900家店铺清零 曾碾压大牌的白牌“顶流” 彻底崩盘

This article maps out the major shifts reshaping China’s beauty industry after the end of the traffic growth dividend, with key takeaways below:

1. A defining milestone: Jizhixianzhi, once China’s top unbranded beauty player, outperformed Estée Lauder in social commerce GMV at its peak, opened 900 brick-and-mortar stores and hit 825 million yuan in annual revenue. Just four years later, its aggressive traffic-buying model collapsed, leaving its parent company with 660 million yuan in debt and forcing it into bankruptcy liquidation, with all its assets going unsold at auction. This collapse marks the official end of the era of unbranded beauty built on burning cash for user traffic.

2. Guidance for shoppers: As industry rules have fundamentally changed, shoppers should not blindly trust short-term viral hits promoted by heavy ad spending on live streaming. In an era where consumers prioritize reliability, brands with long-term reputation and substantial product R&D investment carry far lower risk of disappointment. At the same time, a number of new brands have risen by carving out differentiated new positioning, so shoppers can also keep an eye on new products tailored to niche use cases with unique brand identities.

This article analyzes the new landscape and consumer trends in China’s current beauty industry, with key takeaways for beauty brands below:

1. Industry and consumer trends: The overall Chinese beauty market has recorded its first-ever full-year negative growth. Amid shaky consumer confidence, shoppers increasingly gravitate toward established, reliable brands, leading to a resurgence of the brand effect. At the same time, consumers are generating new demand, opening up new growth spaces including products for emerging use cases, emotional value, and niche community-specific offerings.

2. Operational takeaways: Aggressive traffic buying no longer works as a competitive moat, and the粗放 unbranded model of rapid, low-quality expansion is obsolete. Brands must pivot quickly, complete the transition from pure product sales to brand building before the last of the traffic红利 fades, double down on product R&D, expand across omnichannel touchpoints, and reduce dependence on traffic algorithm-driven growth.

3. Competitive guidance: Leading foreign beauty giants have mastered China’s localized traffic playbook, and are using their high gross margins to support price cuts that allow them to compete directly in domestic Chinese beauty price bands. Mid-tier domestic brands should watch out for this dual-sided squeeze, and build differentiated competitive advantages early to protect their pricing power.

This article outlines the latest shifts in China’s beauty industry, with key insights for beauty sellers below:

1. Risk warning: The era of unbranded beauty built on cash-burning aggressive traffic buying and粗放 expansion is over. Short-video platforms have started splitting unbranded beauty into segmented categories for refined regulation, introducing strict penalties for non-compliant merchants, and will no longer tolerate unregulated growth. A pure traffic-buying model is very likely to fail, and sellers should avoid this high-risk path.

2. Growth opportunities: There are still multiple untapped growth opportunities in today’s beauty industry: building competitive advantage through differentiation based on unique aesthetic and emotional value; targeting under-served new demand in niche use cases such as cosmetic accessories, scalp care, and outdoor skincare repair; and building high emotional connection and repeat purchase rates by focusing on specific niche consumer groups.

3. Proven best practices: Successful brands have all completed their transitions early, shifting from pure traffic pursuit to deep investment in product development and brand building, while expanding to omnichannel offline distribution to reduce dependence on online traffic. This path is well worth learning from for beauty sellers.

Taking the upheaval in the beauty industry as a case study, this article outlines key insights for beauty product manufacturers, below:

1. Shifts in product design and manufacturing demand: The beauty market no longer prioritizes massive, short-cycle product launches. Consumers are tired of "ingredient competition" and increasingly favor products focused on deep refinement and alignment with new consumption scenarios. Products that deliver unique aesthetic and emotional value are far more competitive, and focusing on a small number of high-quality SKUs is a more sustainable business model than launching dozens of new products every quarter.

