In July this year, Li Ji ranked first in the sales list of Douyin's beauty brands that month, according to the statistics of Guoji Feigua, Li Ji created more than 100 million yuan in the category of "beauty" (including beauty, skin care, beauty equipment and other categories) on Douyin that month, surpassing well-known brands such as Han Shu, Lancôme, and Winona.
Recently, Rieji was once again "out of the circle" on suspicion of false publicity. According to an article in "Consumer Reports", in October this year, "Consumer Reports" purchased two explosive products, Liji Black Gold Plain Cream and Liji Special Moisturizing Serum, on the official *** of Liji, and sent them to a third-party authoritative testing agency for professional testing.
The official *** of the season advertises "no preservatives", but the essence of the season was detected with three preservatives: "phenoxyethanol, chlorphenesin, and potassium sorbate", and the filing information also shows that the added ingredients contain preservatives. At the same time, one of Liji's popular copper peptide caviar anti-wrinkle essence cream, the foundry behind Guangzhou Xiuyu Cosmetics*** has been fined for many illegal production, and is currently ordered to stop production and rectify because it does not meet the relevant requirements.
Screenshot from the State Food and Drug Administration.
It is suspected of false propaganda, and the cooperative foundry has had production quality problems, and the future of Li Ji is worrying. Maybe the industry has long been surprised by the various routines behind the brand's sales of more than 100 million, but if there is an opportunity to break out in front of you, how will you choose?
Image source network. Playing the emotional card has been tried and tested?
Douyin's business experience largely lies in the persona, not the product.
Many audiences, especially mothers, rarely have ** ingredients, scientific skin care, and precise skin care, and are easily touched by emotional content.
Searching for "Liji" on Xiaohongshu, relevant notes and comments show that many mothers not only bought a large number of Liji's products, but even bought thousands of them, and also recommended the brand to relatives and daughters.
The founder of Li Ji is Zhao Moucheng, chairman of Zicheng Group, and one of his Douyin accounts, "Chairman of Zicheng and Queen of Domestic Products", has the most likes for the content of giving birth to a baby. A highly-liked title titled "Sponsoring colleagues to change their legs" was set to the top, and related public welfare and positive energy ** also received a lot of attention. She has the spirit of a strong woman who dares to work hard, and also has a down-to-earth warmth, which is recognized by many mothers.
In terms of emotional operation, Li Ji can be described as a model in Douyin's white label, accurately capturing the minds of middle-aged and elderly women in cities below the third tier, and is the best cold start for the brand. According to relevant sources, the traffic brought by the creation of Douyin's short ** content is much higher than the traffic obtained by streaming.
It can be said that Zhao Moucheng, who has been engaged in the beauty industry for many years, has had an accident in his marriage, but insists on working hard, and his character has been very successful. However, in terms of brand operation, Rieji seems to be dishonest. In addition to the above-mentioned "no preservatives" and suspected false propaganda, Rieji's routines can be described as endless.
For example, it is suspected of falsely emphasizing the technology and uniqueness of the brand.
When Li Ji promoted the OTE Rejuvenating Whitening Moisturizing Essence (Spot Pen), he once worked hard in the live broadcast room to claim that "no one in the entire Douyin live broadcast room can have such a technology as ours", but in essence, the product has a multi-purpose situation, and the products of the same name with many brands such as "Ou Liyuan" and "Fanshi Di" are all from the same factory - Guangzhou Meixi Biotechnology*** and use the same special cosmetics approval document for freckle removal and whitening.
Similarly, in the relevant live broadcasts, the anchor frequently displays relevant patent certificates and other documents to endorse the product, but in essence, the relevant certificates do not belong to the brand itself, and some of them belong to the raw material suppliers, such as Liji's blue copper peptide caviar anti-wrinkle essence cream, whose *** page shows that the patentee is Shandong Jipeptide Biotechnology*** If there are other brands that cooperate with Jipeptide and use related raw materials, the same patent certificate can also be displayed.
For another example, Li Ji frequently emphasized in the live broadcast room that "the discount is only once", but in fact, this is just one of the usual means for Li Ji to attract customers, "* Customers place orders. Li Ji's ascension to the top 1 of Douyin's beauty sales list in July was largely due to the brand's "unprecedented offer today" in the live broadcast room.
Screenshot from Xiaohongshu.
