Explore Attitude-Behaviour Gap of Chinese Millennials in Beauty Market Final Fashion Management Project 1 2 3 Executive Summary 1.0 Introduction Chinese millennials demonstrate positive attitude Part 4 is market analysis. This part focuses on towards sustainable consumption, however, scanning the macro environment of Chinese beauty the attitude and actual purchase behaviour are market and identifies the factors lead to attitude- inconsistent. This report investigates sustainable behaviour gap, It includes special beauty and consumption in Chinese beauty market and skincare culture, social media and KOL influence, identifies the various reasons and factors that fast-moving beauty business environment and lack lead to millennial consumers' attitude-behaviour of education. gap. Part 5 is future strategy. This part presents new Part 1&2 are introduction and methodology, strategies according to the analysis in Part 3 and Part which provide the overview, rationale and 4. It includes circular business model, advocates research methods of this report. new beauty and skincare culture and slows down the current business environment. Part 3 is detailed consumer analysis, including demographic analysis and consumer behaviour Part 6 is conclusion. This part summarizes the analysis in beauty market, and apply relevant report and draws conclusion of the report. theories and frameworks. The key point of this part is to explore consumer attitude towards sustainability and find out the gap between attitude and actual behaviour. Meanwhile, this part also involves analysis of the impact of COVID-19. 4 5 Figure 1: Dior Beauty Pop-up (Dior, 2019). BOF & McKinsey (2019) emphasizes the This report aims to explore Chinese millennial importance of sustainability in The State of consumers attitude-behaviour gap in sustainable Chinese market has demonstrated rapid sales 2019). Fashion 2020, meanwhile, Chinese millennials consumption in beauty industry. Comprehensive growth in beauty industry in recent years, which are getting woke, who have more concerns on analysis in millennial consumers and current is expected to reach 60 trillion RMB by 2025 However, these new business models lead to environment and social issues (Zheng, 2019). situation in beauty market will be conducted to (Wu, 2019) (Business Wire, 2019). Emerging significant negative impact on the sustainability of Particularly, under the influence of COVID-19, investigate main factors that affect consumers beauty brands still continually enter into environment and society. Data from Zero Waste Chinese consumer aware that sustainability is no purchasing intention, attitude and behaviour, Chinese market, meanwhile, taking advantage Week shows that 120 billion units of plastics longer an option, leading the shift of purchasing and identify the barriers of the shift from positive of optimizing marketing strategies, especially packaging are produced by beauty industry (Moore, behaviour (Lim, 2020). As a response, leading attitude to actual purchase behaviour, meanwhile, the power of social media and KOLs, which 2019). Except for the over-purchasing the low-cost brands focus on a more sustainable business finding out the challenges and opportunities for successfully arouse consumers burning desire beauty, over-packaging of luxury beauty is also the model, including providing more green products future development. This report will also include to purchasing beauty products (Yu, 2019). As factors causing the serious environmental issues and services to meet increasing demand future strategies, involving consumer education consumers with huge spending power, who (Sherriff, 2019), therefore, business model need to (Buchanan, 2020). However, sales of sustainable and business model innovation, aiming to bridge contributed more than half the total sales of innovate immediately. products are not in a growing trend, along with the attitude-behaviour gap and build a sustainable beauty products in the world second-largest low market share in Chinese beauty market, in business model. beauty market (Euromonitor, 2019), Chinese other word, despite consumers have positive millennial consumers have become the main attitude in terms of sustainable consumption, driver of future beauty business development. this attitude fail to shift to actual purchasing According to Beauty Futures Report 2019, behaviour (White et al., 2019). This can be luxury beauty is booming in China, meanwhile, defined as attitude-behaviour gap (Park and Lin, consumers expectation in beauty products 2018), which can be considered as the biggest become higher, including the increasing demand threats and barriers to achieving sustainable for speed, newness, packaging, and function, development in beauty industry, therefore, it is which lead traditional beauty brands business necessary to identify factors causing the gap to shift to fast beauty business model (LS:N Global, developing specific strategies. 