On the eve of the Chinese New Year's Eve, L'Oréal Group announced its first investment in 2024 – a minority investment in Guanxia, a local high-end perfume fragrance brand in China. This action not only reflects L'Oréal's emphasis on the oriental fragrance track, but also demonstrates the cultural confidence and globalization potential of China's new generation of brands.
Strong content creation capabilities have always been a major advantage of Guanxia for the industry. From the perspective of retail, the design and theme of each store space shows a unique cultural aesthetic value.
With the ever-changing and upgrading of the consumption context and needs of young people, this kind of sales method that weakens the commercial purpose, provides immersive experience scenes, and gives additional emotional value is a high-level way to attract users' attention and promote consumption decisions. Also known as:"Curated Retail".
In the era of "experience economy", "Fbeauty Future Traces" combed and found that in 2023, many projects with high attention in the industry and very out-of-the-circle will integrate "curatorial" business thinking, trying to break the boundaries of traditional retail and show value uniqueness.
Among them, in addition to the new beauty collection store represented by Harmay, since its inception, it has adopted the landmark layout idea of "one store, one setting", and introduced art projects and fashion shows into the store from time to time to hold activities, and most of the others are brand stores.
According to the project presentation form of each brand, the integration of curated retail and beauty brands can be roughly divided into three types.
1. Pure public space or exhibition, with very weak commercial elements.
Taking the [East Oasis Cooperative] built by the East Beast in Tacheng Town, Weixi County, Yunnan Province as an example, a central fire pond and a special exhibition area are set up in the cooperative, providing a public space for local villagers and tourists to live in, binding the brand with the place, tourists and villagers, and the city and the plateau, with the main purpose of conveying the brand's public welfare concept.
Similar to it is the "POLA Toshin Agebility Art Exhibition", which will be POLA BA series of products combine flowers for secondary creation to create a unique "flower world".
This type of action aims to provide a space for consumers to interact and communicate with the brand, as well as a platform to showcase the latest products or technologies.
By creating unique public spaces or exhibitions, brands are able to attract potential customers, increase brand awareness, and create a deeper emotional connection with consumers. Zhu Hucheng, an expert in the operation of imported cosmetics and CEO of Jiayue International Group, believes that this curated presentation also helps to shape and disseminate the brand image, showing the brand's focus on aesthetics, art or culture.
2. Integrate "curation" into the store, and shape the uniqueness of the brand through design and display.
In addition to the above-mentioned Harmay Huamei and Wenxian, domestic and foreign brands such as Guanxia and AESOP are also very good at integrating curatorial concepts into each store.
Guanxia opened a store called "Guanxia Shu Pavilion" in Chengdu in July last year, referring to the concept of "tea house hall" and paying tribute to the spirit of tea ceremony in the southwest region with a modern look; Wenxian, a domestic high-end fragrance brand, opened a brand space called "Moon Lounge" in December, which traces the origin of the moon-related life situation in Chinese tradition, presenting a leisurely and comfortable shopping experience like a moonlit night lounge; At the end of last year, AESOP launched its airport store in Hongqiao, Shanghai, with the theme of "Twilight and Dawn", using the store design to interpret the feeling of floating in the air during the flight. In addition, the Lelabo Fragrance Lab, which is an immersive American lifestyle space, is very popular among new middle-class and niche fragrance enthusiasts.
Compared to the first type, this type of store conveys the brand's core values and culture through store design, atmosphere and display, aiming to provide consumers with an immersive shopping experience that allows them to feel the unique charm and cultural atmosphere of the brand.
A senior retailer also told "fbeauty Future Traces" that as aesthetics has become a purchase factor that is particularly important to the new generation of consumers, brands that are good at visual and emotional expression can use this to attract consumers who match their values, improve customer loyalty and repurchase rate, and show more lasting market value.
3. A limited-time experience space or a pop-up store built with the festival.
Pop-up stores have always been a common marketing tool for beauty, and unlike renting a venue to display new products for roadshows, more and more brands are looking to seize the scarce resources to allow brands to reach more target audiences and provide a unique shopping experience in a limited space.
