Selling more than 1 billion a year! The brother and sister made a lot of money in the red ocean track

As one of the markets with the greatest growth potential in the world, the scale of the beauty and cosmetics sector has continued to expand in recent years, with the growth momentum being particularly evident.

Data shows that as early as 2023, the global beauty market size has reached 625.68 billion US dollars. Some institutions predict that by 2028, this figure will soar to 736.75 billion US dollars, growing rapidly at a compound annual growth rate of 2.8%.

In the face of the huge potential of the beauty market, international brands have already taken the lead, and many other beauty brands have also squeezed into the market, making the industry competition extremely fierce. Therefore, some industry insiders pointed out that it is not easy to win the hearts of consumers in this red ocean market.

However, in recent years, there have been many beauty brands that have seized business opportunities and successfully become popular and sold out in many countries around the world through new publicity and marketing models, such as Colourpop, a beauty brand that is popular on social media platforms.

With rich experience, the brother and sister entered the red ocean track

Public information shows that Colourpop was founded in Los Angeles, USA in 2014. Its founders are two siblings, John and Laura Nelson.

It is understood that the two brothers and sisters grew up in an environment closely related to the beauty industry, which also laid a solid foundation for the later establishment of the brand.

When John and Laura Nelson’s family acquired Spatz Labs, one of Southern California’s earliest cosmetic manufacturers, in the late 1980s, their family’s company had a world-class business and had worked with the largest beauty brands.

Growing up in this environment, the brother and sister were exposed to a lot of knowledge about beauty, and they clearly realized that beauty products are diverse. At the same time, they have a common dream, which is to make beauty popular, so that everyone can buy high-quality beauty products, and beauty lovers all over the world can express their ideas freely.

Moreover, in recent years, social media platforms have become increasingly popular around the world, and more and more consumers have abandoned traditional physical stores and other purchasing channels and turned to online shopping. This trend made the brother and sister realize that "e-commerce beauty brands" may be a new development direction in the future.

Coupled with the continuous expansion of the global beauty market, the two siblings came up with a bold entrepreneurial idea. Instead of following the old path, they promoted and sold the brand entirely through online social media platforms or by collaborating with beauty influencers.

After having a concrete idea, they first established a brand incubation company Seed Beauty, and then founded the company's first official brand ColourPop in 2014.

Different from other beauty brands, ColourPop has many advantages such as "high quality, low price, diversity, and extremely fast new product launch".

In terms of production model, ColourPop's entire process of product design, R&D, production, and marketing promotion is completed using the original company's infrastructure, and the entire process takes only five days at the fastest. Therefore, some people call it a "fast fashion" beauty brand.

As far as price is concerned, it is not difficult to find out from the official website that the pricing of its beauty products is basically within US$32, which meets the needs of most ordinary consumers such as students and workers.

Some consumers commented that ColourPop's business philosophy is "fast fashion", and its products are not only of super high quality, but also very affordable and reasonable. In addition, the founder of ColourPop also pointed out that the brand's marketing strategy is unique in the entire beauty industry, which not only attracts users, but also greatly increases the brand's market competitiveness.

Thanks to this, ColourPop has been running wild in overseas markets. Its products won the hearts of a large number of overseas consumers soon after they were launched, and it successfully gained a foothold in the fierce competition in the market.

ColourPop has been on a tear, with annual revenue exceeding 1 billion

In fact, ColourPop's achievements were enough to shock the entire cross-border beauty industry as early as its inception . In April 2015, it successfully made it onto Tribe Dynamics (a digital marketing insight company)'s La Mode list of the top ten socially influential makeup brands, even on par with international brands such as Anastasia Beverly Hills, L'Oréal Paris, MAC, NYX, NARS, Maybelline and Urban Decay.

In the past two years, ColourPop has continued to soar.

Data shows that the brand's annual revenue has been growing steadily. In 2023, its annual revenue reached 143.8 million US dollars (about 1.032 billion yuan); in 2024, the brand's annual sales will continue to rise and are expected to reach more than 250 million US dollars (about 1.79 billion yuan).

ColourPop’s entry into the red ocean market and its standing out among many international beauty brands are inseparable from the advantages of its products themselves and its multi-channel online promotion methods.

In terms of products, ColourPop has a very rich variety of products, including eye shadow, mascara, eyeliner, lipstick, lip balm, highlighter shadow, blush set, primer, foundation, setting spray, skin care products, makeup brushes, etc. Moreover, it has also subdivided each category, for example, foundation has a variety of colors suitable for different skin types, eye shadow has color, nude, monochrome, etc., which can almost meet the needs of all users.

It is worth mentioning that an eye shadow stick launched by ColourPop in August was a hit among American consumers. Its daily sales ranked in the top 20 in TikTok’s US store, and its weekly sales exceeded US$60,000.

In terms of marketing strategy, ColourPop used independent websites and social media platforms to implement multi-channel layout, which also achieved very good response.

Data shows that the number of monthly visits to its independent website has stabilized to an average of 2.5 million visits per month, with each user visiting about 8.14 pages at a time. Among them, American users account for the largest proportion, up to 77.9% , and consumers from other countries and regions such as Canada, France, Australia, and the United Kingdom are also gradually increasing.

On social media platforms such as Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok , ColourPop has more than 10 million followers in total.

Take TikTok as an example. ColourPop’s official account on TikTok has more than 1.4 million followers and 26.5 million likes on its videos. On the platform, it usually publishes videos introducing products and makeup tutorials, which attract a large number of users. At the same time, it has also associated 10,000 influencers to promote its products, thereby further expanding brand awareness.

FostMoss data shows that in the past week, ColourPop's sales in TikTok 's US store reached more than 100,000 US dollars. From the time the product was launched to now, it has sold more than 260,000 pieces in total, with total sales of up to 3.2578 million US dollars.

ColourPop takes "fast fashion" as its business philosophy and uses social media platforms for extensive publicity and marketing, which ultimately brings endless benefits to the brand. Its success example just shows that even the red ocean track is not completely saturated. As long as you have keen market insight, find the right opportunity, and follow the trend and adjust the strategy in time, you can also make a name for yourself in the overseas market.