6 7 Affecting by COVID-19, the results of the 2.Academic Journals and Published Books 2.0 Methodology primary research is not ideal, therefore, this Academic journals and published books were report was based on systematic literature review mainly used to support the analysis of consumer and comprehensive secondary research. attitude and behaviour in sustainable consumption. Scopus, Emerald group publishing and Science 1.Websites Direct databases were used for research, and Websites resources, such as LS: N Global and research keywords were consumer purchasing Business of fashion were the most important part behaviour, consumer attitude, consumer decision- in this report, which provides comprehensive making, consumers purchasing intention, and professional information in macro and sustainable consumption and attitude-behaviour micro trends in beauty industry, including gap, combining with keywords: millennials, Chinese consumer attitudes towards sustainable market and beauty industry. consumption and innovative business model. Due to this report focused on Chinese market, therefore, the research also included Chinese fashion business press, such as Jing Daily and China Daily, which provides more specific information to support the in-depth analysis of China beauty industry. Database websites, such as Mintel and Euromonitor provided reliable secondary data. Comparing with primary data, the secondary data are collected by professional researchers and teams, which are more efficient, accurate, with less cost-effectiveness (Walliman, 2018). In addition, in terms of the impact of COVID-19, websites resources also provided the latest dynamics and trends, especially consumer shifts, which give the direction for future strategy. 8 9 Chinese Millennial Consumer 3.0 Chinese Millennials In Beauty Market Figure 2: Chinese Beauty Consumer (Hall, 2019). Chinese millennials were born between 1981 Affected by the One-Child Policy (begin from and 1996, who account for over one-fourth of 1979) (Wang, 2017), Chinese millennials have more China's population(Yuan, 2019), meanwhile, pressure from society and represent totally different according to LS:N Global, this consumer group consumer attitude and behaviour from other drives 65% of Chinese total consumption growth consumers who are not only other generations in and contributes over RMB518bn ( £58bn) in China but also millennials group in other countries 2018 in beauty market (Withycombe and Bishop, (Wang, 2018). Therefore, brands need to pay more 2019). For a long time, First-tier City in China attention to the most special generation. Chinese is the main drive force of sales growth in beauty millennials experience China's economic reforms market, however, the report points out that sales and rapid development (Kidwai, 2019), which in Second-tier City show obvious growth (Hall, forms the increasing consumption culture, and 2020), which provide new market opportunities broaden the view on status and value (Suen and for beauty brands. Considering the large Hall, 2019). Meanwhile, their parents afford most population with such strong spending power, of the expenses (education and living) to reduce beauty brands has realized the importance of the economic pressure. Therefore, millennial Chinese millennials consumer, who are highly consumers have higher disposable personal influential and might drive future development income, who are more generous with less price in beauty industry (Blazyte, 2020). consciousness when they purchase (Luan et al., 10 11 Sustainable Consumption in Beauty BOF's report highlights the importance of products are eco-friendly, meanwhile, they also 2019), which provide opportunities for luxury increasing interests in innovation, with 92% sustainability (BOF & McKinsey, 2019), demand transparency of product ingredients beauty brands. Within the macro-environment Internet users and 73% online shoppers (Wang, supported by Mintel, environmental (Masory, 2019). From beauty brands perspective, in China, Chinese millennial consumers are 2018). As a generation who grow up in One- sustainability is particularly important and the consumer shift towards attitude and demand considered as hedonism and individualism Child Policy without siblings, Chinese millennials become key trend in beauty industry, therefore, provide huge opportunities, which need to be put (Mckinsey & Company, 2019), which means extremely rely on social media, especially WeChat more and more brands provide greener the heart of future business. this generation put self-fulfillment at first, seeking and Xiaohongshu, which can be considered