Last Christmas period, niche perfume penhaligon's Pan Hailigan has created a childlike [Fragrance Dream Workshop] pop-up experience store in Yuyuan Department Store, where customers can experience the brand's series of products and new products in one stop. The conjecture of the universe of cosmic speculation, a cutting-edge fragrance brand, adheres to the concept of fragrance and introduces a limited-time fragrance experience space, reflecting the exploration and enlightenment of human beings to the universe tens of thousands of years ago.
This kind of store can attract a large number of **, improve the brand**, and stimulate consumers' desire to buy. Zhu believes that this curatorial presentation also helps brands make a strong impression in the minds of consumers and lay the foundation for future marketing campaigns.
Taken together, these three types of offline stores have their own meanings, but the ultimate goal is the sameAttracting consumers, raising awareness and building brand image are innovative ways to drive brand growth. Interestingly, in addition to mature commercial entities with a sense of planning and style matching, these curatorial beauty stores prefer to land in historic neighborhoods and integrate with regional culture.
Earlier than beauty brands, department stores and shopping malls were exploring exhibition-style retail.
Traditional department stores are under tremendous pressure. The person in charge of a department store in Northwest China told "Fbeauty Future Traces", "In the past many years, although we have been interested in transforming to new models such as digitalization, we have achieved little due to problems such as hardware facilities, business models, and settled brands." ”
In the wave of store closures, overwhelmed brick-and-mortar operators began to "roll" in refinement and differentiated operations, and a more advanced business model began to become popular - curated retail commercial entities.
In the traditional concept, "curation" is an art, and it is more displayed in the museum in the form of exhibition. When it breaks this framework, there will be a new spark between it and retail. Compared with traditional retail, this type of commercial space has more artistry, weakens the purpose of sales, fills more story, and creates a borderless store for consumers.
The essence of curatorial commercial entities is "experience", and most of them are aimed at the younger generation of consumers, through the transformation of space art, commercial content, and operation strategies, to create a field where customers can feel "you know me" when they enter the store.
Since 2019, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Beijing and other cities have successively tested the waters of curatorial commercial entities. For example, K11, an art shopping mall, SKP-S with the theme of "Digital Simulation of the Future", COSMO Chengdu, which is defined as a "youth magnetic field", and TX Huaihai Youth Center.
Most of these commercial bodies set up different themes for multiple spaces, and the design is especially "filmed", and the store layout is more free and casual. Events will also be held from time to time to attract visitors. For example, in the first year of operation, TX Huaihai held nearly 300 events.
It doesn't feel strange to see anything here. A post-00s consumer sighed to the "FBEAUTY Future Trace" who visited the store.
Combined with CEIBS Fashion Institute's analysis of the differentiation between traditional retail and experiential retail, unlike traditional retail, experiential retail, which is achieved through curation and other means, does not aim to maximize sales and profits, but instead studies how to make the shopping experience more enjoyable, memorable and shareable, and create a positive word-of-mouth for stores.
Regarding the current integration of beauty brands and commercial entities, Zhu Hucheng believes that "when beauty brands choose offline store locations, they will first consider whether the target consumer group matches the commercial entity or shopping mall customer group. "Shopping malls such as the MixC already have a stable customer base and have a high degree of overlap with the brand's target consumer group.
Brands usually have their own sales channels and strategic planning, and prefer to choose proven sales channels in terms of channel layout. Zhu Hucheng explained that entering a new business entity means higher operational risks and cost inputs, and brands will comprehensively evaluate whether these risks and costs match the expected benefits.
On the other hand, from the perspective of curatorial retail business entities, different business entities have different brand positioning and investment strategies. For example, TX Huaihai Youth Center only considers brands that follow the concept of "curation" and have curatorial ability and thinking ability. And not many beauty brands can meet this requirement.
In addition, this type of commercial entity also has higher requirements for the operational capabilities of the settled brands. Taking SKP-S as an example, it requires the store style to be changed in line with SKP-S and be exclusively customized, and brands need to invest more resources and time to adapt to these requirements.
