Fashion Brand MLB Starts Selling Makeup Products?

In the field of fast-moving consumer goods, beauty is undoubtedly a low-risk, high-yield “big cake”. The trendy clothing brand MLB, which has not made new moves for a long time, has opened an “MLB Beauty” account on social media platforms such as China, and has also registered its own store on the e-commerce platform.

At present, the store has a total of 562 fans. From the perspective of price and design, the positioning of MLB beauty continues the trend of clothing. The first product series covers three fragrances and two air cushion foundations. Each fragrance is available in two volumes of 10ml and 50ml, priced at 220 yuan and 580 yuan. The appearance of the air cushion liquid foundation has two colors: “High Street Black” and “Wildberry Barbie”. The shell and the replacement core are sold separately. The price of the former is 160 yuan, and the price of the latter is 200 yuan.

In the three days of the new store opening, 87 people paid for the air cushion foundation, and some consumers commented under the product link, “I bought it for the appearance of the product, and the makeup and durability are also ‘online’.”

For a long time, the crossover of fashion brands has always been a hot spot in the industry. Many brands have launched co-branded products, suits, and gift boxes, and marked them with “limited” labels, constantly stimulating consumers’ new desire to buy. Today, under the influence of many external factors, the popularity of cross-border co-branding is fading. Instead, various fashion brands have established their own portals to engage in “side business” in the field of makeup.

In May of this year, the late designer Virgil Abloh left the PAPERWORK beauty series for his personal streetwear brand Off-White on the luxury e-commerce platform Farfetch. It is reported that this is Off-White’s first foray into the field of beauty. The first batch of products launched is a fragrance series called “SOLUTION”. Since then, it has also launched facial makeup, body care, nail polish and other single products, officially expanding the beauty field. . In March this year, Dries Van Noten, a fashion brand under the Spanish PUIG Group, also launched perfume and lipstick for the first time, officially entering the field of beauty.

In addition to trendy fashion brands, luxury brands such as Valentino, Hermes, and Prada have also made continuous efforts in the field of beauty in the past two years, in order to establish new growth pillars. In Hermès’ first-quarter 2022 financial report, the revenue of the fragrance and beauty department increased by 20% year-on-year. In the past year, Hermès has extended the makeup category from lipstick and perfume to hand and face makeup.

It is not difficult to see that when fashion brands first enter the field of beauty, they often choose two categories: lipstick and perfume. Some industry insiders pointed out that compared with categories such as base makeup and skin care products, which require stronger skin feel, lipsticks and perfumes have a lower threshold for consumer acceptance, and can immediately convey a figurative experience.

Every brand is looking for a new way out. Beauty products that are low-cost but can have high income have just caught the “pain point” of most brands seeking new growth.

So, can MLB, which started with the products around the Major League Baseball, become the “adversary” of luxury brands in the field of beauty?

Public information shows that the full name of MLB is Major League Baseball (Major League Baseball, hereinafter referred to as “Major League”), but the clothing with the MLB brand logo is not directly sold by the major league, but authorized to a third-party company to operate, South Korean listed company F&F Group is one of the authorized companies.

The main information of the MLB Beauty WeChat official account shows that its operating company is Shanghai Fankou Cosmetics Trading Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Fankou Cosmetics”). Fanko Cosmetics is a subsidiary of F&F Group in China, which is mainly responsible for the sales and operation of the group’s beauty brand BANILA CO and skin care brand KU:S.

Statistics show that in 2005, F&F Group founded BANILA CO, which was introduced into the Chinese market in 2009. As its star product, Zero Cleansing Cream was once popular in China. However, with the fading trend of Korean makeup, BANILA CO did not have any new star products. According to the official website of BANILA CO, its offline order brand counters have been reduced to 25, mainly in third- and fourth-tier cities. At the same time, KU:S is still sold in mainland China through cross-border e-commerce, and has not yet opened the offline market.

In the current competitive beauty market, can the trend positioning that MLB Beauty wants to create be accepted by consumers? In this regard, Wu Daiqi, CEO of Shenzhen Siqisheng Co., Ltd., said that it is normal for fashion brands to develop beauty lines. “Usually fashion brands have their inherent cultural meaning and circles of people, and they will involve multiple categories, such as clothing, perfume, and beauty. , jewelry, etc. After the brand builds a certain inner cultural value around a certain circle, it will consolidate this customer group and form its own advantages, so it will make more attempts.”

As for whether consumers can pay, in Wu Daiqi’s view, it depends more on whether the brand has a clear positioning and how to operate. “As far as MLB is concerned, entering the beauty industry has its advantages, that is, the established brand culture and loyal groups; the disadvantage is that the American baseball culture may be ‘unsuitable’ in China, or it belongs to a niche culture, and its makeup brand is difficult to become popular brand.”