Reporter | Song Ci
At the moment when social media and online shopping are popular, learning about makeup and planting grass-recommended products from beauty bloggers has become one of the important ways for emerging Chinese consumers to recognize and choose cosmetics.
This seems to mean that beauty consumers are beginning to rely less on the reality of "couple brothers and sisters" - the commonly used name of Chinese consumers for counter beauty consultants (BA or BC) - to make beauty consumption decisions.
However, the reality seems to be different. "In our 2018 survey, we found that when Chinese consumers make decisions on skin care and makeup products, the influence of beauty consultants is second only to family, friends and experts." Jin Qiaoying, director of beauty and personal care research at Mintel, market research institution, told Interface News that people's recognition and trust in beauty consultants are even higher than that of Internet celebrities and celebrities.
Although e-commerce has diverted a lot of beauty consumers, cosmetic companies and offline retailers have never ignored the role of beauty consultants in both China and overseas markets.
In Japan, which attaches importance to the professionalism of beauty consultants, Kao Group's cosmetics company Jialibao (KANEBO), has held a global beauty competition since 2006. The event provides a platform for beauty consultants in the market where Jialibao is located to exchange skills, quality and ability improvement; Macy's added 1,000 beauty consultants in stores in the United States in 2018 to strengthen their beauty business; L'Oreal Group followed the trend of social media marketing and opened a counter "BA Internet celebrity" project in the Chinese market in 2016.
"For beauty consultants in shopping malls and specialty stores, the most important thing is experience and technology." At the Garibo Global Beauty Competition held in Japan on May 21, Yuta Murakami, the president of Garibo Cosmetics Cosmetics Cosmetics, told Interface News and other media. According to Jialibao, in the highly valued Chinese market, the company is constantly strengthening the service level of beauty consultants. In this competition, there were 5 Chinese beauty consultants participating, with the largest number of people in overseas countries (except Japan). Among them, Wang Xiaolu from the Zhongshan Ocean Department Store in Wuhan won the runner-up of the overseas department, and she only joined Jialibao for one year.
Japanese cosmetics companies have rich experience in training beauty consultants, and their abilities are judging their makeup knowledge, professional skills, service level and other aspects. In the process of continuously expanding the Chinese market, Japanese brands can input more professional beauty service technologies and concepts into the Chinese beauty industry.
"Overall, the training of beauty consultants in China is not very good, and there is a lack of certain industry standards and specifications." Jin Qiaoying believes that in comparison, Japanese beauty consultants have more advantages in terms of professional skills and industry knowledge.
This is actually inseparable from the improvement of professional standards and training standards in the Japanese beauty industry. Japanese fashion industry practitioner Risa Miyaguchi told Interface News that Japanese beauty consulting positions generally require rigorous training and obtain the "Japanese Chemical Products Certificate" certificate of "Japanese Chemical Products Certificate" from the "Japanese Chemical Products Certificate Association", learn cosmetic ingredients, names, history, laws and regulations, and even dermatology knowledge, as well as personalized design and matching for different consumers. In addition, different brands also have their own unique employee training systems and characteristics.
Beauty consultants who have professional knowledge and can provide responses to skin problems are indeed more trusted and loved by consumers. A survey conducted by Mintel on Chinese consumers in 2018 showed that "For the value of BA, consumers are eager to hear appropriate suggestions for skin problems, followed by recommendations of products suitable for them. This information is more closely related to consumers and can arouse their interest. In addition, ingredient information, brand advantages and skilled makeup techniques are all services that add icing on the cake."
For beauty brands who want to gain more market share in the Chinese market, improving the service capabilities of beauty consultants will also help attract the newly emerging consumer group - "small town youth".
Even if e-commerce is popular and live broadcasts are popular, the low-tier markets of third- and fourth-tier cities and market towns still retain more of the characteristics of China's "acquaintance society" than first-tier cities."In the low-tier market, BAs have a closer relationship with consumers. They are closer to consumers and more like friends." Jin Qiaoying found that the low-tier market has a stronger demand for beauty consultants.
In fact, the role of beauty consultant in the brand's offline channels is still quite important. Against the backdrop of slowing down online channel growth and the growth of offline channels such as cosmetics stores, offline store "beauty consultants" are an important intermediary for brands to strengthen direct communication with consumers and improve consumer experience.
