The exhibition lasted for five days and the previous interventions I focused more on the consumer part. This intervention was different from the previous ones in that I planned and organised the exhibition and promotion together with the businesses I worked with. Using HARMEI’s platform and influence helped my exhibition to have a wider impact on the stakeholders.
The exhibition is also a warm-up campaign for the opening of HARMEI’s organic skincare sales channel. I interviewed a large number of HARMAY consumers during the course of the exhibition and found that 80% of those interviewed had a strong interest in the upcoming organic skincare sales division, which they expressed great anticipation for.
The manager of HARMEI said that the exhibition had also given him more confidence in opening an organic beauty department. We have started a research on European organic beauty brands to select the right ones for Chinese consumers among many others.
At the same time this intervention, and the collaboration with Huami, made me realise that it takes more rigorous research and logical thinking to make a commercial venture. But to my surprise, Chinese consumers are very interested and enthusiastic about organic skincare.
1.Contact with HARMAY Founder’s meeting I got a response to my previous contact with HARMAY’s main manager, Wang Junchao, who expressed interest in collaborating with me after seeing my vr exhibition and the discussions and content posted on Xiaohongbook. He said that the project I was working on to popularise the concept of organic skincare coincided with HARMAY’s brand philosophy – to bring better ideas to consumers through sensory experiences and to be responsible for the beauty of the world through creation.
I soon had an online meeting with Wang Junchao and the head of HARMAY’s art marketing department, where I learned that HARMAY was also laying out a strategic marketing plan for the organic skincare market, so I proposed to collaborate with HARMAY to hold an exhibition on organic skincare concepts in HARMAY’s offline shops. Here are some important notes from the meeting
-There was a consensus that organic beauty has a great future in the Chinese market, and that the current selection of organic beauty brands in China is still relatively small, so the concept of organic can be unfamiliar and vague to consumers. At this stage, promoting and introducing independent and established organic beauty brands is the most suitable way to increase consumers’ awareness of organic beauty. -HARMAY has plans to sign exclusive deals with independent European organic brands in the future to open organic beauty outlets. -The online meeting led to a collaboration with HARMAY, where I will curate an offline art exhibition as an artist in their shops.
2.Exhibition content
It was a challenge for me to prepare the offline exhibition in three weeks. The venue for this exhibition was in the commercial centre of Beijing, with high traffic and short stay times. The content of my exhibition needed to be visual enough to convey the exact message to the stakeholders in a short time.
After trying several options, I chose to use plants, soil, metal, mirrors and light as the basic elements of the exhibition. Taking these elements in a way that defies the norm and suggests the conflict and stress that traditional beauty brings to the environment. At the same time the concept of organic beauty is played on a loop on the LED screen above the hanging plants.
When the plants leave the soil, they coexist with metal, glass, plastic and light to create a strong sense of unfamiliarity and conflict, using visual and experimental differences to lead the consumers to think about organic beauty and sustainable beauty lifestyles.
During my research I found Chinese skincare and beauty retail company HARMAY to be a good partner for the exhibition, we had a compatible concept and at the same time the customer base of HARMAY had a high level of overlap with the stakeholders of my project.
HARMAY is a global beauty collection shop established in China in 2008, a new retail brand with a warehouse-style aesthetic DNA. HARMAY opened its first offline shop in Shanghai in 2017 and now has opened offline shops in Beijing, Chengdu, Xi’an and other top tier Chinese cities.
-The brand’s positioning: A new generation of beauty and lifestyle brand retail, attracting millennial consumers through an experiential approach, breaking the conventional perception of traditional beauty and skincare through innovation in shop design and shopping experience.
-Target group profile: young female consumers in first and second tier cities, post-90s millennials, socially oriented, who like to try new things
The shop features: art exhibitions, pan-art museums, social media, combining consumption and social attributes to create an offline consumption scene
In my research into the Chinese skincare market, I found that HARMAY has launched a young artist collaboration unit, “HARMAY’s Exhibition”, to collaborate with young artists of international interest or trusted artists with distinctive personal styles. The brand will be able to enhance its communication through art exhibitions. Through art exhibitions, the brand’s communication and social impact is enhanced.
I sent a message to the curatorial department through the contact details of the young artist collaboration unit ‘HARMAY’s Exhibition’, introducing the project I was working on and expressing my desire to collaborate on the exhibition.
