Guide to Entering China’s Cosmetics Market

Chinese cosmetics market during the Covid-19 pandemic

A sudden epidemic has caused an impact on the overall consumer goods and retail industries. The cosmetics industry is affected by factors such as home isolation and restrictive offline retail channels. The Chinese cosmetics market has seen a sharp decline at the beginning of the Covid-19. However, as China’s epidemic prevention and control have gradually improved and taken effect, the offline cosmetic market restarts and consumer confidence has gradually recovered. Moreover, online retail sales have experienced a record high increase during the pandemic.

Chinese cosmetics market has quickly recovered from the impact of COVID-19

China’s cosmetics industry quickly recovered from the COVID-19 impact. Tmall cosmetics sales in March and April 2020 respectively reached 5.4 billion yuan and 4.1 billion yuan, nearly twice the amount in the same period in 2019.

Relying on social media and live-streaming and other online emerging business models, overseas niche makeup brands have sprung up after the epidemic in the Chinese market. For many brands, the Chinese market is very important to survive the brand during the pandemic.

Read to: China Skincare Market Guide

The outperformance of the Chinese cosmetic market is not just “retaliatory consumption”

Behind this growth is not just short-term “retaliatory consumption”, there are many reasons for this outperformance of the cosmetics market in China:

  • The increasing pursuit of daily beauty in China in recent years;
  • The rising affluence;
  • The marketing of new media;
  • Overseas brands have entered the Chinese market;
  • Online & Offline selling channels development.

The cosmetics industry as a whole has continued to accelerate in the past three years, and the recovery after the epidemic is clearly ahead of other FMCG (fast-moving consumer goods). Chinese e-commerce plays an important role in making up for offline channels limitations during the pandemic and the growth of the entire industry.

After the epidemic, e-commerce has become the biggest platform in the beauty industry in China. Overseas mid-to-high-end brands have paid more and more attention to the Chinese market. Local brands are catching up to win the hearts of local consumers.

How to be introduced into the Chinese cosmetics market?

Branding is step 1

As has been explained above, China’s cosmetics market is an eldorado for both Chinese brands and foreign companies. However, for those overseas firms, being presented in the new and different market is not easy, so that companies have recourses to China’s local distribution channels.

How to find reliable distributors in China? This is a headache problem. Chinese distributors are merchants who have only one objective: making as much money as possible. Therefore, they only choose those foreign operations who have already brand awareness and a good reputation in China so that they don’t need to do anything else just distributing.

That is to say, you can not rely on your distributors to promote your branding, it is not possible. If your brand is unknown, they will even not waste time negotiating with you, it is not comfortable to hear about this, however, it is the reality. So if you want to find a good distributor and have leverage in the negotiation, do your branding in the first step.

Chinese social media boost your brand awareness & online reputation

According to data from Statista, in 2018, China’s smartphone penetration rate was 50%, which means half of the population uses the smartphone, and it is expected to reach 61% in 2023.

As of the third quarter of 2019, Chinese internet users spent on average five hours and 50 minutes per day using the internet. The Chinese not only spend a lot of time on their phone but also independent of online reviews and KOL opinions about products and services. That is why it is so important to leverage Chinese social media to boost your brand awareness.

User experience share about lipsticks by a KOL on her WeChat official account

However, Chinese social media are different from the Western one, platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are all blocked in China by the Chinese Firewall. In China, people use WeChat, Weibo, Xiaohongshu, etc.

Top 3 Chinese social media for your cosmetic brand success

Wechat

As of July 2020, WeChat has declared to have more than 1.2 billion registered users and it is the largest Chinese social platform. WeChat provides companies with official accounts, mini-programs to manage posts and sell products or services.

WeChat Moment Ads from the Estéé Lauder Brand Collection in Collection with Lady Aiko – Brands Collabs are extremely popular with Chinese consumers

Moreover, WeChat is also a good place for ads thanks to the giant user data pool. Since only people invited or followers can see content in the feeds, official accounts, or mini-programs, ads in WeChat can reach the targeted audience.

Read as well: Wechat Marketing Guide for Beauty Brands in China

Weibo for the buzz

Unlike WeChat, Weibo is an open social media, with more than 550 million users, it is also the largest open platform for users to share and follow content. Everyone on Weibo can see any content published. It is thus a great tool for Kol marketing. Almost every KOL or celebrity that you can name for Chinese people has an account on Weibo to engage and interact with their followers.

Weibo users are gradually transferred from first- and second-tier cities to third- and fourth-tier cities, and more than 80% of users are under 30 years old. Weibo is a great platform for companies to gain traffic, if your content is interesting, you can attract a lot of viewers and those viewers can potentially be your targets. It is also a channel for firms to educate and transfer brand concepts, values so as to build a good image and create a community around your brand.

Xiaohongshu: a must for cosmetics brands marketing

When it concerns the cosmetics industry, we have to mention Xiaohongshu, a UGC (User-generated Content) especially for fashion, cosmetic, and beauty products. Xiaohongshu was founded in 2013 and now has more than 300 million registered users and 150 million monthly active users. About 88% are female users. Most of them live in first-tier cities in China, having high disposable income.

The secret to the success of this platform is to establish the right balance between the social media community and the e-commerce platform. Users can share their product experience through “notes” in the application and can add multiple tags and links to online stores in their content.

KOL recommendations about lipsticks on Xiaohongshu

Keywords and search optimization of Xiaohongshu are extremely important during the campaign.
This is as important as your Baidu search engine optimization (SEO). Xiaohongshu’s algorithm incorporates comments, collections, and reposts into ranking considerations. Brands must pay attention to the keywords used in the title and first paragraph of KOL posts.

Contact us to know how it works exactly. GMA, an expert in Xiaohongshu marketing, can offer you cost-efficient strategies with our rich experience of more than 8 years.

Baidu SEO boosts your digital presence in China cosmetic market

It is well-known that successful SEO (Search Engine Optimization) strategy is an absolute necessity for boosting your business’s visibility online. However, in China, Google is blocked by the Chinese Firewall and Baidu is the leading search engine in the Chinese market, accounting for around 70% of the total market share. Tactics for Baidu SEO can be quite different from those for Google.

Baidu is a Mandarin-only website and so is the ranking algorithm:

  • Baidu gives priority to Chinese content. Therefore, your website should be in Chinese Mandarin and hosted in China or nearby to meet Baidu’s ranking rules.
  • Mandarin Language for an obvious reason
  • Plugins compatible with China’s internet Firewall
  • Easy contact or live chat for the convenience
  • Regular original content for SEO purpose

It is not easy for brands to be ranked on the first page since sponsored ads and Baidu’s website pages often appear before any organic result. Creating content concerning your business on Baidu Baike (Baidu Wikipedia) or Baidu Zhihu (Chinese Quora) can help you to be found by your targets on Baidu results because one of Baidu’s special rule is that it gives priority to its own platforms. Moreover, keywords optimization plays an important role as well, well-chosen keywords are twice done.

All those tricks and rules can not be explained in just one article, indeed the Chinese market is full of opportunities, yet plenty of obstacles. Finding a reliable distributor is not an easy thing, and branding before all can not only help the brand to achieve that but also give more leverage to brands in the negotiation with Chinese distributors.

Our company has more than 8 years of experience and has already helped many big or small brands in branding and finding their distributors. If you have any problem, feel free to contact us, we are very pleased to help you with our passionate and excellent Chinese market specialists.

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