More than a year ago, Hailan Home created the familiar slogan: "Men visit twice a year", but in the past two years, the slogan of Hailan Home has quietly become "men's wardrobe". The slogans of
are so silky and have no sense of incongruity because visiting clothing stores twice a year can no longer meet the needs of men to improve their personal image.
The increasing consumption of men's personal image is a major phenomenon under the wave of "consumption upgrade". In addition to clothing, the beauty and skin care, hairdressing and beauty markets have further subdivided men's brands. Relevant reports show that more than 60% of Chinese men have a tendency to actively improve their appearance, and the market size of the Chinese men's beauty market in 2021 reached 18 billion yuan.
In 2019, the beauty industry reported on the "gravity" of men's beauty brand. With the help of consumption upgrades and service segmentation, the gravity was preparing for the expansion of brand at that time. However, after experiencing the impact of the epidemic, most brands, including gravity, are facing a situation of contraction or stagnation. Is the men's beauty segment still a blue ocean full of imagination? Where should the future go?
shrink or expansion? Different "wintering" methods
"Overall, the impact is quite great." Zhu Hongjun, founder of Gravity brand, admitted that the service industry has entered a cold winter under the epidemic, and Gravity's expansion plan has been affected, and even the most basic revenue has just begun to recover.
In 2019, Zhu Hongjun was preparing for his second store with great enthusiasm, but the new store was closed after a year of maintenance. Even the old store has been actively supporting the company after the launch of the brand for the 4th anniversary in the second half of this year, which has brought performance back to the same level three years ago.
The male skin management brand "Nantian" founded at the same time as Gravity, encountered a situation similar to Gravity. At the beginning of the brand’s establishment, founder Chen Quanbin set a goal to reach 10 stores by 2022, but after opening the third store in 2020, the brand entered a stage of conservative and steady development. The main reason why
did not choose to expand is that both customer flow and in-store rate have declined. The brand advocates that members arrive at the store 3 to 4 times a month, but the average arrival rate in the past two years is far from reaching 3 times.
As a brand that focuses on hair removal , BF's boyfriend power once proud also suffered a setback in the past two years. Brand founder Jiang Di told Meiye New Latitude that the number of customers received by a single store in a single day is only half of that of its prosperous period.
Faced with the market that has not yet fully recovered, Gravity and Nata chose to develop stably and conservatively, concentrating all resources to serve existing customers, but BF's boyfriend decided to "do the opposite way" and look for opportunities to expand by themselves when most brands tend to be conservative. Jiang Di introduced that although revenue has declined in the past two years, rent and labor costs have also been reduced by 20 to 30%. Moreover, with the shrinking of other beauty brands, more talents have flocked to the market, and the recruitment efficiency has improved compared to before.
The epidemic is a test and an opportunity. Now there is more time and energy to cultivate employees' service capabilities and professional skills, which is more beneficial in the long run.
As a direct chain brand that has been deeply rooted in the Beijing market, BF Boyfriend Power plans to continuously optimize the talent structure based on revenue and expenditure, enhance the comprehensive strength of the store, and prepare for the preparation of a new store.
After the epidemic, the market still needs to mature
In 2019, Gravity has accumulated more than 300 members less than a year since its establishment, including Du Haitao and other public figures. Zhu Hongjun is full of confidence and also launched the fat-reducing shaping service based on the actual needs of customers, and plans to verify the model in first-tier cities such as Beijing and Shanghai, and then sink to second- and third-tier cities.
gravity store
However, since 2020, the repeated invasion of the epidemic has brought the most direct and severe blow to the beauty industry.
Zhu Hongjun said that the epidemic first affected customers' income and consumption confidence, and they took the initiative to reduce beauty consumption; secondly, travel was restricted, and many customers who travel more frequently could not arrive at the store in a stable cycle.
However, judging from the overall development of the men's beauty market, the core factor that led to the downturn in business is not the epidemic, but the immature industries and consumers.
