创业十五年 羽素仍在“战痘”

This article outlines the 15-year development history of Yusu, a Chinese homegrown anti-acne skincare brand, and offers an overview of China’s current anti-acne skincare category. Key takeaways are as follows:

1. Industry overview: China’s anti-acne skincare market is projected to exceed RMB 95 billion by 2025. The crowded category has yet to produce a leading brand that dominates consumer mindshare, and faces three inherent structural challenges: the complex causes of acne mean no single product can meet all needs; consumers seek a cure, but brands cannot legally market products as medical treatments, creating reputational risk; and users typically stop purchasing once their acne clears, leading to a natural lack of repurchase incentive.

2. Yusu’s growth journey: The brand started by offering one-on-one personalized services in private domains to cater to diverse anti-acne needs. Faced with growth limits in private traffic, it shifted to the public domain Douyin platform in 2021. It leveraged a three-tier trust-building strategy to popularize its "Big Light Bulb" anti-acne essence, which has sold over 26 million bottles to date. Yusu is now expanding into full-cycle acne care, building a complete product matrix covering emergency acne treatment, closed comedone clearing, and post-acne mark fading, to capture consumer mindshare and break the category’s inherent growth ceiling.

This article summarizes the current landscape, pain points of the anti-acne skincare category and Yusu’s growth experience, offering valuable insights for skincare brand builders. Key takeaways are as follows:

1. Market and consumer trends: The anti-acne category is set to exceed RMB 100 billion in scale, with a highly fragmented market and no dominant leader, leaving significant opportunities for mindshare capture. At the same time, competition is intensifying: both international brands and established local Chinese players are expanding their presence, squeezing market share from multiple angles for new entrants.

2. Channel and marketing lessons: Yusu captured early private domain dividends by offering personalized services, and shifted quickly to public domain as traffic patterns changed. For public domain growth, it built a three-tier trust system: third-party testing with authoritative institutions, efficacy research with top-tier public hospitals, and user testing in acne-focused niche communities. It then launched its hit product via a tiered traffic funnel combining celebrity endorsement exposure, KOL seeding, and expert-led educational content.

3. Product strategy takeaways: A single hit product cannot sustain long-term growth. Brands can build differentiation through consumer education paired with a full-category product matrix. For anti-acne brands, the core competitive moat is becoming the first brand consumers think of when they develop acne, rather than blindly chasing high repurchase rates.

This article sorts out market opportunities, risks and actionable lessons for skincare sellers entering the anti-acne category. Key takeaways are as follows:

1. Market opportunity: China’s anti-acne market is projected to exceed RMB 95 billion by 2025. The large, fragmented category has no dominant brand, leaving clear room for new players to capture consumer mindshare. With the right go-to-market strategy for a hit product, new sellers can scale quickly and acquire large user bases.

2. Actionable lessons to adapt: Adjust channel strategy proactively as traffic shifts. Build a tiered trust system before entering public domain: validate efficacy through authoritative institutions, top hospitals and niche communities first, then convert users via a tiered traffic funnel: top celebrities for brand exposure, mid-tier KOLs for targeted seeding, and experts for educational content and long-term asset building.

3. Risk warnings: The category has inherent structural issues including low repurchase rates and polarized public reputation, and competition is growing increasingly fierce. A single hit product cannot sustain long-term growth. Sellers need to invest in consumer education and build out a full product matrix early, and capture consumer mindshare first to build a sustainable business.

This article offers actionable insights for skincare factories to capture category demand, expand business opportunities and adapt to digital e-commerce trends in the anti-acne space. Key takeaways are as follows:

1. Product design and manufacturing demand: Acne has complex causes, and user needs vary dramatically by acne type and breakout stage. A single ingredient or single product cannot meet all needs. Leading brands are shifting to full-cycle product layouts, requiring factories to develop targeted products for different stages including emergency acne treatment, closed comedone clearing, and post-acne mark fading. New ingredients and technologies such as acid-free peptide enzyme systems have already gained market validation, and are a promising direction for differentiated R&D.

