What secrets are hidden in the 100 billion sun protection market?

Author | Bai Lu

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Since the end of July, high -temperature weather has begun to appear in the country. Whether it is daily commuting, or going out to play and participating in outdoor sports, sun protection has become a top priority. Different from previous years, with the boom of the new consumption sweeping traditional industries, a new trend of physical sunscreen has begun to appear among young people, and thereby breeding a 100 billion -scale emerging market.

On the content grass platform, traffic stars and popular bloggers are sharing their own sunscreen cheats and sunscreen artifacts. From common parasols to hot sunscreen, sunscreen sleeves, and even sunscreen masks, and various products in recent years Stimulated consumers' awareness of sun protection, and they also gave birth to explosive products. And when the sunscreen seems to be continuously upgraded for a season, the doorway of the new economy has gradually surfaced.

Sun protection is a basket, everything is installed in it

Before the popularity of chemical sunscreen products such as sunscreen and sunscreen spray, Chinese consumers have always been physical methods, and some "explosive products" have also appeared. In the 1980s and 1990s, a large number of clothing, clothing, shoes and hat manufacturers have flourished in the development of domestic light industry. Some manufacturers produce a fans with fans installed on the brim after seeing the market demand of summer sunscreen. Thanks to the innovation and practicality of the product, this fan solar hat quickly swept the country, and almost children born in the post -80s.

By 1996, the paradise umbrella that originally made an umbrella developed the famous "UV prevention process treatment technology", which not only made up for the blank of the domestic parasol market, but also threw other friends from behind. The sales of 100 million. After a period of time, the rapid development of the cosmetics market has shifted consumers' attention, and the physical sunscreen market has encountered an empty window period. Until 2007, sunscreens were first popular in the United States, and then introduced to China. The physical sunscreen market ushered in new development in China, and a series of new products such as sunscreen sleeves and sunscreen masks appeared.

However, the mainstream consumer groups of physical sunscreen products were not keen to chase the trend, but because the career needs had to be exposed to the sun, takeaway riders and taxi drivers for a long time, or they needed to ride on the bicycle every day. Occupation women off work. Therefore, for a while, the row of electric vehicle riders on the streets of many cities will be seen on the top of the electric vehicle rider, wearing sunglasses and sunscreen sleeves, and a red light at the intersection.

As for the popularity of physical sunscreen products in the past two years, a large part of the reason is that young people have begun to be keen on outdoor activities. Beginning in 2021, niche outdoor activities such as camping, surfing, flying, Luya, bicycles, and bicycles have become popular hotspots in social media, attracting a large number of young people to participate. In addition to the necessary professional equipment for procurement activities, outdoor sunscreen products are also consumer projects that cannot be ignored. As a result, after insight into the rapidly growing market opportunities, merchants have also begun to enter the physical sunscreen track.

截至目前，国内物理防晒领域已经聚集一大批玩家，其中既有依靠DTC模式快速成长起来的网红品牌蕉下，也有从传统服装行业“跨界”而来的优衣库、UR等快时尚品牌，以及Traditional sports brands such as Li Ning and Anta, and even Poson, who are mainly engaged in down jackets, are actively entering the game, trying to share a share from the physical sunscreen market.

With the continuous joining of new players, the physical sunscreen market has derived a variety of products such as sunscreen, parasols, sunscreen masks, sunscreen sleeves, and sunscreen masks. Under each category, according to styling, function and design style, etc., multiple types of products are further subdivided. For example, sunscreen caps can be divided into beach sunscreen hats, shell sunscreen hats, fisherman sunscreen hats, etc., and sunscreen masks can also have a variety of subdivisions such as dust or breathability according to functional characteristics.

"Gate Road" of sun protection

Although the sunscreen products launched by merchants have been diverse, the principles and technology of sun protection have not changed much. The "UV prevention process processing technology" used on the parasol in the early days was actually painting a layer of sunscreen coatings on the fabric of the umbrella surface. Now it has become a hot -selling sunscreen and sunscreen mask, and most of them use similar technologies.

According to national standards, the ability of textiles to block ultraviolet rays mainly depends on two values, one is UPF of UV protection factor, and the other is the barrier rate of long -wave UVA. Only when the UPF is greater than 40 and the UVA passing rate is less than 5%, the corresponding textiles can be called "anti -ultraviolet product", which can be identified as UPF40 +. When UPF is greater than 50, it indicates that the product's ultraviolet protection performance is excellent, and the protection level can be identified as UPF50 +. In addition, there are larger numerical products such as UPF55+, 80+, and 100+on the market.

The Institute of Jingxuan learned that although the theoretically, the larger the UPF value, the stronger the ultraviolet protection capacity of the product, but the different UPF value products are not as obvious as the value of the sun protection effect.

