By: Nine
Women, children, dogs, men ......
From the perspective of this consumer chain, the value of the economy represented by cosmetics undoubtedly stands at the top of the consumer chain. And Maotai as a man's last face bear, in recent years by more and more "women's economy" of the siege.
In "Guizhou Maotai meets rivals from Shandong! Recently, Bethanie from Yunnan Province landed on the A-share market with its functional skincare products, once again hammering its Guizhou brothers next door.
The rise of the national product
For a long time, in the whole "big cosmetics" track, the domestic consumption growth rate is very fast, but it is basically difficult to see the figure of the national brand.
Skin care products are basically Lancome, Estee Lauder, Shiseido and other international brands, medical beauty industry has long been occupied by South Korea, Europe and the United States and other brands.
In the past two years, with the listing of Huaxi Bio, Aimer and Bethanie, it is clear that the national products have been on the rise.
Founded in 2010, Bethanie, mainly focusing on dermatology grade functional skin care products, that is, for skin problems with a certain therapeutic role of the importance of rational skin care products, as opposed to the ordinary skin care products have a certain medication ingredients.
Bethenny's main brand, Winona, was mainly shopped in drugstore channels in the early days. The internationally renowned functional skincare brands Avène, Skin Spa, etc. have laid out the department store counters in first and second-tier cities. Perhaps it is this foreign brands of high-profile, domestic cosmetic brands have long been suppressed.
Ten years, Bethenny in the functional skin care products this sub-track to realize the bend. For five years, dermatology-grade skincare products were clear of international brands such as Avène, Weizi, Skin Spa, etc., but as of 2019, Winona's omni-channel sales have been far away from international brands.
According to Euromonitor's statistics, Winona ranked No. 1 in China's dermatology-grade skincare market in 2019, with a market share of about 20.54% in retail sales. For 3 consecutive years, Winona has been on the Tmall Double Eleven beauty brand TOP10 list, a national brand in a segment, accounting for more than 1/5 of the market share, which has never been seen in the entire beauty and makeup track.
In recent years, it is also the rise of national brands such as Winona, Yuze, etc., so that many people exclaimed that the era of national products.
From "medicine" to "makeup"
Functional skincare products, somewhat similar to "medicine". There's both "medicine" and "makeup" in it.
Guo Zhenyu, the founder of Bethenny, was the chairman of Dianhong Pharmaceuticals, leading the famous dermatology over-the-counter brand "Kang Wang". It is reported that during his tenure, Dianhong's revenue went from 190 million yuan in 2002 to more than 1 billion yuan in 2013.
Perhaps inspired by the success of Kangwang, Winona, as a skincare product, is not commonly labeled as "whitening" or "moisturizing" in almost all publicity channels. It is a skincare product that is not labeled as "whitening" or "moisturizing" in almost all promotional channels. Instead, Winona focuses on sensitive skin and focuses on the concept of "repair".
From the positioning point of view, Winona is more important to the "medicine" ingredients and professional doctor's approval. It has invited many famous doctors to be its guests on Tmall Live, such as Prof. Liang Hong, Director of Medical Cosmetology Department of People's Hospital of Wuhan University, and Prof. He Li, Director of Dermatology Department of the First Affiliated Hospital of Kunming University of Medical Science and Technology, and so on.
From the perspective of regulatory approval, ordinary cosmetics are managed under a filing system, and the cycle is generally 15 days-3 months; while special categories of cosmetics are managed under a registration system, which generally requires the approval of medical experts and adherence to clinical verification, with a cycle of 6-12 months. Functional skin care products, although there is no hyaluronic acid as strict as the registration of Class III medical devices, but the industry barriers are much higher than ordinary cosmetics.
Industry barriers are also reflected in the ability to make money.
Cosmetics are inherently profiteering industries, and Bethenny's ability to make money is significantly higher than the average cosmetic company. According to the prospectus, 2017-2019 and 2020H1, the comprehensive gross profit margin was as high as 81.28%, 81.16%, 80.22% and 81.96% respectively. And most of the gross profit margins of companies in the same industry are in the 50-60 percent.
On March 25, the much-anticipated IPO listing of Bethenny, the day of the opening of the market soared 272%, with a market value of more than 70 billion yuan on the top of the list of A-share skincare companies.
If ordinary skincare is a mystery, then the functional skincare is probably in the mystery of adding some of the ingredients of science and technology. It is also the content of technology that makes Bethenny in front of a number of skin care companies, proud of the group.
The two hurdles
The rapid development of the face value economy, the market share of the industry's first, the product has a sense of technology, ultra-high gross margins, these factors are superimposed, so that many people once again shouted, "medicine thatched" to attack.
Can we really do what we want? It may be necessary to cross two hurdles.
The first hurdle, how to get rid of the product life cycle circle.
In the last 20 years, China's "big beauty" industry has experienced many rounds of channel and product wars.
Channel, at the beginning of the century, small nurses rely on offline channels quickly to the country, although later acquired by L'Oreal, but also in the channel competition is dwindling. The defeat of offline stores is the rise of the Internet, the era of e-commerce, Aves essential oil, Royal Mud Square, etc. on the flow of the wind, and quickly occupy the market.
From the product form, basically every 3-5 years, there will be a round of product category war. For example, first there is a skin care set of the bonus period, but also the achievement of Innisfree's prevalence; and then there has been a mask war, lipstick war, essence war, and so on.
The girl's money is the best to earn, but not good to continue to earn. If you don't pay attention, you may be drowned in the dust of history. Functional skin care products are now developing rapidly, the future can get rid of the product life cycle, is the primary test of its ability to rank with Maotai.
After all, after the functional skin care products, oral beauty, medical beauty, health and so on is not a good.
The second hurdle is the contradiction between the technological properties of the product and the decline in R&D investment year after year.
Compared to ordinary skincare products, functional skincare products are more concerned about the composition and efficacy, as long as the relationship with the drug, must have added a bit of scientific and technological attributes.
The data show that as of June 2020, Bethanie has 46 valid patents in the territory, and mastered 11 core technologies, in the use of amaranth, green prickly fruit, Dian camellia and other highland characteristics of the plant extracts of the active ingredients in the preparation of sensitive skin care products have a strong technical advantage.
However, from the breakdown of research and development expenses, during the period of January-June 2017-2019 and 2020, Bethanie's research and development expenses were 28,917,500 yuan, 46,012,700 yuan, 54,109,100 yuan, and 25,528,700 yuan, accounting for the proportion of operating income of 3.62%, 3.71%, 2.78%, and 2.71%, respectively.
R & D intensity does not seem low, but on one side of the R & D proportion of the decline, the other side is the period of the proportion of sales costs gradually increased. To go "heavy marketing, light R & D" of the old road?
In addition, along with the upgrade of the entire cosmetic track, consumers for the use of the effect of the cognitive gradually rise, rational consumption will be stronger and stronger, for the product research and development requirements must be higher and higher.
After these two hurdles, Bethenny, as the industry leader in the product side of the basic can not be nitpicked point. The only thing left to do is to do a good job in the integration of online and offline channels, in the anti-aging and anti-aging aspects of the continued promotion of such basic work.
Bei Taini has become the industry leader, there are comparable to Maotai's backbone. But the listing is just the beginning, but also need to continue to promote the development of the industry, bigger and stronger themselves, have the bottom line than Maotai.
National products when self-improvement!