2. Business opportunities: The anti-acne category is set to exceed RMB 100 billion, with a highly fragmented market where both incumbents and new brands are launching new products to capture share. This creates strong demand for new product development. Factories that can support brands in developing differentiated products will secure more collaboration opportunities.

3. Digital e-commerce takeaways: Factories should keep track of traffic trend shifts when working with brand clients. Most brands are shifting from private domains to public domains, so factories need to adjust product positioning and pricing to match the requirements for public-domain hit products, to capture the industry’s growth dividends.

This article offers valuable insights for beauty-focused service providers to capture category trends and meet client demand in the anti-acne space. Key takeaways are as follows:

1. Industry development trends: China’s anti-acne skincare market is set to exceed RMB 100 billion, with a fragmented market with no clear leading brand. Nearly all brands are pursuing growth breakthroughs, and the industry’s core competition has shifted from battles over single hit products to competition over full-cycle acne care solutions. Capturing consumer mindshare is the core strategic goal for almost all anti-acne brands.

2. Core client pain points: Anti-acne brands universally face three structural challenges: first, users naturally churn once their acne clears, creating an inherent lack of repurchase logic; second, a gap exists between consumer expectations and what brands can legally claim, leading to polarized reputation and difficulty building stable brand recognition; third, intensifying competition from players of all backgrounds is squeezing existing market space.

3. Business direction suggestions: Most brands are pursuing a breakthrough strategy combining consumer education with a full-cycle product matrix. Service providers can build targeted offerings aligned with this trend, including authoritative R&D endorsement, educational content production, and consumer mindshare operation services to meet brand demand.

This article offers insights for beauty-focused platforms to optimize category layout and operational management for the anti-acne space. Key takeaways are as follows:

1. Core brand demands from platforms: A large number of anti-acne brands are shifting from private domains to public domains. They need platforms to provide traffic support to launch hit products, as well as more content operation tools to support consumer education and long-term brand asset building.

2. Operational optimization suggestions: The most common go-to-market strategy for brands on public domains is tiered traffic funnel operation, starting with celebrity exposure, then KOL seeding, then expert educational content for conversion and retention. Platforms can optimize traffic matching rules to fit this operating model and help brands improve conversion efficiency.

3. Merchandising and risk mitigation: The anti-acne category is large, has strong growth room, and currently lacks leading brands, making it a good category for platforms to onboard new brands and enrich their category matrix. At the same time, since anti-acne sits at the intersection of skincare and medical treatment, platforms need to strengthen content review, standardize brand marketing claims, and avoid regulatory and reputational risks from improper promotional content.

This article provides a vivid corporate case study and industry analysis for research on the anti-acne skincare industry. Key insights are as follows:

1. New industry trends: China’s anti-acne skincare market is set to exceed RMB 100 billion, with both domestic and international brands ramping up investment in the category. Industry competition has shifted from early-stage competition over single hit products to competition over full-cycle acne care solutions. Channel focus has also shifted from offline and private domains to public platforms such as Douyin, putting the entire industry in a period of rapid transformation.

2. Core industry challenges: The 100-billion-dollar category has long remained fragmented with no dominant brand, driven by three core structural pain points: first, acne has complex causes, so no single-ingredient product can cover all user needs; second, since acne sits between skincare and medical conditions, brands cannot legally claim to treat it, creating a gap between consumer expectations of a cure and allowed marketing claims, which creates reputational risk; third, user demand naturally disappears once acne clears, leading to an inherent lack of repurchase logic. These are shared challenges across the entire industry.

3. Business model exploration: Yusu has explored a transformation path starting with one-on-one personalized services in private domains, shifting to public-domain hit product-driven growth, and moving to full-cycle products paired with consumer education. It proposes that the core competitive moat for anti-acne brands is capturing first-association mindshare among consumers, rather than pursuing lifetime user value, offering new thinking for industry research on business model innovation.