Screenshot from Liji Douyin official ***
Li Ji will first set the original price of some explosive products high, some of the original price can be as high as tens of thousands of yuan, but when it comes to the live broadcast room, it may become the original 1 10 or even lower, such as the "Queen Set" endorsed by Hong Kong star Ye Xuan last year, the original price was 19,800 yuan, but it was only sold for 1,980 yuan in a live broadcast event.
Such a routine can create GMV in a short period of time, but when fans discover the "routine", it may cause their disgust, and many consumers complained in the official *** comment area of Douyin in the season, "Obviously 299 four bottles, breaking the price of 100 a bottle to sell old fans", and said "I don't trust anymore".
The underlying logic of a white label "taking off" may be wrong
The white label comes quickly, and the 'death' is also fast", this is the evaluation of many people in the industry on the white label of Douyin. Many people ask, knowing that foundries have a lot of "criminal records", why do these white labels still have to find such a potentially risky factory to cooperate?
That's because white labels want to reduce costs, and these white labels are not pursuing high customer orders, but the order volume of a live broadcast cycle. Each cycle is a movement to change products, as long as there is a cycle of exploding, then it means that it has been earned. The maturity of China's cosmetics industry ** chain, giving brands the ability to constantly test and replace products, products for these main emotional brand brands, the cost can be calculated negligibly, the production price of a set of boxes can be less than 10 yuan, and an essence can be 2Less than $5. ”
The starting point of the white card is the last wave of goodness of human nature, and the end point is the shell change. At present, in addition to the Li Ji, there are also many brands such as Qin Ruchun, Beendu, Zhiweilai, Violet Man, Mo Lichun, etc., maybe the Li Ji will fall soon, and the second Li Ji will rise. An industry insider analyzed.
On the other hand, although many people have achieved the final results of many white labels, in fact, it is not that white cards cannot go far, but that the thinking and logic of many white label founders to make products may be deviated.
Screenshot from Liji Douyin official ***
Taking Li Ji as an example, it is not difficult to see from the relevant comments that the brand has been criticized for "the product effect is not as good as what was said in the live broadcast room". Of course, there are countless beauty brands that are exaggerated in the live broadcast room, reflecting the lack of mood of most founders to make good products.
In the era of Douyin, all products are worth doing again, and all bloggers can make a white label once to make a fortune for a long time. But everyone wasted such a unique opportunity to start at a low cost.
I can't see the sea of stars that will bring continuous repurchase with good products in the next 3-5 years", which is the first thinking problem of Chinese people making cosmetics. For example, a noble lady's ointment went through more than 200 experiments before it really came out;For example, a senior executive of a factory revealed that when cooperating with a cutting-edge beauty brand to develop a large single product, the whole process took 200+ days. Most of these beauty white-label products only took 35 days to go from 0 to 1 on the market, and in the final analysis, they still can't get rid of the thinking of low trial and error cost to make products.
In addition, there is no return to the concept and efficacy of the product itself. When Li Ji creates the image of the light of his domestic products, he talks about "high-end skin care products that Chinese women can afford", "using the world's top skin care raw materials, regardless of the cost, at any cost, to make the most luxurious skin care products in China, and the products are directly benchmarked against the top international brands".
The most luxurious skin care products in China", which aspects reflect the "most luxurious"?Is it using the world's top ingredients, or is the raw materials, formulas, and packaging used extremely rare?In an era of fragmentation, it is difficult for brands to penetrate into the hearts of the people if they cannot explain the concept clearly.
In this era of information overload, the concept, packaging, and efficacy are integrated, so that the brand can achieve lasting success in the fierce market competition.
If beauty white label founders only think about creating amazing GMVs, instead of repeatedly testing, modifying, optimizing and upgrading products, then the idea will eventually return to how to tell a story, and the brand effect will quickly disappear.
The white card rises fast and 'dies' quickly", another more important reason is that "many bosses are simply not willing to lose money in a year or two". The past path of success is still "confusing" them, "the current stage of the business is not a loss, who will go so far to find unique raw materials, do more than 100 experiments, and then engage in an original and trendy design", so such bold words as "to make the most luxurious skin care products in China" once again came out of their mouths.
Nowadays, the threshold of the cosmetics industry is getting higher and higher, and the industry is becoming more and more standardized.
It is undeniable that there are still huge opportunities and potential for beauty white labels, but please don't waste "the last kindness of Chinese consumers".