Zhu Hongjun and Chen Quanbin both believe that before the epidemic, the male consumer market was in a stage of rapid development, but a large-scale customer base has not been cultivated, and the market's awareness and acceptance of male beauty is far from mature enough.
A very typical example is that the skin management center, mainly female customers, regularly holds offline themed activities. On the one hand, it maintains the stickiness of members, and on the other hand, it is accurate to acquire customers through members' social networks. However, it is difficult for male beauty institutions to acquire customers through offline activities. "After all, men will not share their skin care experience when they meet," said Chen Quanbin. "In traditional Chinese culture and aesthetics, it is still a bit strange for men to do beauty."
Zhu Hongjun and Chen Quanbin's idea of establishing a male beauty brand both appeared after encountering strange eyes from female beauticians and customers in the beauty salon.
It has to be said that their brave attempts have been successful. Euromonitor once estimated that from 2016 to 2019, the average annual growth rate of retail sales in the men's skin care and cosmetics market in mainland China was more than twice the world's globally. Especially after male beauty bloggers and Gen Z men began to have the ability to consume, this trend will further intensify.
Although the industry has contracted at present, Gravity and Mada are still optimistic about the male beauty market. When the market environment tends to stabilize, they will restart their expansion plans.
Unavoidable competition in the blue ocean market
In the view of operators, the male beauty market is still in the pioneering stage, consumer perception still needs education, and the market still needs to mature, but in media articles and data from tripartite platforms and research institutions, male beauty has entered a period of rapid development.
4 data provided by Meituan to Meiye New Latitude shows that since 2022, the search volume related to "men's beauty" service has increased by 92% year-on-year, of which the search volume for men's hair removal is nearly twice that of men's beauty; the number of group purchase orders has also increased by 84% year-on-year. With the popularization and specialization of men's beauty demand, this sub-industry is still showing a steady upward trend in terms of population penetration and consumption volume.
Male users open the Meituan and Dianping App. The home page has an exclusive "Hairdress/Men" channel, and female users see the "Beauty" channel after opening it. The Men's Beauty Channel focuses on hair care, facial care, body care and other services. In recent years, more personalized and refined men's exclusive services can be found on the Internet platform. For example, American retro barbershop has quickly appeared in the new hair salon service format.
In addition to life beauty institutions, in the field of medical beauty , male users have also become the rising new generation of consumption forces. Relevant data shows that in the field of light medical beauty , the current proportion of male users has exceeded 20%, and is still increasing year by year.
But Jiang Di believes that the media's excessive packaging of the male beauty market and the male beauty economy has attracted some people to enter the market blindly, and these people lack the ability and experience of brand operations and can only rely on low prices to compete, which ultimately leads to the industry falling into internal friction and vicious competition.
0 years ago, Jiang Di worked in medical beauty in South Korea. After returning to China to start a business, he planned to make BF boyfriend a professional brand, so he made a key investment in instruments and equipment.
BF Boyfriend Li has currently opened self-operated stores in key business districts such as Zhongguancun , Shuangjing , Wangjing , and each store has been continuously updated and replaced. Jiang Di revealed that in order to pursue better service effects and user experience, in the past two years, the operating cost of of BF boyfriend Li’s store has been continuously increasing.
BF Boyfriend Li Store
However, after a batch of new brands were established one after another, by purchasing low-priced instruments and equipment, most of the money was spent on buying traffic, and selling traffic items at extremely low prices, snatching away the already insufficient male passenger flow.
Jiang Di believes that these brands lack service capabilities and the more customers they take away by low prices, the greater the impact it will cause on the industry. Some professional brands already bear very high rental, labor and equipment costs. When low-price competition comes, they also need to increase investment in acquiring customers and attracting traffic. "Low-price competition hurts not only the opponent, but also the development of oneself and customers, as well as the development of this industry."
