"Future Beauty" found that from the perspective of marketing, although Chinese local enterprises began to actively promote high-end products, the vast majority of enterprises did not take high-end lines as the main push. The discussion heat of consumers on some high-end brands or series is not high, among which the small red book platform for the high-end line of well-known brands such as "natural Tang gold diamond miniature" and the discussion notes of the new brand AOXMED are generally only 100+.

"What consumers think of as a premium brand is not the same as what brands claim to be." An industry veteran told "Future Beauty", so the reason why the brand does not do the main push is not complicated, because consumer goods are divided by population, and high-end consumer goods are obviously niche consumer goods. "For high-end people, the brand will have a dedicated team to do small-range, targeted promotion activities for small groups of people and small channels." The person added.

However, consumers have different attitudes towards high-end brands or products launched by domestic brands.

After 85 consumers Xiaoyue told "Future trace Future Beauty", "will not easily try the new high-end brand, after all, the price is placed there, hoping to maximize lightning protection." If you want to choose, it will still choose a certain history, the effect is recognized by the market. And while some domestic brands claim to be high-end, some of them, in addition to their high prices, do not give people the same satisfaction when buying as Lancome, Estee Lauder and other brands."

It can be seen that there is still a gap between the "high-end" claimed by these domestic brands and the "high-end" in the minds of consumers.

In addition, an agent also told "Future Future Beauty", a few domestic brands of high-end line, especially for the CS channel of high-end line, the starting point is likely to fight against the increasingly fierce supply discount war, do a new series to raise the retail price, even if it is 20% discount shipment, the brand's actual profits will not be affected. But the channel business is "cut the leek", because the inflated price of consumers will not pay, and eventually can only reduce the price of sales.

It is not difficult to see from the above information that both local enterprises and channel operators still lack confidence in whether domestic brands can go high-end.

So, can domestic brands really only lie in the low-end market forever?

According to Future Beauty, the answer is no. The core of domestic brands entering the high-end market is to seize new technologies, new consumers and build new channels.

According to the "2022 China High-end Beauty Market Digital Trend Insight Report" released by Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and Tencent Marketing Research (TMI), 50% of high-end beauty consumers in 2022 are under the age of 30, accounting for 48% of sales, but the consumption amount fell by 4% year-on-year. By contrast, people over the age of 30 accounted for 52% of sales.

It is not difficult to see from the above data that mature women over the age of 30 are the main consumer groups of foreign high-end brands. According to the "generation" division of Chinese consumer groups in academia and industry, the main population of this part of consumers is Generation Y consumers born from 1980 to 1995 and Generation X consumers born before 1980.

The consumption concept of Generation Y is more rational and closer to life, focusing on improving the quality of life. As a result, it is more friendly to foreign brands. This is also the underlying reason why domestic high-end brands are difficult to break through at the consumer level. However, this part of the population is not completely unable to break through, at least in the field of efficacy skin care products, according to the survey of iResearch, the net recommendation value of consumers for domestic brands and foreign brands is only 1.2 percentage points. This shows that as long as the brand comes up with enough sincerity, and cooperate with professional data and experimental results, Generation Y is still willing to pay for the high premium of domestic brands.

In addition, the pursuit of novelty and fun generation Z is not so strong preference for foreign brands, is likely to be the main consumer group of high-end domestic goods in the future, is the high-end domestic brands need to focus on cultivating high potential consumer groups.

In addition to accurately dividing consumer groups, domestic brands should go high-end, and more importantly, seize new technologies. Just like BYD, Chery and other domestic cars seize the opportunity of technological iteration of new energy enterprises to surpass foreign giants such as Volkswagen and Toyota. Domestic beauty brands also need to seize the current technological iteration tide set off by "biotechnology" in the world, and establish technical barriers by overtaking on corners. (Refer to reading: "Delivering" for the fourth economic form, rewriting a "one" with biotechnology | the beginning of the biological period)

Finally, channel innovation. The development of e-commerce provides great convenience for brands to directly contact consumers, and also breaks the channel monopoly advantage established by high-end brands in the past. At that time, the flow cost of e-commerce channels was increasing, and high-end brands were establishing new monopoly advantages with their strong comprehensive strength. Domestic high-end brands need to find the best solution for online and offline combination, offline endorsement, online transactions, and cross-channel marketing, so as to more smoothly present products to the eyes of target consumer groups.

On the basis of doing all this well, find a market segment and weak competition with a price cut, the probability of success will be greatly improved.

"It may be difficult to fully use international brands such as Estee Lauder or Sisley in terms of price, so it makes sense to find another track to play in the blank area of the price range of ordinary basic domestic and imported goods," the senior said.

"The high-end of domestic brands will definitely be a vent. From the past two years, the rapid growth of domestic brands, the next step must gradually go to the high-end route. In the field of cosmetics, consumers now have been educated to be very mature and rational. The market is also mature enough that new brands are now entering the high-end market, which is a much better environment than when imports first entered the Chinese market."

The best time to plant a tree was ten years ago, and the second best time is now.

High-end may not be a critical proposition for the current survival of domestic brands, but it is the only way for domestic brands to go higher and farther. Now is the best time to sow.