For example, UPF50+actually refers to 1/50 ultraviolet rays that can pass through fabrics, that is, the product can block 98%of ultraviolet rays, and UPF40+refers to only 1/40 ultraviolet rays that can pass, that is, the product can block 97.5%of ultraviolet rays. Although the difference between the two in the UPF value is "10", it is only 0.5%in the effect of blocking ultraviolet rays, and the most common umbrella can also provide UPF10's ultraviolet protection capabilities, blocking 90%of ultraviolet rays. Obviously, in the eyes of consumers who urgently need to solve the needs of sunscreen, the "doorway" of the UPF value is easy to be ignored. More people just buy products with higher values ​​with their own understanding. The same is true. A data disclosed by Ai Media Consultation in June this year shows that in 2022, 79.4%of sunscreen consumers purchased UPF50+sunscreen clothes daily.

It is precisely because of consumer cognitive deviation that the value of UPF has also become an important basis for merchants to improve bargaining ability. The Institute of Stunning Research found that the price of the sunscreen jacket marked with UPF50+was 249 yuan on the official website of Uniqlo, and a sunscreen in the WeChat Mini Program Store labeled UPF100+ in the Bodison WeChat Mini Program Store, with a price of 1399 yuan, and the price after the discount was 1149. This means that in order to block 1%of ultraviolet rays, consumers may need to pay nearly 4 times more costs.

In addition to the differences in the UPF value, the characteristics of "ice feel" and "breathable" are also an important reason for manufacturers to open the price gap. For example, a sunscreen jacket marked with UPF50+in the flagship store of an e -commerce platform in Banana. It mentioned in the product introduction that it uses ultra -thin cooling fabrics, which has the characteristics of mesh heat dissipation and full -body breathable. Yuan. Compared with the same UPF -level UPF sunscreen jacket mentioned earlier, the price is 32%higher.

Industry challenge first appears

From a product perspective, the main parameters and product functions of sunscreen products are very reasonable. Because of solving the needs of sun protection, unlike the restaurant to provide dining services for diners, users of sunscreen products can only be perceived by the functional experience of sunscreen after using the product for a while.

In fact, most consumers can only make consumer decisions through the description of the product and the design of the product through the merchant's description of the product. Therefore, under such a transformation path, the actual efficacy of the product itself becomes unimportant, and the description of the functionalization of UPF values, "ice", and "breathable" can make consumers awareness of products and brands, promote purchases to buy purchases Essence It is precisely because of this consumer psychology and market status, the current strategic goal of manufacturers in the field of sunscreen is not to seek product breakthroughs from the technical end, but to continuously enrich the category and continuously seize the market, and establish a brand cognitive barrier.

To give a typical example, in April this year, the banana submitted a listing application to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, and then the data of advertising and marketing expenditures in its prospectus attracted people's attention. The prospectus shows that the revenue of banana in 2021 was 2.41 billion yuan, an increase of 203%year -on -year. The advertising and marketing expenses of that year were 586 million yuan, a year -on -year increase of 392%.

Obviously, the rise of marketing costs under banana has been exchanged for increasing revenue data, and the proportion of revenue data for marketing expenses in 2021 has reached 24.4 %, which means that each piece of sunscreen is sold for each piece of sunscreen, which Among them, 48.8 yuan is used to offset sales costs. The brand development strategy with sales as the core is also reflected in the financial report data. Data show that there are 826 employees in sales and marketing positions, accounting for 58.6%of the total number of 1,410 employees. The R & D team has only 197 employees, accounting for 14.0%of the total number of employees.

It is not difficult to understand that with the outbreak of the consumer demand of the younger generation, the sun protection market will also usher in new opportunities. Data from Burning Consultation show that from 2016 to 2021, the market size of sun protection clothing in my country increased from 45.9 billion yuan to 61.1 billion yuan, and it is expected to reach 95.8 billion yuan in 2026. At present, the entire market is still in the early days -especially when users 'awareness of sun protection technology is still very vague, the new brand needs to hurry up to get as much as possible market share, occupying more consumers' category minds, grasping the grasping Requirements for emerging markets.

It is worth mentioning that because the sales of sunscreen products also have seasonal characteristics, there is still a problem with short operating cycle in sunscreen products. This prompting manufacturers to increase product renewal and increase product categories in order to drive revenue growth. And these response actions to the sales terminal have evolved into endless sunscreen products such as parasols, sunscreens, and sunscreen masks. result.

Frankly speaking, today's physical sunscreen market is similar to the scenes of the heavenly umbrella when they were selling. On the one hand, it is indeed the growing demand for consumers, which has spawned the consumer market with huge potential. On the other hand, in terms of product experience and product replacement, various innovative products such as sunscreen clothes and even sunscreen masks are simultaneously homogeneous, and they still lack more differentiated selling points.

Consumers can buy a piece of clothes that look beautiful with sun protection, but the merchants cannot just put their attention on how to provide more beautiful clothes, otherwiseIn the internal competition of the traditional consumer market, the new consumer brand has become an instant.New consumer brands should also pay attention to that when traditional enterprises enter the market segment, their advantages in supply chain and channel side are not able to tie the way of increasing marketing costs.At this time, we should also think about it. When I first entered this sunscreen "new blue ocean", what wind and potential of the way, it was clear that the order could reach the target.

There are no old players in emerging markets. The business of physical sunscreen has just become hot.

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