Chen Quanbin remembers that when Naotian was founded, he could not find any male beauty brands on the Meituan platform, but now more than 20 brands have participated in the competition. Moreover, Meituan also attaches enough importance to the service experience of male users and has set up a "Hairdress/Men" channel, which concentrates hair style care, facial care, body care and other services.
"Non-field does not rely on price competition. We provide customers with services that meet expectations and meet needs, rather than low-price services." Chen Quanbin believes that low-price competition will divert customers, but it is also a screening mechanism to preserve those customers who truly value the brand and service effect.
Zhu Hongjun's view is that as an early high-end brand, Gravity can shrink the store size, but it will definitely not reduce the service quality and customer unit price, and it will continue to evolve towards professionalism and continue to attract high-net-worth customers.
There is a "28 rule" in any industry. Brands that focus on traffic strategies can only occupy 20% of the market, while brands that study quality and service are destined to take the difficult and correct path and ultimately win 80% of the market share.
3 major advantages, men's beauty will be positive in the future
The proportion of men who choose to go to professional beauty institutions is low, and men's beauty institutions have a very low ceiling in terms of customer volume; on the other hand, men's beauty services tend to solve skin problems. When the problem is solved, how to develop new needs is also a difficulty faced by institutions.
However, the advantages of male beauty are also obvious. In addition to the objective factor that young men are investing more and more in image improvement, they also have the following advantages:
First of all, the competitive pressure is less. Since male customers have no experience in beauty treatment, they will not compare services, environment, and prices. As long as the store’s prices, services and effects meet their expectations, customers will stay.
Gravity, Nada, and BF boyfriend power all regard the Meituan platform as the main battlefield for brand marketing. The latter exposed many stores to male users with beauty needs, thereby improving the brand's conversion efficiency.
"From exposure to browsing, and then to final conversion, a 30% conversion rate can be achieved." Jiang Di said that this year the brand signed a model spokesperson and continued to upgrade its brand image.
The second is that it is easy to achieve results. Men have relatively concentrated skin problems. Stores can develop products around the needs of acne removal, oil control, cleaning, etc. to improve their service effectiveness.
On the Meituan platform, users' praise is also focused on the effect and experience, which can undoubtedly inspire more men to solve their skin problems.
Finally, the industry is in full swing, and every brand has plenty of room for exploration. Although is inevitable to step on pitfalls during the exploration process, the market environment allows you to climb out and continue moving forward.
Meituan's previously released "2020 China Life Beauty Industry Development Report" shows that men's share of beauty consumers has increased rapidly, accounting for 27% in 2020, especially men of Generation Z, who have a higher acceptance of beauty, beauty and medical beauty and have higher consumption capacity.
Nonda chose to vertically achieve market segmentation and service to the extreme. Currently, male customers account for 100%, and all services are concentrated on the face. It is a veritable "male skin management professional brand".
Simple skin management means lower profits, but Chen Quanbin’s idea is to provide customers with the most professional skin management services, and then rely on landing in more stores to increase revenue and profits.
Gravity starts from skin management, and provides customers with fat reduction and shaping, men's health management and other services.
The core business of gravity is to adhere to high-quality skin management services, accumulate customers through high-quality services, increase stickiness, and at the same time explore value in medical beauty, health management and other fields.
BF boyfriend power has become a business card in the local male hair removal market in Beijing, but as hair removal efficiency and experience get better and better, customers after "hair loss" are facing a crisis.
In order to maintain customer stickiness, BF's boyfriend has been working hard to develop a skin management product line in the past two years, and is committed to becoming a brand that can solve various problems such as hair and skin and provide comprehensive image management services for men.
For men's beauty, the epidemic is a real pause button. When the impact of the epidemic dissipates and returns to high-speed growth, competition will further intensify.
As the three respondents said, the epidemic has damaged business, but it can also slow down yourself and think more about the future direction of the industry and the brand's development strategy, so as to seize the opportunity in time and turn the first-mover advantage into a winning trend.
