Image source@Visual China
文 | 观潮新消费，作者 | 青翎，编辑 | 杜仲
In December this year, a group of consumers who asked for a refund or make up the price difference for the beauty instrument brand appeared on the black cat complaint platform, after they spent thousands of yuan on the e-commerce platform to buy a beauty instrument, but found that the price of the beauty instrument had dived to only a few hundred yuan before and after this year's Double 11, and the price reduction of some products was as high as 90%.
A consumer mentioned in his complaint that in 2022, "Double Eleven" scraped together a variety of full discount coupons and spent 3,580 yuan to buy a beauty instrument, but in 2023, "Double Eleven" will directly reduce the price to 699 on the official website of Douyin.
"Selling beauty devices at inflated prices, and big price reductions do not guarantee the rights and interests of consumers at all, and the first batch of consumers who buy them are fools. ”
But on the other hand, in the slowing growth of the beauty industry, beauty instruments are one of the few subdivisions that are still making great progress.
According to the Douyin list, from October 20 to October 31, 2023, among the top 10 brands in the Douyin beauty industry with cumulative GMV, the top 4-7 are all beauty device brands, and during the 618 period, according to Mojing Insight data, on the first day of Tmall "618" pre-sale in 2023, the data related to the beauty and body equipment category increased by more than 60%.
Although the 1% discount sale has hurt the hearts of many consumers, the 3% penetration rate still shows that the beauty device market is promising.
"Broken bones" are shipped, who picks whom?
It is difficult to determine who fired the first shot of the price reduction of the beauty instrument, but this year's "Double Eleven" must be the most violent stage of the "gunfire".
During the "Double Eleven" period, some netizens found that the price of the Miguang collagen cannon brought by many anchors, including Jia Nailiang, was as high as 4599 yuan, but in Sam's offline store channels, the product was only sold for 2999 yuan, and the price difference of 1600 yuan made the discussion of "yin and yang price" very loud for a while.
However, the matter was quickly clarified, Jia Nailiang's live broadcast room sold the second generation of Miguang collagen cannon, which was equivalent to various coupons, and the final price was 3679 yuan, and it came with gifts such as masks and gels, while Sam's Supermarket sold the first generation of Miguang collagen cannon, and customized products for the channel, without any gifts.
Also being criticized by consumers is the Israeli brand Tripollar Chupu. During the "Double Eleven" period, some netizens found that in the list of goods in Li Jiaqi's live broadcast room, Tripollar's two beauty instruments, "POSE VX RF Body Device" and "Desire Energy Beauty Instrument", were priced at 499 yuan, while the price of the official flagship store was between 2199-3688 yuan.
At the same time, on December 9, Tripollar's official flagship store of Chupu Douyin marked a group purchase price of 699 yuan for the hot-selling product "Miracle S RF Beauty Instrument", while the previous price of this product was 2599 yuan.
Up to now, there have been more than 200 complaints about "beauty device price reduction" on the black cat complaint platform, and the top posts are basically concentrated in December after the "Double Eleven", and most of the "malicious price reduction" complaints point to Chupu.
There are also more than 700 entries on the Xiaohongshu platform about "beauty instrument price reduction", and at the same time, "beauty instrument diving" and "beauty instrument diving price" have become highly popular search terms under the keyword "beauty instrument".
In the layers of notes, in addition to consumers who think they are "cut leeks" and try to defend their rights, there are more consumers who are waiting for the price of beauty devices to continue to drop and want to pick up a handful of "wool".
Most of the previous analysis articles pointed to the release of new industry regulations as the reason for the price reduction.
On April 12, 2023, the Center for Medical Device Technology Evaluation of the National Medical Products Administration issued the "Guiding Principles for the Registration and Review of Radio Frequency Beauty Devices" (hereinafter referred to as the "Guiding Principles"), which governs radio frequency beauty devices as Class III medical devices.
It is understood that the three types of medical devices are the highest level of medical devices, which refer to medical devices implanted in the human body to support and maintain life, and their safety and effectiveness must be strictly controlled.
According to the Guidelines, radiofrequency cosmetic devices may cause a number of adverse effects, ranging from mild pain, transient erythema, edema, to severe second-degree burns, transient skin depression, fat necrosis and lipoatrophy.
"The principle of action of the RF beauty device is invasive, and it stimulates collagen regeneration to achieve a good skin condition, which is somewhat destructive. In addition, in recent years, some RF products have indeed had some quality problems because of the parameters, and follow-up brands no longer provide after-sales service for these products, and finally they can only be sold." ”
In fact, as early as 2022, the State Drug Administration issued an announcement on adjusting the "Classification Catalogue of Medical Devices", stating that from April 1, 2024, radio frequency beauty devices will be included in the three categories of medical devices for management, and they shall not be produced, imported and sold without obtaining a medical device registration certificate in accordance with the law.
According to the government service platform of the Ministry of Science and Technology of the People's Republic of China, as of press time, only four companies, Guangdong Huazhi Beauty Technology Co., Ltd., Shunchu Yameng (Hainan) Medical Device Co., Ltd., Shenzhen Zongjiang Technology Co., Ltd. and Hangzhou Time Machine Intelligent Electronic Technology Co., Ltd., have obtained the record of clinical trials of radio frequency beauty instruments.