2. New business opportunities: A large number of former unbranded beauty players are transitioning from traffic-driven sales to full brand building and expanding offline distribution channels. As a result, their demand for OEM/ODM manufacturing has shifted from short-turnaround rapid new launches to long-term, stable partnerships for high-quality R&D and manufacturing. Factories with strong R&D capabilities that can support long-term stable collaboration will capture far more new business opportunities.

3. Guidance for DTC brand transformation: When factories transition to launching their own owned beauty brands, they cannot replicate the old model of pouring all investment into traffic buying. They must invest early in product R&D and brand mindshare building to survive industry volatility, as aggressive traffic buying can no longer serve as the foundation for a sustainable long-term business.

This article analyzes the latest changes in China’s beauty industry, with key insights for beauty industry service providers, below:

1. Industry development trends: The beauty industry’s traffic growth红利 has now faded, and the unbranded model built on scaling via paid traffic buying has collapsed. The industry has shifted from traffic-driven growth to growth driven by product quality, brand building and differentiated value, with overall market share increasingly concentrating among top players. At the same time, new growth spaces have emerged in niche use cases and community-focused brands.

2. New client pain points: All types of beauty brands today face common transition pain points: traditional traffic-dependent unbranded players urgently need to break their dependence on paid traffic and complete the shift from selling products to building brands; mid-tier domestic brands are caught in a double squeeze from leading foreign brands and urgently need to build differentiated competitive advantages. These pain points represent major new opportunities for service providers.

3. Required business pivots: Service providers can no longer profit purely from traffic placement services. Today, brands most need support in product positioning, identifying niche demand, building differentiated value, and planning omnichannel expansion. These high-value services will become the core growth driver for service providers going forward.

This article outlines the new demands the beauty industry places on e-commerce platforms, and key operational insights drawn from recent industry changes, below:

1. Lessons from industry shifts: In their early stages of growth, platforms prioritized GMV expansion and allowed unbranded beauty players to grow unchecked, leading to a flood of low-quality, short-lifespan unbranded products that harmed consumer experience and undermined long-term industry health. Regulating industry rules has become an inevitable priority for platforms.

2. Proven operational adjustments: Leading short-video e-commerce platforms have already started making adjustments, splitting unbranded beauty business into three independent segments (premium, general lifestyle, and daily essentials) for refined management. They have also introduced strict penalties for non-compliant merchants and are reforming the once unregulated unbranded segment, an approach that aligns with current industry development needs.

3. Future operational priorities: Going forward, platforms need to further strengthen merchant rules, push unbranded merchants to transition to formal brand building, and support differentiated emerging domestic brands and niche community-focused brands to meet diversified consumer demand, mitigate industry instability risks, and build an industry environment with healthy competition.

This article presents the latest developments and emerging issues in China’s beauty industry, with key insights for industry researchers, below:

1. Latest industry developments: After the end of the traffic growth红利, the beauty industry’s structure is being completely reshaped. The aggressive traffic-buying unbranded model has collapsed entirely, and the brand effect has reemerged. International beauty giants have retaken control of China’s beauty market, leveraging their strong brand equity and localized traffic operations. Domestic beauty brands are broadly undergoing a de-trafficification transition, and the industry is seeing clear market divergence.

2. New industry challenges: The overall Chinese beauty market has recorded its first-ever overall negative growth, intensifying存量 competition. The inherent weaknesses of unbranded beauty—short product lifecycles and low consumer trust—have been fully exposed. A large number of mid-tier domestic brands face a downsizing attack from international giants, with their market share continuously squeezed, and breaking this predicament has become a core new challenge for the industry to solve.

3. New business model exploration: A cohort of successfully transitioned brands have developed a range of new growth paths, including focusing on deep refinement of a small number of core SKUs, building omnichannel online-offline distribution, creating differentiation through emotional value, and building high repeat purchase rates by targeting niche consumer communities. These new explorations provide representative case studies for research on business model innovation in the beauty industry.