Is it a good business to invest 400 thousand yuan and return it to the capital in one month？

Image source @ vision china

Wen Yi is at the forefront of entrepreneurship, written by Li Xiaofan and edited by Dan Zong.

There is a fierce battle going on in the track of offline beauty shops.

The two sides of the game are: a new beauty collection store represented by plum and colorist, and a traditional beauty retail store represented by Sephora and Watsons.

During the visit, "Frontline of Entrepreneurship" found that in the same shopping mall, there were obvious differences between these two different models of beauty shops. For example, the flow of Watsons and colorists on the first floor of Xinzhongguan Shopping Center is less than one third of that of the latter. In terms of popularity, the new beauty collection store won for the time being.

However, from the perspective of supply capacity and customers’ trust, the new beauty shops are slightly inferior. It is difficult for them to get authorization from international brands and they have to find other channels to get goods, which leads to the risk of authenticity of their supply and no great advantage in price.

Who will be the final winner in the multi-faceted contest between these two species?

In January 2020, next to Watsons on the first floor of Beijing Xinzhongguan Shopping Center, THE COLORIST Colorist (hereinafter referred to as "Colorist"), a beauty collection shop, officially opened. It is also from this time that a battle between "new style and tradition" of beauty shops was staged here.

I don’t know whether it is accidental or deliberate "business grab". The location of the colorist seems to be "declaring war" on the traditional beauty collection stores represented by Watsons and Sephora.

These two different forms of beauty collection stores show great differences in store decoration, business philosophy and commodity selection.

At 6 o’clock in the afternoon on Saturday, the colorist’s shop was crowded with consumers who selected and tried products. Visually, most of them were between the ages of 20 and 30. Here, consumers can choose and try colors freely, without the interference of shopping guides. If you need help, the shopping guide will recommend it.

According to the observation of "The Frontline of Entrepreneurship", the clerk of the colorist is also a young man in his twenties, wearing white T-shirts and jeans, and with the design of the store with gray and pink tones, the store as a whole looks bright and lively.

Watsons, on the other hand, took a very different road of management. As soon as I entered Watsons, a shopping guide warmly greeted me and asked what the demand was. Its store design is dominated by black and yellow tones, and dressing the, the shopping guide, is dressed in black and looks older than the staff of the colorist.

The area of Watsons’ store is much larger than that of the colorist’s, but during the 20-minute visit to the "Frontline of Entrepreneurship", its traffic was less than one-third of the latter. It seems clear at a glance who can win the favor of young people.

Figure/Colorist and Watsons at the same time

The competition between colorists and Watsons is no exception.

On the afternoon of a weekend in July, in Xidan Joy City, the "Frontline of Entrepreneurship" visited and saw that the WOW COLOUR store on the second floor was crowded, and every shelf was surrounded by consumers. The Sephora store downstairs is much deserted, and there are less than 10 consumers who choose goods in the store. Not only that, but the counters of beauty brands such as MAC and CHANEL on the second floor are rarely visited by consumers.

Figure/WOW COLOUR store on Saturday afternoon

Most of the products sold by colorists and WOW COLOUR are domestic products and cheap brands from Japan and South Korea. If they may attract many young consumers by low prices, they can’t compete with Sephora and Watsons, then the high-end HARMAY preserved plum (hereinafter referred to as "preserved plum") is qualified to compete with them.

Huameimen Store, located in the renovation site of Xidan, Beijing, is more like a place in online celebrity, and its personalized industrial design has attracted many consumers to take photos. On the weekend of July, not only young people but also many middle-aged mothers with children came to punch in, and there was a long queue in front of the cashier. From the perspective of popularity, the new beauty collection store is a proper winner.

In Tu/Huamei Store, consumers queuing to check out.

Since last year, the outlet of the beauty collection store has obviously been blown up.

At the end of last year, H.E.A.T enjoyed burning and obtained angel round financing from Gaorong Capital; HAYDON Black Hole also received angel round financing led by Gao Ling and Tencent. In March of this year, WOW COLOUR announced that it had received 500 million yuan in Series A financing.