This means that in the remaining 4 months, in addition to YA-MAN, OGP Time Skin, FLOSSOM Huazhi, and AMIRO, the remaining RF beauty device brands will either speed up the progress to complete clinical verification and obtain filing, or clear shipments, change tracks or even withdraw from the market.
"Foreign-funded brands are more likely to panic price reductions due to regulation, especially if they can't get approval before the regulatory shutdown period, and they are more likely to panic liquidation. Of course, for some brands with no problem with their products, the price reduction will basically be within a reasonable range, and the overall profit making behavior is normal. Listen to the snow said.
Although some consumers on Xiaohongshu issued a warning: the clearance at this time just proves that the brand knows that it cannot get the record, it still can't stop the overwhelming call for recommendations and links in the comment area.
It is not yet known whether the clearance shipment can be exchanged for a "doomsday carnival" in sales, but it is certain that most of the rights protection voices on the black cat complaint have not yet been replied by the merchants.
"Beauty Tech" or "Beauty Bubble"?
The move of selling at a discount not only shocked consumers, but also made them start to think about how low the cost of beauty devices with a unit price of thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars is.
(Source: Screenshot of Xiaohongshu notes)
Different from the early face care devices that focused on the effect of face washing and massage, today's mainstream RF beauty devices claim to be able to make the RF technology at the level of beauty salons into home grade, which has become the confidence of home beauty devices to increase the unit price of customers compared with beauty salons.
Toubao Research Institute's "2022 China Household Beauty Device Industry Development Status and Trend Insights" mentioned that the prices of LED masks, EMS microcurrent face slimming devices and RF beauty instruments are mainly distributed in the range of 1,500 yuan to 5,000 yuan.
Dismantled products, the main raw materials of RF beauty instrument include NTC sensors, PCB motherboards, MCU chips, ferrites, LED lamp beads, etc., and auxiliary materials include batteries, silicone materials, titanium materials, rubber rings and ABS plastics. Among them, PCB motherboards, MCU chips and plastic shells account for about 22.22%, which is the main expenditure in raw materials.
However, according to industry insiders, the cost of raw materials for many beauty devices only accounts for about 10% of the total cost, and even with R&D, it is only 15%. Taking Yameng as an example, according to 36Kr report, Yameng's revenue in fiscal year 2022 will reach 2.08 billion yuan, and the gross profit margin will be as high as 64%.
At the same time, on the 1688 platform, many beauty instrument brands such as Zeus, Yameng, and Jimeng have the same model at low prices, ranging from tens of yuan to hundreds of yuan. In addition, according to a previous report by Zhongxin Jingwei, the retail price of some "flat" domestic beauty instruments is more than 10 times the price of the goods.
With ultra-high gross profits, the beauty instrument industry has attracted many manufacturers to come to share the pie, and "OEM sales" have also become a routine operation in the industry. In the context of the previous lack of supervision, the industry chaos is frequent, and some manufacturers even shouted "no OEM qualification, just give money".
Sun Wanying, a practitioner in the beauty industry, mentioned that there are even multiple bosses in the beauty instrument industry who jointly launch a product, and then turn one product into two by changing the packaging.
"It seems that two products are competing in the market, but in fact, there is a community of interests behind it, and the purpose is to compete for more diverse consumers. ”
This pseudo-innovation of "changing the soup but not the medicine" also shows that under the general trend of involution in the industry, the technological innovation of beauty instruments has begun to fall into a bottleneck.
Although the slogan of "bringing the beauty salon into the home" is used for home beauty devices, their power is significantly limited compared to theatrical products, so it is difficult to make significant differentiation in terms of efficacy.
In addition, as far as the RF beauty device itself is concerned, there is also a mismatch between products and consumer demand.
"This kind of instrument requires consumers to apply gel every day, which is very inconvenient and gradually idle; there will be no effect if not used, and if you don't see the effect, there will be IQ tax questions, which are all problems with product design. Listening to Xue explained, "Basically, it can't go up to the scale of about 10 billion." ”
Sun Wanying also put forward her own market insights, "The frequency of use at each age group and what kind of products to use are very particular, and some consumers do not understand, such as directly replacing them with their own skin care products when the gel runs out, but those skin care products may contain alcohol, which will cause skin allergies." ”
In her opinion, the intensification of competition in the past two years has also led to more sales-oriented brands, "The brand is too wolf-like, they are in a hurry to ship and do marketing, but they rarely tell consumers the correct way to use beauty devices." ”
At the same time, the brand's neglect of R&D has also exacerbated the evolution of involution. Some Xiaohongshu skin care bloggers mentioned that even the top brands in terms of sales have R&D expenses of less than 2%, and marketing expenses of more than 40%. Yameng, who is the leader, will only account for 1% of its R&D expenses in 2021, while its sales expenses will be nearly 5%.
"The speed of product iteration makes it difficult to make revolutionary innovations, resulting in price becoming the only means of competition, and price wars will follow. As long as someone takes the lead in lowering prices, other brands are bound to get involved. Sun Wanying said.
