Chanel is depressingly empty: the cosmetics market in Russia has changed radically

Perfumes and cosmetics still top the list of the most popular (and most desired!) gifts for March 8 – the stereotypical picture in which a man hands a lady a bottle of perfume and a bouquet of flowers has not disappeared from our consciousness. But the situation on the perfume market has changed a lot over the past year, and it will be difficult, if not impossible, to find many familiar bottles today. On the eve of March 8, the MK correspondent walked through perfumery and cosmetic stores and found out how the demand and supply of beauty products have changed.

Promotional mailings offering discounts or specially assembled sets in honor of March 8 have not gone away. The question is what can you buy with these discounts. Desperate cries – they say, everything, absolutely all the usual brands are gone! – you need to divide by two, but the changes are really obvious.

In the central department stores, which still remember pre-revolutionary Moscow customers, it is still possible to maintain the illusion of former abundance. At the counter of each brand, a sales assistant is still waiting, ready to offer something to try, advertising posters still call for buying a new perfume or lipstick right now. The devil is in the details – if you are looking for something specific, then there is a high risk that you will face disappointment: this is not there, this is not there, and this is also over … Regularity: the larger and more famous the brand – and, accordingly, the more demonstrative was his departure from Russia a year ago – all the more forlorn looks his counter today. So, for example, the notorious Chanel, which has long become a household name and a synonym for all heavy luxury combined, looks dejectedly at customers with empty shelves and counters. Where expensive bottles once proudly stood, now there are empty “nests”, and indifference is reflected on the faces of the saleswomen. Whether new deliveries are expected is a question that no one is ready to answer yet.

On the other hand, the smaller brands – the ones that didn’t throw big words – seem to be doing pretty well.

— Bongiorno! – the seller of the Italian perfume brand calls out to the passing customers. Those who react are immediately taken into circulation: – Try our novelty, the aroma of magnolia and jasmine …

A pleasantly smelling strip of cardboard immediately appears under the nose, and the seller continues to frown, listing all the floral notes. I ask the main question:

– And how do you bring it now?

– This is not a question for us, but for suppliers, – the seller makes a helpless gesture. – The brand did not stop cooperation with Russia, so everything is fine. But delivery has become more difficult. Probably through Turkey. Now everything is through Turkey.

The same answer – through Turkey – awaits near the counters of two more brands. Some of them even boast new products for 2022/23, and the classics, of course, have not gone away.

The main and most unpleasant change is, of course, prices. The average cost of a 50 ml perfume bottle is 8,000 rubles, if we are talking about such market giants as Guerlain, Estee Lauder, Dior, Armani, and so on. Firms that are not widely known do not lag behind – prices can be worse there.

“So you think that no one knows these names, but the demand for them is even greater among connoisseurs. Although they are rarely taken as gifts on March 8. Men are afraid to get into a mess,” explains the consultant.

For the year, the hunt for the most profitable offers and purchases within the framework of promotions, the competition of discount cards, attractions like “I will buy this in this network, but now this is a good promotion in another” have sunk into oblivion. Now everything is simple: if you see what you want to buy on the counter, buy for the amount that is written on the price tag. Even if you are horrified and remember exactly that a year ago IT cost half as much. Because in a week IT may end altogether, and whether it will appear again is unknown. Grab it now, otherwise it will not be later – the main principle of shopping in the era of sanctions.

There is also an alternative way – to try to change habits and pay attention to those brands that you did not even know existed a year ago. Not necessarily, by the way, we are talking about Russian or Asian goods – it may well be the same French or Italians, just the second, so to speak, echelon.

It is more difficult to find a familiar name than an unfamiliar one in the most democratic of the chain stores of perfumery today – those shelves that a year ago were lined with luxury perfume classics are now filled with never-before-seen bottles. Also thriving in the new realities is the practice of STM – the department store’s own trademarks. The idea is not new. In some places, the number of private label products reaches 40% of the entire assortment of the store. The share of domestic cosmetics has significantly increased. The cost of Western goods supplied through parallel imports has increased significantly, some brands are only selling off the remnants of old collections, and the premium segment has declined. Retailers are betting on changing the assortment.

— There is a situation in which consumers will inevitably be divided into two groups. The former continue to hunt for familiar goods, even if they have risen in price or become difficult to obtain. These are the so-called conservatives, they always exist. However, they are in the minority. The second category is buyers who will look for the best solution in terms of price and quality. When they run out of their current cosmetics or perfumes, they will turn their attention to new brands. They will ask the consultant: they say, what would you advise? And here it is very important that the consultant is able to competently present unfamiliar goods, – says marketer Snezhana Guryeva in a conversation with an MK correspondent.

According to the expert, the main task today is to overcome stereotypes: as long as the buyer perceives new brands as a kind of “domestic replacement” for familiar and favorite means, it will not be possible to raise a loyal user out of him. The task of manufacturers and sellers is to learn how to present new brands not as a “replacement” or, moreover, a surrogate, but as a valuable means in itself.

In general, the situation is the same as in the market of household appliances, gadgets, clothes… and whatever! There is no shortage – such that the commodity unit “powder” becomes difficult to access – and is not expected. Problems are outlined for those who would like powder of a specific brand, specific shade, texture … in a word, specific.