Their store opening speed is also extremely rapid. Peng Yao, CEO of colorist, mentioned in his speech that he had opened more than 300 direct sales stores in a year, covering Class A business districts in first-tier cities. According to public information, WOW COLOUR also opened nearly 300 stores within 8 months. While the new beauty shop is in full swing, the traditional beauty shop has a declining trend.

Watson’s financial report shows that in 2020, China’s performance share decreased by 19% year-on-year, and the epidemic also affected Watson’s performance. Last year, its global sales decreased by 11% year-on-year. In July last year, Wanning, an old-fashioned beauty chain, was also reported to have withdrawn its store on a large scale.

This natural law is being verified in the beauty collection store industry.

Under the influence of the new beauty collection store, in addition to the above-mentioned new brands that have obtained financing, there are also some small and medium-sized brands running with franchisees. They vigorously promoted the "way to attract gold" of beauty collection stores, attracting many players who want to enter the market to make money.

"Since 2007, our company has been doing the franchise business of snack collection stores. Now that this franchise store is not good, it will be transformed into a beauty collection store." Wang Lin (pseudonym), a staff member who claimed to be the source manufacturer of makeup collection, said.

Wang Lin introduced that they can provide customers with "one-stop" service-the owner only needs to carry out simple basic decoration of the store, and they will help the owner choose the site, provide the store design scheme, shelves and other equipment, as well as the supply of beauty products.

"We don’t charge any joining fee, management fee or deposit. You send us the floor plan of the store, and we will give you a design plan. The color, background board, mirror and lighting of the shelf can be done according to your requirements." Wang Lin said.

She also revealed to the "Frontline of Entrepreneurship" that many customers who originally opened snack collection stores directly transformed into beauty collection stores on the original storefronts, and many people who were engaged in clothing and shoes and bags switched jobs.

"The makeup collection store is a slogan, and everyone wants to seize this slogan, so we have a lot of lists in the past two years." Wang Lin said. It will take them about 15 days to make the shelves, and the current order has been placed for one month.

In the mouth of these franchisees, the beauty collection store is a good business worth investing in.

"The cost of a store of about 100 square meters, hardware facilities and the first distribution of goods is about 350,000 to 400,000 yuan." Yang shen (a pseudonym), a staff member of another makeup collection shop who joined the chain brand "YISUCOLOUR Easy Life", said.

58 According to the same city, the monthly rent of a shop near SOHO in Sanlitun, Beijing, which is about 120 square meters, is 42,000 yuan. If it is in a county town, the monthly rent for a shop of similar size is several thousand yuan.

"The profit of make-up is very considerable. We all supply goods to shopkeepers in the range of 3.5~4.5 fold, and the profit can basically reach 50%~70%." Yang shen said that among their franchisees, the turnover of some shopping malls and stores can reach more than 100,000 yuan a month. "Some customers can sell 20,000 to 30,000 yuan a day, and the holidays can be doubled."

In other words, if the business is done well, some shopkeepers can cover the initial investment with more than one month’s revenue.

Yang shen said that at present, they have more than 40 franchise stores in Henan, Yunnan, Xinjiang and other regions, and even stores have opened in counties and towns. "What we mainly do is cheap beauty, and most people can accept this price. Nowadays, users in counties and towns have also become more beautiful and need makeup. Therefore, the audience is also relatively wide. In addition to the post-90 s and post-00 s, some post-70 s and post-80 s will also have demand. " Yang shen said.

According to yang shen, the prices of commodities are the lowest in 9.9 yuan, mostly in 69 yuan and 79 yuan, and the unit price of customers is basically between 100 and 500 yuan. "After the guests arrive at the store, few people can go out empty-handed, and there is a high probability that they will buy a variety of goods."

Yang shen also introduced that there are currently more than 200 brands of products sold in their franchise stores, mainly domestic hot beauty products and imported niche brands, and there are also big-name samples. "We will ensure that there are 3 to 5 brands every month. To put it bluntly, it is nothing more than what brands and single products are hot at the moment, and we will do what we do." Yang shen said.

However, on the occasion of the rise of online beauty shops, the wildly promoted franchise model does not mean that "everyone has money to earn". "The first batch of shops are people who eat crabs. There will only be more and more stores in the back, just like tea shops, everywhere, but there are not many latecomers who can make money." Yang shen said.