Look for the next growth point
Although the price reduction trend has impacted the high-end mentality of beauty devices, and many consumers have threatened to continue to squat at low prices, this does not mean that the industry will inevitably slide into the whirlpool of low prices.
As a household appliance with a risk of use, the key for consumers to buy beauty devices is not the price but safety.
This also means that it will be difficult for the industry to reshuffle because of this round of price cuts.
As an innovative player in the field of beauty and health, the journey of home beauty devices in China can be traced back to 2013, when the Swedish brand FOREO set off a category boom in China with its facial cleansing device products.
In 2015, a number of high-end overseas beauty device brands of RF entered China at the same time, jointly broadening the awareness of domestic consumers about the efficacy of beauty devices. At the same time, factors such as the lack of standards and differences in technical levels have also made beauty devices suffer from doubts about product safety and "IQ tax" in the competition.
Despite the controversy, the beauty device was fortunate to catch up with the era of "effective skin care", consumers' pursuit of strong efficacy has made skin care and medical beauty increasingly close, the light medical beauty market has been ignited, and technologies such as Thermage, photorejuvenation, and skin boosters have quickly become popular.
With the beginning of the epidemic, "home beauty care" has become a competitive alternative to light medical beauty, and the home beauty device market has jumped rapidly, and the previously relatively unpopular photon, laser, microcurrent and other technologies have gradually been understood by more consumers.
With the help of existing consumer awareness and the attention of investment institutions, domestic beauty instrument brands have risen rapidly after 2020, according to incomplete statistics, from 2021 to 2023, there will be at least 15 financing events in the beauty instrument market.
At the same time, domestic brands have also begun to catch up with overseas brands in terms of sales data and brand voice. In the 2023 Tmall "Double Eleven" full-cycle sales list, domestic brands Miguang and Huazhi ranked first and third respectively, and the list released by Qingyan Intelligence shows that during the 618 period this year, Jimeng and Miguang both advanced to the top three of the top 20 brands in the Douyin beauty instrument category.
Nowadays, the leading domestic brands are not only on an equal footing with imported brands in terms of sales, but also no longer stick to the low-end line layout in terms of price, and the technical differences are gradually smoothing out.
However, the rising new customer base is not the confidence of beauty device brands, whether it is domestic or imported.
The first problem in front of us is repurchase, as a subdivision of household appliances, the unit price of beauty instruments is high but the loss rate is low, and the repurchase attribute is weak, in Sun Wanying's view, the future growth space of the beauty instrument industry needs to be supported by "beauty instrument + skin care products".
"Through the superposition of instruments + skin care products, to create a better skin effect, the brand can have a source of continuous repurchase, and then create greater profit margins. ”
The second problem is supervision, with the RF beauty instrument included in the three types of license management category, the future adjustment of the RF beauty instrument industry has been on the way;
For example, optical beauty instruments, it is understood that optical technology was initially applied to the medical field, and then gradually migrated to the beauty care scene. In recent years, new breakthroughs have been made in light technology, and the gradual replacement of traditional LED bulbs by chips has provided support for product innovation.
According to the "2023 LED Beauty Device Industry Trend White Paper", in the sales of Tmall Taobao home beauty devices in 2023, the sales growth rate of LED beauty devices is as high as 1619%, and that of RF beauty devices is 55%. In fact, LED beauty devices are becoming the new favorite of the industry after RF beauty devices.
However, under the current regulatory situation, manufacturers without relevant accumulation have rashly transformed across fields, and there are both technical thresholds and cognitive barriers.
In Tingxue's view, optical beauty care is a representative field driven by science and technology, if the brand in the lack of technical product accumulation, and do not understand the industry policy rashly enter the game, it is also not fully learned the lessons of RF at that time.
Judging from the current trend of domestic mainstream optical brands, R&D strength has become the core competitive barrier in the field.
Ulike, who has created a large hair removal device, has been deeply engaged in the field of optics for ten years, and has joined forces with Michael Hambling, known as the "father of modern light therapy", to carry out production and research cooperation, and will launch beauty mask products in 2023.
According to industry insiders, during the 618 period in 2023, the brand in this category has set a sales record of more than 50 million yuan in the live broadcast room.
Keshijia, which has been focusing on the field of optics for more than 20 years, pays more attention to the construction of industrial advantages. For example, the core technology of the recently launched new product with the function of strengthening the abdomen and shaping function is red and green light, which acts to speed up the metabolism of fat cells. At present, Keshijia has formed a closed-loop link from phototherapy technology to medical-grade factories, so as to raise the industrial threshold.
With the intensification of competition, the professionalism of the beauty instrument track will become stronger and stronger. Therefore, whether it is to open a by-product line or enter a new track, it is the idea of beauty instrument to seek the next growth point in the fierce homogenization competition.
"Cosmetics, beauty devices, and medical beauty are not mutually exclusive, but complementary. In the future, beauty devices will gradually expand to beauty and body. Listen to the snow said.
Perhaps in the longer term, beauty device brands will not be limited to the field of beauty care, but will continue to extend to a deeper and broader health track.
"Either refund the difference, or return the product for a refund. ”