Why is Benefit, who is still a leader in the world, behind bars in China?
|Poly beauty.
Author|Shortly after Xie Er officially closed the three official websites of Tmall, Douyin, and Jingdong on January 28, another blogger broke the newsBenefit may officially withdraw from the Chinese market around the middle of this year. The blogger said that at present, brand members have received relevant news one after another, and the brand will provide equivalent product exchange services to customers who have not been able to use up the eyebrow trimming card service by the end of June 24;In addition, many netizens in the comment area also said that they had received a notice from the eyebrow trimmer brand to retreat.
In this regard, Jumei asked Sephora *** for verification for the first time, and the customer service said that it was not clear. However, some ** verified with Sephora stores in many places, and some customer service said that "Benefit does want to withdraw the cabinet".
In fact, when announcing the closure of online businesses such as Tmall, many industry insiders speculated that Benefit may withdraw from the Chinese marketIn March 2021, when Benefit withdrew cabinets across the country, similar remarks were in the air.
Sephora, as the only remaining channel for Benefit in China, if the news of its withdrawal is true, it means that Benefit will completely withdraw from the Chinese market.
According to public information, Benefit was founded in 1976 by twin sisters Jane Ford and Jean Ann Ford, and was acquired by LVMH in 1999. According to LVMH's official website, Benefit has more than 3,200 eyebrow salons in more than 55 countries and regions around the world, and also set a record of one eyebrow product being sold every 2 seconds.
In the 2023 full-year financial report just announced by LVMH Group, the sales of the group's perfume and cosmetics division exceeded 8 billion euros (about 62.4 billion yuan) for the first time, an organic increase of 11%, a new high in the past five years.
Regarding this performance growth, Benefit also contributed a part of the strength. According to the financial report, "Benefit was mainly boosted by The Porefessional skincare range, while the launch of new products further strengthened its leadership in the eyebrow makeup space." ”
It can be seen,In the global market, especially in the eyebrow makeup market, Benefit still maintains its competitiveness. So why is this once the No. 1 eyebrow makeup brand in the Chinese market in prison?
In this regard, Allie Rooke, founder of Clean Beauty Asia and an expert in the Chinese beauty market, pointed out in an interview with foreign media, "Although some of Benefit's products sell well, butThe brand has never been able to adapt to the changing consumer market.
From the perspective of channels, Benefit, which has been in the Chinese market for nearly 20 years (opened its first store in Shanghai in 2007), has indeed made many adjustments to the channel with the changes in the market, but this adjustment seems to be a little late
As early as 2011, Benefit briefly settled in Tmall, but closed the store in a hurry after opening less than half a year, and did not return to Tmall again until 2017, and also missed the ** window period of Tmall;
2020 In 2021, Douyin e-commerce, as an emerging channel, entered a bonus period, but Benefit did not "come late" until May 2022.
From the perspective of product lines, although Benefit's products cover multiple parts such as eyebrows, eyes, pore care, and lips, and span multiple fields such as makeup, skin care, and makeup tools, consumers' inherent perception of them is still only "eyebrow makeup"; At the same time for more than ten years,Benefit's main sales in the Chinese market are still driven by a few classic large items, and its single product upgrades and iterations are far from keeping up with the demands of young consumers.
Under the wave of superimposed new domestic products, a large number of high-quality and low-cost brands such as Perfect Diary, Tangerine, Fermented Color, and Intoyou have been born in the domestic makeup market, and the competitiveness of Benefit, which is positioned in the middle and high-end and has a customer order of 100-500 yuan, is not so strong.
As a netizen commented: "Benefit belongs to the category that she can't afford when she has no money, and she can't look down on it when she has money, and she would rather buy big-name products at the same price when she has the financial ability." ”
Slow new launches, slow iterations, and ineffective localization ......The problems faced by Benefit in the Chinese market are actually the same difficulties faced by most foreign brands in the Chinese market - even big brands such as Estee Lauder cannot escape.
In the article "Behind the "Crash", Estee Lauder Has Three Major Problems", Jumei has analyzed in detail that the "aging" of the brand, over-reliance on travel retail channels, and the lack of effective localized operations are important reasons for the decline in net sales and net profit of Estee Lauder in many quarters.
This is also the reason why in the past two years, we have seen more and more brands that were once all the rage in the Chinese market have withdrawn from the market.
According to incomplete statistics from Jumei, in the past two years, more than 20 overseas beauty brands have withdrawn from the Chinese market, and 5 group brands have adjusted their strategies in China and shrunk their channels, including First Aid Beauty and El.f.cosmetics, Maybelline and many other brands that we are familiar with.
In addition, recently, Jumei has also noticed that many netizens broke the news on platforms such as XiaohongshuJapanese high-end skin care brands SK-II and IPSA have withdrawn from the cabinet one after another. According to Procter & Gamble's latest financial report, the second quarter of fiscal year 2024SK-ii's sales in China fell by 34%.It is true that the nuclear sewage incident has led to public resistance to Japanese brands, but the brand's own aging and "unsuitability" in the Chinese market are also important reasons.
Especially in terms of product categories and new speeds, in the communication between Jumei and many industry insiders, everyone agreedDomestic brands have strong ability to react quickly and push new products, and they know how to grasp the psychology and trend aesthetics of young domestic consumers, but the "lag" of overseas brands is obvious.
The wonderful counterattack of the domestic brand Proya in recent years stems from the fact that the brand has determined the "star big item" strategy early, and has carried out many iterations and upgrades around the big single product. Because the cutting-edge achievements of the leading can indeed bring phased market gains, but in the face of market replication peers, continuous iterative upgrading one step ahead can contribute to sustainable success.
If it is not updated and iterated in time, even Benefit's eyebrow pencil and blush, Estee Lauder's small brown bottle, and SK-II's *** will limit the brand to some extent.
Therefore, in the past two years, we have also seen more and more international brands accelerate the localization of the Chinese market by investing in local brands and building local ** chains in China.
In his New Year's Eve speech, financial writer Wu Xiaobo mentioned that 2024 is a year of both crisis and opportunity; During the visit to the market before Jumei, many industry insiders also agreed that 2024 is not optimistic and is likely to be the most difficult year.
But many times "to live is to win".
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