On September 30, the company announced that the products were removed from the shelves in the online official stores of multiple e-commerce platforms. The official mini program of Meiyi also issued an announcement on the closure of the store on the same day, announcing that the official store of Meiyi will be closed on October 30.
△ Announcement of the closure of the Meijie Mini Program
It was the first stock of facial mask listed in China
Xiaoxiang Morning News · chili financial reporter combed and found that at present, the official flagship store of Meiji Tmall and the Meiji Douyin skin care flagship store are no longer searchable, and all the products in the self-operated flagship store of Meiji Jingdong have been removed from the shelves. The official public account of Meiji, the update time stayed on July 31 this year, and there was no update after that.
Diagram. Source: Visual China
According to the customer service of the store on the relevant e-commerce platform, the official sales channel of the Meiyi brand will stop placing orders from September 30. Users can continue to purchase products through offline channels. For example, Watsons and the following retail channels: Prismson, Guerlain Beauty, Sino Beauty, Zeyan Beauty, Zhou Tian Famous Makeup, Baoding Dongda, Jin Meng Makeup, Hatta Day, Xichang Huatai, Putian Domestic Products, Pure Beauty Space, Airport Beauty.
Founded in 2003, Magic Mask has pioneered the creation of a new mask sales model of "affordable mask + single sheet sales". It redefines the FMCG attributes of mask products, turning mask into a fashion beauty FMCG product.
And "catching up" Watsons may be one of the reasons for the rapid development of Meiji's offline channels. According to public information, in 2005, Meiji entered Watsons, and in 2007, Meiji became the No. 1 selling product in Watsons' mask category.
In 2010, Meiji was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and became the first listed stock of facial mask in China. In 2012, Magic Mask reached its historical peak, accounting for 26.4% of the domestic market share and sales of more than 1 billion yuan. In 2013, the retail sales of Magic in the Watsons channel reached 470 million yuan, contributing 70% to the total sales of Magic Mask.
Acquired by L'Oréal
Online performance has been poor in recent years
In 2013, the limelight was favored by the international beauty giant L'Oreal Group, which wholly acquired the company for 6.538 billion Hong Kong dollars (equivalent to about 5.433 billion yuan) and incorporated it into the mass cosmetics department, which was also the highest amount of foreign acquisition of Chinese daily chemical brands at that time. In 2014, Meiji was delisted from the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and officially became a member of L'Oréal.
Diagram. Source: Visual China
In August 2016, L'Oreal's financial report disclosed the performance of Meiji, with an impairment loss of 213 million euros (about 1.667 billion yuan) in the first half of the fiscal year of 2016.
In 2014, L'Oréal China R&D Center set up the "Miracle Mask Research Center" and launched a fresh-injected mask, which prompted Miracle to achieve double-digit growth in 2017, but the market share of Miracle Mask fell out of the top six.
In 2018, the United States was completely removed from Watsons. L'Oréal responded at the time that Midea's withdrawal from Watsons was a strategic decision of the brand, that is, to take e-commerce as the main channel of the brand. The whitening milk skin mask launched in the first half of 2019 once ranked TOP1 on Tmall whitening mask; The SOS first-aid gauze mask, which was launched in December 2019, rushed into the TOP2 of Tmall repair mask when it was launched.
According to a report by Beauty.com, Meiji closed its online flagship store, perhaps because of its poor online performance in recent years. Feigua data shows that in the first half of 2024, the GMV of Meiji Douyin will be 10-250,000 yuan, ranking 4176 in Douyin beauty. In the past few years, its performance on Douyin has also been unsatisfactory. From 2021 to 2023, its Douyin GMV will be 100-2.5 million yuan, 500-7.5 million yuan, and 2.50-5 million yuan respectively, ranking outside the top 1,000. In the context of the annual GMV of Douyin, the star product of the current head beauty brand, often exceeding 100 million yuan and 1 billion yuan, the sales of Meiji are slightly sluggish.
In addition, the latest filing of Meiji is still stuck on September 15, 2023, and there are two filing data on that day: Pure Cleansing Cleanser and Fresh Injection Hyaluronic Acid Moisturizing Ampoule Mask. From 2020 to 2023, the filing data of Meiyi will be 14, 28, 16, and 7 respectively. It can be seen that in addition to being more active in the new products in 2021, the United States does not seem to have much expectations for the market, and until 2024, there will be no new product launches.
Source: Xiaoxiang Morning News