It is worth mentioning that in the current fierce competition, brands and commercial entities have shown strong demand for personalized expression, which will also increase the difficulty of running-in between the two parties. Many curatorial retail businesses are accustomed to adopting a more flexible and innovative operating model, which is easy to mismatch the operating model and brand style of some beauty brands. "In particular, the top beauty brands generally have their own annual marketing rhythm, and it is difficult for the two sides to agree on the terms of cooperation. Zhu Hucheng said.
While the process of co-creation is not easy, it is undeniable that the collaboration between beauty brands and curatorial retail businesses is presenting innovative connectors.
It can be said that the current beauty brands (including collection store brands) are still a game for niche players in terms of curatorial retail exploration, with luxury brands and niche brands as the mainstream, but with the evolution of the retail ecology, this more valuable form of presentation will show stronger vitality and become a necessary part of the comprehensive competitiveness of retail.
In fact, if we put aside the non-for-profit public space, when the curatorial and brand stores are closely connected, it is not only a great test of the design level and the overall sense of atmosphere, but also takes into account the sales task, which is a great test of the brand's patience and operational skills.
The above-mentioned senior retail experts in the industry said that curated retail stores pay more attention to providing consumers with an immersive shopping experience, enhancing customers' understanding of brands and products through interactive experiences and other means, so as to stimulate their desire to buy. However, it does not mean that the sales significance of such stores has been weakened or ignored.
In practice, curated retail stores tend to attract more potential customers, increase sales and profit margins, and increase customer stickiness. The purpose of the display and the meaning of the sale complement each other, the purpose of the display creates favorable conditions for sales, and the sales data has become one of the important indicators to measure the effect of the display, but some sales output will lag behind. The person analyzed.
With the increasing demand of consumers for shopping experience and emotional connection, the status and role of curated retail stores in the beauty industry will become more and more important.
This opportunity to go public is that, in addition to the curated retail complexes that have opened in recent years, traditional shopping malls are also being upgraded. "In addition to the changes in the brands that attract investment, they are also doing their own cultural themes. An industry insider with nearly 20 years of retail curatorial experience told fbeauty that these provide opportunities for more popular beauty brands to express themselves in a wider range of scenarios.
In the past year, although the traffic of shopping malls has picked up and the business format is also upgrading, most consumers mainly eat and shop, with the main purpose of obtaining emotional value. "At the moment, the beauty industry doesn't seem to be well seizing this opportunity. ”
On the one hand, the vast majority of brands are still mired in the thinking of online traffic operation, and the actual proportion of comprehensive investment is not high, and more importantly, they are not so thoughtful in creativity; On the other hand, when making real efforts to curate, beauty also needs to consider practical issues such as cost investment, continuous innovation, and balancing business and art, which puts forward higher requirements for the brand team's innovation ability, execution and operational ability.
Good curation should have a local proximity. High-end skincare brands have long been accomplished in this area, such as Sisley's Sisley House, which combines a one-stop shopping experience, customized service and artistic lifestyle, and integrates Shenzhen's avant-garde and vibrant urban style.
The above-mentioned industry insiders believe that if niche and high-end brands are interested in breaking away from the business circle and choosing to open stores in regions with their own humanistic atmosphere, then the "floating" traffic within the shopping mall format that is being upgraded has become a new opportunity for mature international mass brands and local brands.
It is reported that in the past two years, many brands have carried out strategic cooperation with shopping malls in a forward-looking manner, such as L'Oreal and Sephora, which chose to sign a contract with Wanda last year to work together to dig deep into new opportunities in the sinking market and integrate into the regional market ecology. In the hierarchical sinking market, mature brands with senior strength are linked with commercial entities committed to upgrading, and "curation" does some scene-based, differentiated interaction, or pop-up stores, etc., which will have more obvious value for retail achievement and brand promotion.
With the peak of online traffic, 2024 will become the offline "return year" of recognized brands. Differentiated product selection, professional services, and online and offline integration are becoming the driving force of beauty retail in the new year. The scarce value of good content is being noticed by more beauty and retail professionals. As curated retail becomes more popular, the new offline story of beauty is bound to be even more exciting.
Written by Lin Yu.
Proofread by Li Lin.