Is Too Faced About to Exit the Chinese Market?
- Chaileedo Press
- Jun 30, 2022
- 3 min read
Recently, the official overseas online flagship store of Too Faced, a makeup brand of Estee Lauder Companies, announced that it will close up in August. At present. the store is completely emptied of products.
On June 28, China Standard Time, Too Faced, a well-known U.S. makeup brand acquired by Estee Lauder Companies for $1.45 billion in 2016, recently announced that the brand's official overseas flagship store on Tmall International will close in August this year.
Too Faced said in the announcement that the store will no longer receive new orders from now on, and the goods already ordered will be delivered as scheduled. Furthermore, the membership services and points redemption will remain open until July 27. After the closure of the store, the benefits and services of brand members will also be stopped.
Currently, the store has been emptied and all products have been taken off the shelves. CHAILEEDO learned that this online store is the only official store of the brand in the Chinese market. It was reported that Too Faced officially entered Tmall in 2020, and also became the first makeup brand of Estee Lauder Companies to enter China through e-commerce.
At that time, Too Faced attracted the attention of 310,000 Chinese consumers on its first day of opening. However, in the following 2 years, the brand has not launched marketing campaigns on social media platforms, and has not even opened official accounts on universal social media platforms such as Sina Weibo, WeChat and Xiaohongshu. It is worth noting that last year, the news in which the products of the brand were on sale appeared frequently on social media platforms. Obviously, this has laid the groundwork for the brand to close its store.
Nowadays, the reputation and sales achieved by Too Faced in China are far less than its sister brand Becca. For example, there are only 7,300 notes related to "Too Faced" on Xiaohongshu.
In fact, once the news broke, it sparked speculation among industry insiders as to whether the store closure meant the brand's exit from the Chinese market. CHAILEEDO asked Estee Lauder China for confirmation yesterday, but did not receive a response before the distribution of this news.
However, the store's customer service told CHAILEEDO, "The brand has adjusted its sales channels in China this time. According to the brand's strategy and business situation, we review it regularly and make adjustments accordingly when necessary." The customer service added, "We look forward to continuing to provide Chinese consumers with a unique shopping experience."
When asked if there were other channels of purchase, the customer service said, "If you need to purchase products, you can visit Mecca's overseas flagship store on Tmall." Mecca, an Australian beauty collection store, is also reported to enter the Chinese market through Tmall International in 2020.
CHAILEEDO found that Too Faced has only seven items in MECCA's Tmall International overseas flagship store. Among them, the bestselling item is Too Faced Born This Way Sunset Stripped Eyeshadow Palette (priced at $59), whose total sales are only 100+ units, while the total sales of the rest of the products do not exceed 20 units.
In most cases, the fact that brands close stores or simply exit a market, is inextricably linked to their own business status and external environment.
For the past two years, on the one hand, the general environment has become worse. Take the 618 Shopping Festival that just ended for example, the sales performance of makeup cosmetics is not as good as before. According to the data released by Syntun, during the 618 Shopping Festival, the sales of cosmetics (including 3 categories: skincare, perfume, and makeup) on all e-commerce platforms were $6.1 billion. When compared with $7.6 billion in 2021, there is a decrease of $1.5 billion, with a drop of nearly 20%.
Several insiders of the Chinese cosmetics industry have said that COVID-19 has had a much greater impact on makeup products than on skin care. At the moment, wearing a mask has become a norm, so the size of the makeup market is certainly affected.
On the other hand, with the rise of Chinese makeup brands, the competition in the cosmetics market has been more and more intense. In recent years, the Chinese makeup brands represented by Florasis, Perfect Diary, COLORKEY, Judydoll and TIMAGE gradually occupy the minds of consumers and compete with a number of international brands. In the 618 Shopping Festival of 2022, Florasis took the fifth place in the Tmall makeup brand list with sales of $27.64 million, surpassing the famous foreign makeup brands NARS and Estee Lauder.
The two years in which Too Faced officially entered China in 2020 and then shut up the only online store in China test the potential and versatility of the Chinese beauty market. Even if Too Faced is backed by a big group, it is no longer a big tree to ride under.
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