"The advantage of counter service is to communicate face to face with customers, provide personal services, and help consumers improve their makeup skills step by step, which is not available online." Kong Lei, a beauty consultant from Jialibao Global Makeup Competition China Shanghai Division and a beauty consultant from Meiluocheng Kekaijialai, told Interface News that offline competition is about service, beauty technology and service attitude towards consumers.
Jialibao China's improvement of beauty consultant service capabilities also reflects their importance to the Chinese market from one perspective.
The Jialibao brand from Tokyo, Japan has been established for more than a hundred years and has been involved in the cosmetics field for more than 60 years. It was once the third largest cosmetics company in Japan. In 1987, Jialibao entered the Chinese market and was acquired by Kao in 2006, becoming one of the five cosmetics businesses of Kao Group. Jialibao owns many brands such as SENSAI, KANEBO, KATE, and freeplus. Currently, the Chinese market focuses on the mass brands KATE and freeplus.
At present, whether from the consumption environment of Japanese makeup in the Chinese market or the strategic adjustment of Kao Group's cosmetics business, Jialibao has ushered in a period of development opportunities.
Before 2015, Kao China's cosmetics business was in a loss-making state and did not really improve until 2017. This is largely due to the increase in awareness and preferences of Chinese consumers about Japanese makeup in recent years, as well as the significant increase in tourists to Japan continuing to purchase Japanese makeup products after returning to China. Subsequently, Kao began to significantly adjust its global brand portfolio in 2018 and accelerate the development of high-end cosmetics in the Chinese market.
Jialibao Company is the focus of Kao Group's cosmetics business brand and strategy restructuring. In Kao's new global brand portfolio, brands such as SENSAI, SUQQU, KANEBO, KATE, and freeplus under Kao are all strategic brands around the world. While strengthening investment in key brands, Kao also plans to eliminate brands with weak growth, among which about 20 brands such as "DADA" and "RAPHAIE" under Kao will stop selling in stages in the next few years.
Under the strategy of Kao Group to expand its high-end skin care product line in China, Kalibao will introduce high-end brands into China starting next year. According to the previously announced news, Jialibao plans to introduce the super-high-end brand "SENSAI" to China in 2020, and consider introducing the high-end skin care brand "KANEBO" to the Chinese market after 2022. In this regard, Yuta Murakami told Interface News that this is related to the rapid growth of high-priced high-end brands (with high value-added) in the Chinese cosmetics market.
At present, the sales of Kao cosmetics business, which Jialibao belongs to, has maintained growth and has driven the group's performance. According to the 2018 financial report, Kao Group's sales increased by 1.2% to 15.1 trillion yen (about 92.15 billion yuan), of which the performance of the cosmetics sector increased by 5% to 279.6 billion yen (about 17.06 billion yuan), and freeplus and Curél drove the growth rate in Asia to 36.6%. In the financial report, which mentions future performance, Kao expects sales in its cosmetics division to grow by 4.5% in 2019 to reach 290 billion yen (about 17.7 billion yuan).
In the recent release of its first quarter 2019 financial report, Kao's cosmetics business also continued to grow, and the Asian market led by China has achieved significant growth. In addition to strengthening key strategic brands, Kao will also strengthen its capabilities in e-commerce operations and digital marketing.
In the offline service experience represented by "beauty consultants", as Jialibao's high-end brands are about to enter China, digital and intelligent technologies will also be integrated into offline services. According to Jialibao, SENSAI will conduct skin testing for users through its independently developed beauty analyzer in offline consumer consulting services in Japan, and provide beauty problem solutions in combination with test reports.This technology is also expected to be introduced into China in the future.
Estee Lauder has also made similar attempts. At the end of 2017, Estee Lauder, which has 17,000 beauty consultants worldwide, joined hands with Perfect Corp, a developer of Taiwan’s beauty digital technology app in China, to launch an augmented reality (AR) beauty training live course to enhance the service capabilities of its beauty consultants.
"The introduction of smart technology equipment can weaken the ability differences between beauty consultants and help the Chinese beauty industry solve the problem of insufficient training." Jin Qiaoying said.
In addition, under the trend of online and offline integration, beauty consultants are also actively expanding their influence in the social media field. Similar to the exploration of L'Oreal Group's "BA Internet Celebrity", many cosmetics companies also encourage their beauty consultants to accumulate online fans. For example, some beauty consultants under Jialibao have begun to actively form various member groups and use social networks to expand their customer base.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-