There are two main components to my stakeholder base. Consumers in the Chinese beauty and skincare market, and practitioners in the Chinese beauty and skincare industry. This intervention was followed by a large amount of positive feedback from stakeholders. Many people left comments under my posts sharing organic beauty brands asking how to buy them. Others were complaining that they loved the brands but they were not available in China due to their relatively small size. At the same time, in the organic skincare discussion community I set up, I collected feedback from stakeholders and there was a general interest in the niche European organic beauty brands I shared. In the questionnaire I found that the factors that influenced them to try these organic beauty products were
For individual consumers and for each purchase to send a separate quantity of skincare products from Europe to China, the expensive international shipping costs are a hindrance. Often the international postage costs are higher than the price of the skincare products purchased.
The international logistics timeframe is unstable, with a 2-6 week wait after placing an order and the risk of the parcel getting stuck in customs.
So I had an idea: could I act as an agent for these organic brands in China to help consumers solve the problems they face? During a tutorial with Richard, he reminded me that if I wanted to use this as a business model, I should be aware of the number of stakeholders who would need it. At Richard’s suggestion I started collecting data on this and within two months 250-300 people had commented on their need for easier access to purchase.
I realised that to improve this I needed to work with the existing beauty retailers in China. My influence alone was not enough, I needed to work with established beauty retailers. During my research into the Chinese beauty market, I found that the retailer HARMAY’s philosophy was a good fit for me, so I started trying to contact HARMAY.
Anakena takes its name from the name of beautiful white sandy beach on Easter Island. It holds all sorts of wonderful imagery about the South Pacific: white sandy beaches, clear green-blue waters, warm and comfortable sea breezes …… This is what inspired Anakena’s organic skincare.
Lovely founder Petra shooting new products with the Easter Island beauty pageant winner
As a passionate organic skincare brand, Anakena’s vision is to enhance people’s well-being while treating the environment responsibly. Starting with the selection of active ingredients in their products, all the way through to the production process and unique packaging design, Anakena’s philosophy is inspired by the ♻️Ecocert Green life/COSMOS NATURAL certification standards. For them, the abandonment of animal testing is as much a matter of course as the use of environmentally friendly packaging.
♻️ With a truly organic and sustainable philosophy, behind these interesting brands are people like Petra who truly shout about their sincere love for our planet and the environment. This should be more than just a raw slogan. Nature gives everything to mankind, and at the heart of organic and sustainability is a pure feeling for nature.
Natural and organic skincare|Finland Flow Cosmetics
From environmentally pure Finland skincare brand Flow Cosmetics is passionate about creating skincare products that are truly natural. Founder Riitta Jänkälä is proud of Finland’s nature and has therefore created an organic skincare brand with purity and naturalness at its core.
Riitta used to run a hairdressing salon with her sister, where she was constantly handling chemicals and various beauty products in her work, and was disgusted by the unpleasant smell and unknown side effects. Not wanting to expose her children to any more unnecessary chemicals, she started experimenting with making her own lavender soap and was successful. This is where the story begins.
Flow cosmetics was founded and started operations in 2004 and is one of the pioneers of natural cosmetics. the most important active ingredients in Flow products are wild berries and herbs from Lapland and nearby farms in northern Finland. Under the midnight sun, these plants are rich in vitamins, antioxidants and nutrients as they store nutrients during the short, bright Finnish summer for the long, brutal winter.
Rita, who has been interested in yoga and meditation since she was very young, believes that body and mind should be considered as a whole for health. Such a philosophy has also been put into her brand philosophy for Flow.
Flow beauty products are soaps, oils, lotions, cosmetics and other products for the face, body and hair. The botanical ingredients used are certified organic and the necessary cosmetic additives comply with COSMOS standards for organic and natural cosmetics.
Looking back at some of my previous interventions, I realised that I needed to reach out more deeply to my stakeholders. The deeper engagement here included two aspects
1: In terms of audience size, the goal of my project was to increase Chinese consumers’ awareness of organic skincare concepts and products I should try to make my intervention visible to more skincare users living in China and to generate more interaction and engagement with them. 2: In terms of message quality: I needed to be clearer in delivering a more practical, clear and easy to understand message to my stakeholders.
After talking to Peng Hao, Shiseido’s marketing manager in Shanghai, I realised that new media campaigns in the post-epidemic Chinese market were the most direct and effective way to get the message out to the public. I also learnt from secondary research that the main consumer of organic skincare in the Chinese market is the Chinese millennial generation, and the audience questionnaire collected after the fourth intervention also showed that the age range of the exhibition audience was mainly 18-28 (65%) and 28-32 (24%).
