Tmall Beauty "Sharpening the Knife"

Author | Liu Baodan

Editor | Huang Yu

The battle of e-commerce platforms has spread to the beauty industry. First, JD.com announced that all beauty products will enjoy a subsidy of billions and will invest at least 3 billion yuan in price reductions. Now, Tmall is also making its presence felt.

On the evening of August 19th, at the Tmall Golden Makeup Awards Summit, Tmall Beauty presented a six-month report card, achieving comprehensive growth in users, supply, and domains.

Mu Shan, General Manager of the Fast Moving Consumer Goods Division, stated at the meeting that both the user base, user spending, and Tmall's 88VIP users have seen double-digit growth. "Under the new crowd strategy, the efficiency of beauty brand advertising has increased by over 30%, and member transactions have seen double-digit growth."

Supply-side data shows that in the past year, Tmall Beauty has seen 73 new brands with sales exceeding one billion; on the live streaming side, Tmall Beauty has created over 500 self-broadcasting brands, with influencers like Zhang Xiaohui and Yudagongzi being introduced, and niche anchors continuously being discovered and nurtured. Currently, Tmall Beauty has collaborated with over 100,000 niche anchors.

As the category that Taobao is best at, the importance of beauty products is becoming increasingly prominent as industry competition intensifies. It is also in this context that Tmall Beauty has focused on growth this year and has achieved good initial results.

At the Toptalk event in April, Tmall announced that the goal of the Fast Moving Consumer Goods Division this year is comprehensive growth. Growth is not just about numbers; it signifies a change in Tmall's business philosophy, aiming to lead consumer mindset.

To achieve this, Tmall has optimized and upgraded its operational methodology. Specifically, Tmall's Fast Moving Consumer Goods Division announced the upgrade of the "daily sales + major promotions" dual-core operation system. Through the three core strategies of value user growth, networked supply operations, and open and inclusive domain, Tmall aims to achieve precise matching of people, goods, and venues, enhancing brand long-term operational efficiency.

Driven by the goal of comprehensive growth, Tmall Beauty's market share has significantly increased.

According to Qingyan data, in the first half of 2024, the total size of the Chinese cosmetics market reached 479.25 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 2.48%, with online channels accounting for 50.31%, a year-on-year increase of 4.07%. In terms of market share, the overall channel market share of the Taobao + Tmall platform was 22.6% in 2023, and this figure increased to 23.1% in the first half of 2024.

Based on its strong market performance, Tmall Beauty also hosted its grandest Golden Makeup Awards in years.

At the summit, over 600 of the most influential beauty brands globally, along with top influencers such as Wangwang, Mifeng Jingxi She, and Chen Jie KiKi, gathered to receive various awards presented by Tmall.

The Golden Makeup Awards are known as the "Oscars" of the beauty industry, having been held for ten years. This year, both the scale of brands and the categories of awards have reached new highs.

Moving forward, Tmall will maintain its current strategic focus. Mu Shan stated at the summit, "In the first half of the year, our platform investment nearly doubled, and the long-term brand operation ROI has steadily increased; in the second half of the year, we will further increase investment to ensure the brand's growth."

Challenges are also evident, with soft consumer demand compounded by intensified competition among e-commerce platforms, adding more uncertainty to the future development of Tmall Beauty On August 8th, JD.com announced that consumers can enjoy billions of subsidies when purchasing beauty products of any category on JD.com, including both JD's own products and third-party merchant products. The investment in beauty subsidies will exceed 3 billion RMB, mainly used to directly reduce the prices of beauty products in the channel and enrich the variety of big-name gifts in the genuine product promotion.

According to Wall Street News, after the new round of subsidy investment, all beauty products participating in the billions of subsidies on JD.com are expected to be discounted by 10% to 50%. Douyin also maintains a strong growth momentum in the beauty track. Qingyan Data shows that in July, the GMV of makeup products on Douyin exceeded 15.5 billion RMB, a year-on-year increase of 24.7%.

Against the backdrop of escalating e-commerce competition, it will become increasingly difficult for Tmall to maintain its advantage in the beauty track, making it destined to be the most fiercely contested battlefield