900家店铺清零 曾碾压大牌的白牌“顶流” 彻底崩盘

This article covers the recent collapse of Muskian, parent company of once China's top unbranded beauty white-label, and analyzes the new landscape of China's beauty industry, with key takeaways as follows:

1. Core industry shift: The era of wild growth for unbranded beauty white-labels relying on aggressive, money-burning paid traffic for quick profits is over. Multiple major platforms have tightened regulations on white-label operations, cracking down on irregular, reckless expansion. The pure paid-traffic model is no longer viable.

2. Guidance for consumer choices: Amid the current consumption downturn, consumers increasingly favor established brands with long-standing reputations. White-labels carry high risks of sudden business collapse, while established brands offer more reliability. Consumers should prioritize brands with proven, long-term positive reputations.

3. Insights for entrepreneurs: Entering the beauty industry can no longer rely solely on spending heavily on traffic. Aspiring founders must focus on product development and R&D upfront, pursue long-term growth, and target opportunities in niche consumer scenarios instead of chasing quick, short-term profits.

This article maps the latest shifts in China's beauty industry landscape and provides strategic references for beauty brand owners across core operational dimensions, with key insights as follows:

1. Shifting consumer trends: Against the backdrop of a contracting overall beauty market, consumers prioritize the reliability of established, reputable brands, while also willing to pay for differentiated aesthetics, new niche use cases, and niche community emotional value, leading to fragmented market demand.

2. Marketing and transformation implications: The pure aggressive paid-traffic model can no longer support long-term brand growth. Traffic should only act as a launch pad, not the foundation of a sustainable business. Brands must complete the transition from pure product sales to long-term brand building and invest heavily in product R&D as early as possible.

3. Competitive strategy guidance: Foreign legacy beauty giants have now mastered the paid traffic playbook for social commerce, and are using their high gross margins to seize market share from mid-tier domestic Chinese brands. Brands must identify a clear differentiated positioning and expand offline omnichannel distribution to reduce reliance on online traffic.

This article summarizes the latest shifts in China's beauty e-commerce sector, outlines current risks and potential opportunities for beauty sellers, with key takeaways as follows:

1. Risk warning: Short-video platforms have begun restructuring white-label businesses for refined regulation, imposing heavy penalties on non-compliant merchants and ending tolerance for wild white-label growth. The pure money-burning traffic model is obsolete. Industry data shows the average lifespan of a beauty white-label is less than 8 months, and sellers should avoid repeating Muskian's collapse.

2. Guidance for transformation: Most surviving successful white-labels have adopted a strategy of focusing on core SKUs, targeting the 100-200 RMB mid-to-high price range, and expanding into offline physical retail. Sellers can learn from this model to reduce dependence on traffic platform algorithms.

3. New growth opportunities: Sellers can enter emerging niche segments such as beauty accessories, scalp care, and after-sun outdoor repair, or build differentiated brands targeting specific niche consumer groups, boosting repeat purchases through shared aesthetics and emotional connection, and avoiding direct competition with established large brands.

This article draws insights from the collapse of electronics contract manufacturer Mckelle, which crossed into the beauty sector and failed, to provide guidance for manufacturing factories looking to launch their own brands and expand e-commerce business, with key takeaways as follows:

1. Pitfalls of capability cross-migration: Mckelle, an experienced electronics contract manufacturer, applied its cost control and fast turnover capabilities to the beauty sector, but only treated products as traffic vehicles and neglected product quality and brand building, eventually leading to bankruptcy. This shows that factories expanding into new sectors cannot simply replicate manufacturing logic; product and brand building must be prioritized.

2. Shifts in product design and production demand: The market no longer welcomes massive low-price product launches. Instead, it demands focused, hit products that fit differentiated aesthetics and new niche consumer scenarios. Factories can adjust their R&D and production strategy to align with this new demand.

3. Insights for digital e-commerce transformation: When launching their own brands, factories should not chase short-term traffic dividends. They must invest in product R&D and brand building upfront, and expand omnichannel distribution to weather industry cycles and capture long-term business opportunities.

This article maps the latest development trends of China's beauty industry, summarizes core pain points for different industry players, and provides guidance on business direction for beauty-related service providers, with key takeaways as follows:

1. Industry development trends: The era of profiting from unbranded white-labels via aggressive paid traffic is over, and the beauty industry has entered an era of long-termism competition. Foreign legacy giants are reclaiming market share with their brand and capital advantages, while a large number of domestic Chinese brands are going through a de-traffic transformation.

2. Core client pain points: Many small and medium-sized beauty brands have long relied on paid traffic, leading to continuously rising customer acquisition costs and weak risk resistance. Facing the competition from foreign giants, their market space is steadily shrinking, and they lack a clear transformation path.

3. New business opportunities: Service providers can develop offerings aligned with brand transformation needs, including product R&D upgrading, niche consumer demand insight, differentiated brand positioning, and omnichannel expansion consulting, to help brands complete transformation and adapt to the new industry rules.

This article outlines existing issues and the latest adjustment direction in China's beauty e-commerce sector, and provides reference for platform operators on operational management and rule adjustment, with key takeaways as follows:

1. Problems of the old model: In the past, platforms prioritized short-term GMV growth and supported wild growth of unbranded white-labels, which led to a large number of short-sighted, non-compliant white-label merchants with extremely short lifespans. This ultimately damaged platform user experience and generated many post-sales disputes.

2. Proven direction for adjustment: Leading short-video platforms have already split white-label businesses into multiple segments for refined operation, and standardized the sector by heavily penalizing non-compliant merchants. This confirms that platforms need to shift their priority from short-term GMV to long-term healthy industry development.

3. Adjustments to operation and merchant recruitment: Platforms can adjust their recruitment strategy to attract long-term-focused brands that invest in product development and differentiated positioning, phase out non-compliant, short-sighted white-label merchants, avoid reputational risks from unregulated wild growth, and drive sustainable development of their beauty business.

This article sorts out the evolution of China's beauty industry after the end of internet traffic dividends, outlines new industry trends and emerging issues, and provides a vivid research case for industry researchers, with core content as follows:

1. New industry trends: The unbranded beauty white-label sector is undergoing clear divergence: pure aggressive traffic-focused white-labels are collapsing in groups, while a handful of white-labels that transformed early have completed the upgrade from product reselling to brand building. Foreign legacy giants have mastered social commerce traffic playbooks and launched a counterattack with their strong brand advantages, while differentiated domestic Chinese brands are achieving outperforming growth.

2. New emerging industry issues: After traffic dividends faded, the beauty sector entered into a stock competition. The overall beauty category recorded its first ever negative year-on-year growth during the 2026 618 shopping festival. Mid-tier domestic Chinese brands are caught between the retreat of white-labels and the counterattack of foreign giants, with their market space continuously shrinking.

3. Research implications: This case confirms the unsustainability of the pure traffic-driven business model. Long-term brand building and differentiated niche positioning are the only ways to survive industry cycles. This event provides a typical research sample for analyzing the transformation of China's consumer goods industry after the end of internet traffic growth.