During the feedback collection process for several interventions, I realised that the choice of format and platform of the intervention was also an important factor in the outcome. Combining this information, and in order to target my project’s stakeholders more, I decided to conduct my next intervention on Xiaohongshu, the largest self-publishing platform in China with the largest number of users in this age group.
So I created an account on Xiaohongshu called VOLCANO LAB. The account focuses on sharing organic skincare brands to the general public, with the stories and ideas behind the brands.
After 2 months of consistent posting, the account now has 8280 followers and 14,000 likes on over fifty posts. On average, each post has 80-150 likes, with 20 or 30 comments, which is a pleasing amount of feedback for a vehicle intervention.
I do two things with this account 1: Post a daily research on organic brands. The content includes the story of the brand, the introduction of the manager, the overall philosophy of the brand, and the lifestyle that the brand advocates.
2: I started the topic #EveryDayMeetsAnOrganicSustainableBrand on Little Red Book to get every user involved. So far there are 83 tweets under this topic and the sub-topic has been viewed 153,000 times.
Through the sharing of VOLCANO LAB, I have gained more understanding of these products, and even the understanding behind the products, and realized that brand sharing is not for business, but more for the awareness of the whole consumer concept and the upgrading of the industry.
As the account has been running, many people have commented on the posts I have made. Some have expressed a desire to have easy access to their products, while a start-up Chinese organic brand has contacted me to promote their brand through me. So I set up an organic beauty community, hoping to bring together a group of people interested in sustainable organic skincare to discuss and share their ideas, and to get more feedback from my stakeholders. Some of the 361 people in the community are consumers interested in organic beauty, while others are organic skincare practitioners and founders looking for collaboration and publicity.
I interviewed Yan Yan who is an expert in China’s cosmetics industry. She is an associate researcher at the China Academy of Inspection and Quarantine, and once served as the deputy director of the Cosmetics Technology Center of the China Academy of Inspection and Quarantine.
Linjie: As a researcher at the China Academy of Inspection and Quarantine, what do you think of organic skin care products in the Chinese market given that there are currently no certification standards for organic skin care products in China?
Yan: Although the organic trend is becoming popular, the certification of organic skincare products involves production, ingredients, packaging, and transportation so China currently has no clear organic certification. But this does not mean that it is impossible to distinguish. In my opinion, international certification standards can be used to differentiate. Only through international organic certification is the “organicness” of a product guaranteed. There are currently three levels of organic skin care products in China
Yan: Premium certification is for products that are BDIH certified, Cosmebio & Ecocert certified, or ICEA certified, and meet all the necessary requirements for a natural skincare brand and use more than 95% plant-based, natural, organic farming ingredients as the main ingredients.
Yan: Intermediate certification is for products that claim to be natural, containing organic agricultural ingredients as ingredients, but not strictly through the BDIH ((German: Association of Manufacturers and Distributors)) certification.
Yan: Primary certification is for products that are marketed as a “natural product” but not clearly labeled on the packaging. The product claims to be “natural” but does not contain certified organic ingredients.
Linjie: Understood, so may I ask if this type of certification is binding on beauty brands that claim to be organic in the market?
Yan: This is currently only the unspoken rules of the beauty testing community, and not included in the skincare regulations, so it is not binding
Linjie: In your opinion, is it possible to promote organic certification in China in the short term?
Yan: That is still difficult, because there are specific requirements for products from raw material cultivation methods, soil, and even to the collection process and so on. Certification will be difficult; it may need to set up a special organic certification body. But at present, the proportion of organic skincare products in the Chinese market is still relatively small compared to ordinary skincare products. If the demand is not large enough, then it is difficult to set up a special regulatory department.
Linjie: Do you have any suggestions for my project in this case?
Yan: Your starting point is meaningful, and hopefully you can keep doing it. You can expand your influence by partnering with online or offline retailers. For non-specialized cosmetics consumers, the overly detailed certification regulations and concepts are relatively difficult to understand. You can promote organic skin care in a different way, which will bring it more into the consumers’ view.
Linjie: Understood.
Linjie: Thank you very much for your reply!
Conclusion
Yan’s advice on my intervention from a beauty industry practitioner’s perspective was very inspiring and made me realize that organic skincare education for consumers should be easy to understand, too many obscure concepts and chemical terms might increase the gap between me and the stakeholders. I started to think about what medium and content I should use for my next intervention. Her affirmation of my topic also gave me the confidence to continue the project, and more importantly, after talking to experts in the skincare testing industry, I have a clearer understanding of the current state of organic skincare in China, which will help me to improve my interventions.