Although the new species is slightly better in catering to young users and the speed of development, the new collection stores are not as advantageous as traditional stores in terms of the most fundamental source of goods.

Among them, the most worrying thing for consumers is whether the products of beauty shops, especially the samples, are genuine. Some people think that the sample as a gift, the brand side is controlled, but it continues to flow into the market, and there may be some problems.

In February this year, the blogger "Macromolecule Lab" released a video in Xiaohongshu, in which he tested nine samples of a beauty collection store in online celebrity and compared them with the formal clothes of the counter. Through NMR experiments, it was found that one of the eye creams was obviously different from the formal clothes of the counter.

He analyzed that for such a result, one possibility is that the version of this eye cream is different, and the other possibility is to buy a fake.

This video also caused controversy in the industry and discussion with the outside world. But in any case, this incident reflects to some extent that consumers have some doubts about the authenticity of some sample products in the new beauty collection store.

Relatively speaking, traditional beauty shops don’t have to worry about this problem.

For example, the source of Sephora is a genuine channel in the hearts of the public. It is reported that Sephora is a mid-to-high-end cosmetics retail store under LVMH (Moet Hennessy-louis vuitton Group). It cooperates with LVMH, Estee Lauder Group, L ‘Oreal Group and other large daily chemical groups in Europe, America, Japan and South Korea. Sephora in various countries directly gets the goods from the top channels of the brand in the local market, which ensures the authenticity of its products.

However, it is difficult for some new beauty collection stores in China to get the authorization from the brand directly, so they can only find other channels.

"Some of our customers were originally in the makeup business, and they have access to goods. If you need it, we can also help you connect channels." Wang Lin said.

However, what these shopkeepers and franchisees call "the channel to get goods" must be reliable?

Xiaohongshu blogger, who claims to have more than 10 years of experience in cosmetics entrepreneurship, once revealed in the video that there are two main channels for imported cosmetics.

One is the "general trade" channel, which is "basically risk-free", and the brand needs to make a general trade record, but the brand will add 21% tax point to the price of the product itself, and it is controlled by the brand, which leads to no advantage in the price of the supply.

"Medium-sized and above physical store merchants, and in the case of strict market supervision, suggest taking formal trade channels to minimize business risks." Nanmu said.

The other is the circulation channel, that is, products do not enter China through formal trade channels, and practitioners can purchase them in wholesale markets, distribution centers and websites.

There are several large cosmetic wholesale distribution centers in China, such as Xingfa Square in Guangzhou, Yifa Square, Meibo City, and Shenzhen Mingtong Cosmetics Wholesale Market, which emerged in recent two or three years. "Some big-name imported cosmetics shops in Meibo City basically do high imitation or super A goods (high-end imitations)." Nanmu said in the video.

She also introduced that most of Shenzhen Mingtong sells parallel imports. "It means that products that have not come in through formal tariff and regulatory channels, parallel imports are not equal to fakes, but it does not rule out that individual businesses are mixed and sold, or some stalls are half genuine and half fake."

Therefore, once the beauty collection store is not careful, it is possible to get fakes or parallel imports, thus facing operational risks.

In addition to the supply problem, the prices of some products in the beauty collection store have also been vomited by some users, who think that their cost performance is not high.

Little Red Book blogger "Yili Shark White" found that the price of make-up is not cheap, which is not much different from the counter. For example, a lipstick for MAC, the official price is 170 yuan, and the price of plum is 167 yuan. "It’s better to find the counter sister of MAC and draw me a European and American makeup." The blogger said.

Take Lancome Pink Water as an example. As seen in Huamei Store, the price of a single bottle is 340 yuan, while in cdf Duty Free Shop applet, the lowest price of this product is 242 yuan, and the purchasing price is generally within 300 yuan.

Figure/Price comparison between plum and cdf

As a new species, the popularity of new beauty collection stores really evokes the curiosity of young users, and at the same time, it also allows some source manufacturers to see the development potential of the collection store model, which further promotes the rise of offline beauty franchise stores.

However, in the face of the two mountains of supply capacity and price advantage, whether the new beauty collection store can successfully break the game and run out of a sustainable profit model remains to be further tested by the market.