The Top Influencer Came Back, May the Online Cosmetics Recover?

Austin Li's official comeback will be a booster in the Chinese beauty market, with some beauty brands continuing to be beneficial.

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At 19:00 on the 20 September, the Taobao super-toped influencer "Lipstick King" Austin Li, whose live streaming has been suspended for 109 days, finally started re-live streaming, and view counts exceeded 60 million within 2 hours. Brands such as Florasis, CHANDO, and Curel all appeared in this live streaming.

The performance is still brilliant

Austin Li, wearing a black vest with a white shirt, showed up in the live streaming with his assistant Wangwang. He officially returned after 109 days of "disappearance".

At the beginning of the live streaming, Li first previewed the products, including a variety of household goods and beauty products. The beauty products cover the Nivea Extra White C&E Vitamin Lotion, CHANDO Clay Purifying Mask, QuadHA Multi Moist HA Soft Essence, Curel cream, Florasis eyebrow pencil, etc. Many netizens said, "still familiar scenario".

It is reported that the first product in his live streaming is Mr. Lei's cell phone holder, which was sold out in 3 seconds. In this live streaming a total of 26 goods on the shelves, GMV nearly 130 million yuan ($18 million)

May the double 11 shopping festival recover?

On the night of June 3, Austin Li's live streaming was suddenly interrupted. After that, he suspended his live streaming and his Weibo was not updated again. 10 days later, on June 13, TikTok China influencer Luo Yonghao officially announced that he would fade out of the live e-commerce.

Moreover, last year, the Kwai influencer Xinba and Taobao influencer Viya have been banned for "cubilose event" and "tax evasion". So far, on the Taobao, TikTok China, and Kwai three platforms, four super-toped influencers for various reasons collectively "disappeared".

Compared to the other influencers, Austin Li has a deeper relationship with the beauty industry. After the failure of Viya, Li became the only remaining top influencer.

Take last year's 618 shopping festival as an example, there are more than 180 beauty products in his live streaming. Among them, there are as many as 40 new/Chinese beauty brands, such as Flower Knows, KIMTRUE, Xunyunji, etc. In the first 618 beauty event on May 26 this year, he also had a lot of new brands in the e-commerce, such as Into You, Judydoll, Joocyee, UNISKIN, etc.

Public data shows that on the first day of this year's Tmall 618 event, the highest number of live viewers in Austin Li's live streaming reached 150 million. In the original preview from June 5-10, it was expected that a number of beauty products would also be online. However, everything was disrupted by the suspension, which means most beauty brands lost the opportunity in Tmall 618.

Since Austin Li's leave, the new emerging brands that were deeply bound to Austin Li also faded out with his silencing. As a Taobao super-toped influencer, he had created the achievements of the industry that is also evident to all, from consumers to brands, most of them are waiting for his comeback.

Due to the pandemic and other factors, the economic situation this year is not good. As the Double 11 approaches, beauty companies that should be busy preparing goods are not as lively as usual. Among them, some industry insiders believe that the absence of the big influencer not only has a greater impact on some brands but also led to a decline in the aggregation effect, which to a certain extent affects the heat of the double 11 and the enthusiasm of the brand.

And after the official comeback of Austin Li, many industry insiders are excited, remarks like "good news" and "producers must do their best to work overtime to ensure supply" are incessant.

Some industry professionals believe that his official comeback will be a booster in the market, in particular, the significance of the promotion of some beauty brands will be more obvious.

"However, the core reason for the downturn in the beauty industry today is that the overall economic environment is bad, and consumer confidence is low. It may be difficult to save a market with just Austin Li alone. But a certain degree of confidence to enhance the industry can still be." An industry source said so.

Austin Li's "new rival"

Austin Li's re-live streaming brought a great shock to the Chinese beauty industry. But in terms of the live streaming, in this period of his leave, his competitors are also emerging.

The first is the brand self-live streaming. In the absence of super-toped influencers during this period, the initiatives of some beauty brands can also be seen, they tried to get rid of the constraints brought by over-reliance on super-toped influencers through a variety of strategies. Beauty brands are beginning to strengthen their e-commerce.

For example, this year's 618 promotions, including Marumi, Herborist, Dr. Yu, Forest Cabin, CHANDO, and other brands have taken on sales responsibilities, becoming an important sales channel for the brand. In August, among the sales TOP20 list of TikTok China beauty stores, Estee Lauder, Olay, Erno Laszlo, and nearly half of the brands on the list ranked first among all the brand's cooperative influencers in terms of e-commerce performance.

In fact, as early as last year's Double 11, Austin Li and Viya both stopped cooperating with L'Oreal Paris, the "invisible war" between the top influencer and the brand for pricing power also surfaced, and the matter also accelerated the development of brand self-live streaming. 

The Oriental Selection on the TikTok China platform also became popular during Li's leave. At present, the number of fans of Oriental selection has reached 25.706 million. This business model of weakening the individual influencer and highlighting the IP of the live streaming can minimize the impact of the individual IP on the whole industry.

Recently, Oriental Selection has also reached out to the beauty area. In July this year, the matrix number of Oriental Selection "Oriental Selection Beauty Life" has been officially launched, covering beauty, skincare, and personal care.

For the brand, the super-toped influencer channel is a way for exposure and publicity, due to large discounts, and high commission, the profitability is more general. The TikTok China self-live streaming channel, on the other hand, is a manner to build private domain traffic and achieve conversion, which is expected to achieve stronger profitability. However, for emerging brands, super-toped influencers still have an important significance for the promotion of their influence and visibility cannot be ignored.