I remembered that when I first heard the word “organic”, back to the day of my childhood, I was confused, just the same with my parents, my peers, and most people around me. The fact is the concept of organic, which people are familiar with today, rose from the west in the 20th century. The term “organic farming” is first mentioned by Lord Northbourne in his book in 1940. At that time, Chinese people were experiencing a series of wars, and for the future 40 years, China was under a relatively undeveloped condition. There is a gap in their awareness of the concept of organic between Chinese people and Western people. Also, as a native mandarin speaker, I realized that the word “organic”, when translated to Chinese, is kind of confusing and not very intuitive in our language environment. It is very easy to confuse it with terms like “natural”. Even after I learned about the concept of organic, I still occasionally forgot about the difference between them. I am curious about whether an ordinary consumer could distinguish the word organic from a group of similar words. I am also wondering if Chinese consumers understand what the idea of organic skincare is about. If they don’t, how could I explain and propagandize it, or if they do, do they care about it, are they willing to pay for this idea when it is applied to skincare? To get answers to such questions, I decided to deliver a survey.
Quantitative Research
The survey has 8 multiple-choice questions and has been answered by 539 Chinese consumers in different regions who are between 20-40 years old. Most of the participants are from the east coast while others are from the middle area.
Question 1 shows that about 70% of the participants cannot distinguish between the term “natural” and “organic”, which coincide with my previous thinking. This indicates that I would need to explain not only what organic means but also how is it different from similar or confused terms in Chinese to my stakeholders.
Question 2 shows that only 23.56% of participants clearly understand the idea of organic skincare. This indicates that most of the Chinese consumers might not have a correct awareness of organic skincare.
Question 3 shows that the top 3 factors that affect the participants when selecting skincare products are price, side effects, and brand. The bad news is that most of the participants do not care enough about the ingredients, packaging, and whether the product is environmentally friendly. This means that I would need to spend more time figuring out how to raise their awareness of these issues. But the good news is that 53.06% of the participants show strong care for the product’s side effects. When propagandizing the concept of organic skincare, it is a good idea to mention how organic skincare products, compared to traditional skincare products, would be safer to use and less risky regarding the side effect. It might also be a good idea to choose products that will be used for propaganda from those popular brands which have a strong effect.
Question 4
Most of the participants (62.15%) use Xiaohongshu as their primary source for getting new cosmetics-related information. When choosing an online platform for my intervention, Xiaohongshu would probably be my first choice.
Question 5
About 62% of participants do think that organic skincare products have actual advantages, and 16.33% are not sure. This is good news, as it will be easier to convey the concept to people who already admitted some advantages of it. I may need to prepare a detailed explanation about the idea behind organic skincare and its benefits to convince those who do not have enough understanding about it. And hopefully, I can convince some of the people that think organic skincare is just a gimmick.
Question 6
54.17% of the participants are willing to switch from traditional skincare products to organic skincare products to reduce the risk of getting skin issues. Again, it will be very important to mention, when propagandizing the concept of organic skincare, how organic skincare products would be safer to use and less likely to cause skin issues.
Question 7
When considering participants in a propaganda event, most people prefer art exhibitions (80.15%) and social media sharing (89.61%). Therefore, these would probably be my primary choices for the form of my intervention.
Question 8
Most of the participants prefer products with middle-range prices (250-800 RMB) when choosing organic skincare products. When selecting products for propaganda, product in this price range should be the primary choices.
Conclusion
I got a lot of useful information through collecting the result of this survey. Although there are still some difficulties, the result is better than I thought. Chinese consumers are no different from others, they cared about their skin and environment just as everyone else. It is just that they do not have a clear understanding of the concept of organic skincare. And my mission is to deliver this information to them and educate them about the benefits associated. I once again realized that what I am doing is meaningful. But one thing that I should remember is that this survey, just like any other survey, is biased. It does not represent the whole picture of Chinese consumers. For instance, as you can see, consumers from a lot of regions are missing. Hence, it is possible that the reality is different from the result of the survey. I should be ready for the challenges ahead.
