection stores have high requirements for repurchase, and many cutting-edge beauty collection stores basically take a lot of actions for traffic and attracting new customers, which always feels that the marketing power is strong and the sales power (the ability to undertake repurchase) is weak." ”
Cui, the person in charge of a well-known domestic cosmetics chain store, said, "Most of the beauty collection stores located in first-tier cities have relatively higher offline hard costs such as rent and labor, and the competition is more intense. In addition, many beauty collection stores are in the account period settlement mode, once the store has problems in operation, there will be a situation where it will not be able to make ends meet. ”
"After a short bonus period, under multiple pressures such as high rent and manpower, the development space of new beauty collection stores has been very limited." Another senior cosmetics industry person said that many cutting-edge beauty collection stores lack self-hematopoietic ability and long-term development of the core competitiveness, with the return of capital to its valuation to rationality, the rapid expansion of homogeneous competition and the instability of the supply of sample products have also become two major drawbacks that are difficult to overcome. In addition, young consumers who are attracted by new things will also turn away due to low loyalty, which has led to a rapid cooling of consumption in cutting-edge beauty collection stores.
However, there are winners in the face of adversity. For example, according to the latest announcement, KK Group, the parent company of colorists, has a record revenue in the first ten months of 2023, with an operating profit of 376 million yuan, while KK Group has been in a state of loss for three consecutive years. In terms of brands, KKV is still the largest sector, with revenue of 3.27 billion yuan in the first ten months of 2023, a year-on-year increase of more than 60%, and the revenue of colorists is 756 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of more than 40%. The relevant person in charge of the colorist once revealed to the media that they have been adjusting around store yields in 2022, and the number of loss-making stores has dropped from 115 at the end of 2022 to 35 on March 31, 2023. After the adjustment, the colorist's single store tends to be standardized, and a set of systematic single store operation mode has been formed.
In this regard, Cui, the person in charge of the above-mentioned well-known domestic cosmetics chain store, said that relatively speaking, the load behind the colorist is not so heavy, and the profit margin is a little larger.
"With the continuous shrinkage of capital on the cosmetics track, it will not work for cutting-edge beauty collection stores to continue to take the capital route in the future, if it is to take the business route, then it must do a good job in management and enter a virtuous circle." Chongqing cosmetics agent Liu said.