Single Remaining Beauty Collection Store THE COLORIST in Beijing

From entering Beijing in January 2020 to the present, THE COLORIST, an innovative beauty collection store brand, has shrunk to only one store in Beijing. It is reported that most of the closed stores are operated by franchisees, while the rent and operating pressure may be the main reasons for the closure.

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Most of you should have witnessed the brilliance of China's beauty collection stores in 2019, such as THE COLORIST, HARMAY, HAYDON... Even affected by the epidemic, the pace of expansion of Chinese beauty collection stores in 2021 continued to move forward.

However, now, according to public reports, the Chinese top player THE COLORIST currently has only one store left in Beijing, and the rest of the stores are all closed. The person in charge of one of the closed stores said that most of the closed stores were operated by franchisees. Rainbow Store is currently the only direct-operated store of THE COLORIST in Beijing.

"In the Beijing market, most of the closed stores are the same franchisee, and rent and operational pressure may be the main reasons for the closure of stores." The above-mentioned person in charge revealed.

Moreover, aside from Beijing, THE COLORIST has not developed well in other cities in China. There have been large-scale withdrawals of franchisees before. According to the prospectus submitted by the colorist parent company KK Group to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in November 2021: at the end of 2020, THE COLORIST has 170 franchise stores and only 59 self-owned stores; as of the first half of 2021, the number of self-owned stores Expanded from 59 to 129, but that of franchise stores shrunk from 170 to 111.

Since the top players are still like this, the situation of other brands is even more difficult. There have been many media reports before: WOW COLOUR closed more than 50 stores in 2021, and NOISY Beauty closed nearly 10 stores; in April 2022, HAYDON announced that due to the impact of the epidemic, many stores in many places may be closed.

However, the founder of HAYDON has previously publicly stated that he plans to enter more than 16 key cities in China by the end of 2021, with more than 20 stores, and will exceed 100 stores in mid-2023. But at present, it seems that HAYDON has not achieved the established goal in 2021, and is still far from the "Hundred Stores Plan" in 2023.

In April this year, HARMAY's first store in Wuhan also opened, and there was no such thing as "limiting the flow of people when entering the store and long queues for checkout" at the door. You must know that the location of HARMAY's first store in Wuhan has been carefully selected. "Wuhan Tiandi International Corporate Zone" is a famous business district in Wuhan with a lot of traffic.

In recent years, beauty collection stores have been favored by many young consumers due to their unique decoration, comprehensive cosmetics, and immersive shopping scenes. However, with the increasing number of companies entering the bureau, various problems have arisen one after another.

First of all, as an important drainage tool, sample products are generally unauthorized and opaque in supply, which leaves consumers with a lot of doubts, and the sales stores carry certain operational risks for this. In March of this year, Harmay was fined for selling big-name samples of cosmetics that did not comply with the regulations. In response to the problem of supply, the founder of HARMAY has also publicly stated that its supply mainly comes from counters and traders. At present, almost all of the authorized brands are small and medium-sized brands, and they have not yet reached authorized cooperation with big brands.

Secondly, with the emergence of a large number of similar beauty collection stores, the products in the stores are converging, the brand image is blurred, and many stores have fallen into a situation of homogeneous competition.

From the perspective of the entire market, after experiencing rapid growth in the past two years, the beauty collection store track is now entering the stage of the reshuffle. How to construct recognition in the market and strike a balance in the impact of the epidemic has become a problem that beauty collection stores need to dig into.