This is a case study for two market research I have read. One is the “Organic Skincare Market Size, Share & Trends Analysis Report By Product (Face Cream & Moisturizers, Face Cleanser, Face Serum, Body Wash), By Distribution Channel, By Region, And Segment Forecasts, 2022 – 2030”, and the other one is the “Organic Cosmetics in China: Natural ingredients gaining popularity” which is provided by Daxue Consulting. The first one focused on offering a global picture of the organic cosmetics industry, while the second one concentrated on China’s market. I got a lot of enlightenment from my intervention along with a deeper understanding of the current state of the organic skincare industry from studying this research and I would like to share some of them in this post.
A Global View
Depend on market research provided by “Research and Markets”, the global organic skincare market size was valued at USD 9.83 billion in 2021 and is expected to expand at a (CAGR) compound annual growth rate of 8.9% from 2022 to 2030, which will double the market share to 21.174 billion in 2030. Global consumers show a growing inclination toward chemical-free cosmetic products with the broadening concepts of creams, serums, and moisturizers infused with organic ingredients. The Covid-19 pandemic also raised people’s attention on personal care. In recent years, there is an increasing prevalence of skin issues caused by synthetic ingredients in cosmetics. Synthetic compounds including methylparaben, butylparaben, and propylparaben are toxic chemicals known to cause allergic reactions, acne, blemishes, rashes, and other skin problems. This further accelerated the expansion of the organic cosmetic market. Another boosting factor is raising awareness among younger men on the benefit that skincare provides. Women have always been the major force in consuming cosmetics. But based on a blog published in 2020 by TIEGE HANLEY, a men’s skincare startup, 60% of men aged 18 to 24 use skincare products.
I also learned some insight regarding the product from the figure below. It shows that in the United States, face creams and moisturizers take about 40-50% of the market share, while face cleansers ranked right behind them. The face serum segment shows the fastest growth during the forecasted period of 2022-2030. The report shows that the global market coincides with the United States on the product side.
The last thing I learned from studying this report is about regional insights. The report indicates that Asia Pacific is the fastest-growing market which is expected to have a CAGR of 9.2% from 2022 to 2030. It also takes the largest market share (34%) in 2021.
Among all countries in this region, China is the No.1 player and the market leader. The rising consumer awareness, increasing income (based on the Government Stats 2021, Chinese consumer’s disposable income increased by 8.8% than last year), changing lifestyles, and increasing concern about the environment and health have made China’s organic skincare market very promising.
Conclusion
According to what I have learned from the report, it seems that the organic skincare industry has a bright future. People today indeed spend increasing time and money on skincare. At least most people, men, and women, around me cared about their skin and they spend 1-2 hours a day on skincare. I also believe that people will gradually switch from traditional skincare products to organic skincare products in the future, as it is safer to use. But I do suspect how long this process will take. Organic products are more expensive, and for most consumers, price is probably the most important factor when choosing products. Also, I do not see any clear evidence showing that the pandemic has a positive correlation with the expansion of the organic skincare market. I have seen people start to pay more attention to sanitization and their health conditions due to Covid-19. But I do not see this having any impact on their inclination toward skin care. These are the two aspects that require me to do further research before making any conclusion. On the other hand, the research about the product segment has provided me with a lot of insight into how I could propagandize organic skincare. Given the data shown above, I will concentrate more on popular products such as face creams, moisturizers, and face cleansers at the early stage of propaganda to attract attention. The regional analysis also raised my confidence. It seems that China’s organic skincare market has a promising perspective and that Chinese people are starting to pay more attention to health and environmental issues. This, if true, would make my project meaningful. To get more supportive evidence, I would need to spend more time researching China’s market.
Now I have a basic understanding of the global market for organic skincare, and for this project, the next question to ask is what does China’s market look like?
The China Market
To get a deeper and more detailed understanding of China’s organic skincare market, I studied market research made by Daxue Consulting. There are some enlightening findings that I would like to share. China has the largest cosmetics market in Asia. It passed Japan in 2013, and in 2017 its market share reached 11.5% of the global market, second only to the United States at 18.5%. As people in China start to pay more attention to their image, the demand for cosmetics grows rapidly. China’s cosmetics retail sales increased from 182500 million RMB to 299200 million RMB between 2014 and 2019. This is a 64% increase in 5 years, which indicates a CAGR of 10.39%. Organic cosmetic brands saw this increasing demand and China. has become a new outlet for them to develop and expand. Hence, organic cosmetics in China are also becoming more and more popular.
In China, consumers between 30-35 years old, with their strong purchase power, have been the largest customer groups (40%) of cosmetics. The second largest customer group (36%) is composed of younger customers aged 25-29. These consumers usually care about others’ comments on their appearance and most of them have been deeply affected by the beauty info from Chinese social media such as Weibo, XiaoHongShu, WeChat, and DouYin. Therefore, they are willing to buy more cosmetic products. These two groups took 76% of the entire cosmetics consumer group. Consumers who are under 24 have limited purchase power and awareness, while consumers who are 35 and elder have limited exposure to social media and cared relatively less about others’ comments on their appearance.
The research has shown that in China, 70% of consumers think that the effect of the product is a significant quality that they are looking for. 61% of consumers think that price is an important quality. 54% of consumers think that brand is an important quality. An interesting finding is that only 40% of consumers listed the ingredients of the product as their main concern when looking for a proper product, and only 9% listed the package.
As mentioned in the post “What is Organic Skincare?”, there are currently no regulatory agencies or standards to do organic cosmetics certification in China. This lack of regulation is one of the reasons that Chinese consumers favor foreign brands more, as their products have been tested by a reliable certification system. Based on market research made by Daxue Consulting, among the top 10 cosmetics brands in China in 2017, only 3 are domestic brands.
In China, supermarkets (27%) and e-commerce (23%) occupied 50% of the share of distribution channels for cosmetics in 2017. While the offline channels (supermarket+ specialized stores+ department stores) were still the main sales channel (56%) at that time.
For all cosmetics and personal care brands (international and domestic), social media and e-commerce platforms have been perfect approaches for branding in China. By using social media and e-commerce channels, cosmetics, and personal care brands can effectively build trust and a good reputation among Chinese consumers. E-commerce websites, such as Tmall and JD are the main platform for purchasing cosmetics and getting detailed info on products. Thus, most well-known cosmetics brands have built official stores on those platforms. Purchase-sharing apps like Xiaohongshu and life-sharing social media like Douyin and Bilibili have been good ways for cosmetics/personal care brands to promote their products since those apps are getting extremely popular among Chinese Women. Among all skincare products that have been sold on Tmall, the largest e-commerce platform in China, the facial mask is the most popular one as its sales volume is 8.42 million in 2018, which is 44% more than the sale volume of the second-ranked product-face cream and 300% more than the sale volume of the third-ranked product-facial water.
Conclusion
I think the study on China’s organic skincare market is very meaningful and enlightening. The prospect of China’s organic skincare market is promising and bright. It increased rapidly in recent years, and I am impressed with its huge potential beneath. The data has shown that consumers in China have an increasing inclination toward organic skincare, and this strengthens my confidence in doing my project. It is also very meaningful to see the age distribution of cosmetics consumers in China. In my future interventions, I would probably focus more on people who are between 25 years old and 35 years old as they are the majority group to consume cosmetics in China. And I think that they would also be the vanguard who would most easily accept the concept of organic skincare. I learned that supermarkets, e-commerce platforms, and department stores are the top 3 distribution channels for cosmetics in China. When doing my intervention, if I would like to cooperate with any brand or business, it might be better to choose those that own all three channels, or at least two of them. If I need to conduct any offline event, then a supermarket or department store might be a good place to hold it. Since, at this point, China does not have a certification system for organic skincare products, consumers favor foreign brands that are certified by a reliable system. Therefore, if I need to use specific products to do propaganda, I probably should choose products from certified foreign brands as they are trusted and favored by Chinese consumers. The study about the product segment is also useful, as it indicates what segment of organic skincare products will likely get more attention.
At the same time, the learning also raised some concerns. As I mentioned above, when choosing a skincare product, Chinese consumers do not seem to have many concerns about its ingredients and package, which are two crucial parts when talking about the concept of organic skincare. Thus, I am wondering if Chinese cosmetics consumers cared enough about the idea of organic. It seems that they cared about the effect and price of the product a lot, and organic skincare products are more expensive, and no evidence has shown that they are more effective than traditional skincare products.
Therefore, a natural question to ask is that even if they learned and understood the concept of organic skincare, do they care about it? If it turns out to be that they do not have enough interest in the idea behind organic skincare, then what could I do to improve this situation? To answer these questions, I would need to get in touch with consumers themselves and learn their behaviors and opinions.
Next Step
The next step would be to open an account on Xiaohongshu, a Chinese sharing app, to propagandize the concept of organic skincare. The reason for choosing it is that it is the most popular sharing platform in China and many people share their idea and life on it. Its major users are younger age people (22-34) which coincides with the age range of the major cosmetics consumer group in China. And to better understand the Chinese consumers’ attitude toward organic skincare, it is necessary to hold a survey that focuses on them and study from it.
