Sample collection stores leave shopping malls: former capital favorites encounter bottlenecks

The once-ubiquitous collection stores for beauty samples are gradually becoming less common. Recently, Beijing Business Daily reporters found that in popular commercial areas such as Chaoyang Heshenghui, Changying Tiandi, and Wudaokou Shopping Center, some sample cosmetics stores have quietly closed. As former traffic drivers in shopping malls, these types of businesses quickly rose with labels like “low-price trial” and “internet celebrity check-in,” but now they are facing operational expansion difficulties. Low profit margins, insufficient customer spend per visit, and the inability to bear high mall rents, combined with changing consumer habits and stricter industry regulations, continue to squeeze the survival space of sample collection stores. The once highly sought-after sample economy—how will it break through the transformation dilemma and find a foothold in the trillion-yuan beauty market in the future?

Big Brand Sample Collection Stores “Retreat”

Beijing, as the earliest core market for sample collection stores, has become a barometer for industry changes nationwide, with signs of retreat becoming particularly evident. Beijing Business Daily statistics show that JIEMO, which once expanded into landmark malls like Chaoyang Heshenghui, Changying Tiandi, and Chaoji Heshenghui, now only has one store left at Jingxi Joy City; Suning Jiyou Beauty Collection Stores in Beijing have also closed, leaving only stores in Nanjing and Hangzhou; Wudaokou Shopping Center’s popular brand ONLY WRITE, which gained fame with 99-yuan blind boxes, has also closed.

Meanwhile, in chain brands like WOW COLOUR and HARMAY Huamei, which focus on sample collections, the proportion of sample products has significantly decreased compared to initial openings, with more space allocated to full-sized cosmetics.

Not only in Beijing, but nationwide, sample collection stores are experiencing a “shrinking pain.” Take HARMAY Huamei as an example: during its peak expansion, it closed stores in Tianmuli, Hangzhou, and Xian Xia Zhai. Since 2017, HARMAY Huamei has never operated more than 20 stores. Wuhan’s Chu River Han Street, home to HAYDON’s flagship store, has also closed.

Looking at the entire cosmetics collection store industry, once popular brands like THE COLORIST and WOW COLOUR have seen their nationwide store counts shrink by more than half. Conversely, general merchandise stores are beginning to expand into cosmetics and sample categories, enriching their SKU offerings.

Bain & Company’s Director of Merchandising Strategy, Pan Jun, pointed out that rising rents and operating costs in core commercial districts make the traditional “rent spread” business model unsustainable. Additionally, the fragmentation of online channels further diverts foot traffic. Moreover, the sample business was originally meant to fill market gaps, but now it has fallen into a trust dilemma regarding source authenticity. Coupled with the strong price impact of live-streaming e-commerce, the original slight price advantage of samples has vanished.

Wild Growth Driven by Capital Chase

The retreat of sample collection stores, which surged from 2019 to 2021, once sparked a wave of industry enthusiasm, becoming a darling of capital and a “favorite” for shopping centers’ tenant recruitment. HARMAY Huamei opened its first store on Anfu Road, Shanghai, in 2017, pioneering a warehouse-style beauty collection model. In 2019, its Sanlitun store in Beijing gained popularity on social media with industrial-style decor and a lineup of big-brand samples. Public data shows that in December 2019, Huamei’s Series A funding saw Hillhouse Capital enter, with a valuation of 500 million yuan based on just three stores. After Series B, the valuation of Huamei’s single store reached 1 billion yuan. Subsequently, Huamei completed nearly $200 million in Series C and D funding rounds.

Huamei’s popularity ignited the sample collection track, prompting various brands to enter and form a “battle royale” pattern. HAYDON’s flagship store opened in Wuhan in December 2020. Since then, the brand expanded rapidly, completing two rounds of financing in 2021, with angel investment from Tencent and Hillhouse Capital, a Series A+ round raising $100 million, and a post-investment valuation of $1 billion. THE COLORIST and WOW COLOUR, with their “internet celebrity decor + affordable samples” models, expanded rapidly—over 300 stores in two years for the former, and 300 stores in nine months for the latter—both occupying prime locations on the first floors of major shopping malls nationwide, quickly capturing market share.

At that time, sample collection stores met the needs of Generation Z for “big-brand freedom” through low-cost samples, while their trendy decor became social media check-in spots, bringing in large numbers of young customers and making them favorites of shopping centers.

After the traffic dividend peaked, these cosmetic collection stores had to retreat from first-tier city centers under the dual pressures of waning capital interest and brand squeeze. Yuan Shuai, Deputy Director of Investment at China Urban Development Research Institute, pointed out that traditional or emerging stores like Colorist, Sasa, Watsons, and WOW COLOUR have halved or exited the mainland market, reflecting a collective loss among traditional retail channels facing digital transformation and changing consumer habits. These stores overemphasized visual display and scale effects during early expansion but neglected deep supply chain integration and proprietary R&D capabilities.

“With the rise of online live-streaming e-commerce and brand-operated live rooms, price transparency has been pushed to the extreme, greatly compressing the channel premium space of collection stores. Moreover, their in-store service experience often cannot compete with the premium feel of counters or the convenience of online shopping,” Yuan Shuai said. For established retailers like Sasa and Watsons, their product assortments are aging and cannot quickly iterate to meet the diverse aesthetic preferences of Generation Z, leading to continuous erosion of brand equity. Against the backdrop of rising operating costs and strong online traffic diversion, offline collection stores lacking unique product offerings and data-driven capabilities are inevitably entering a defensive phase of scale reduction to survive.

Transforming into “Curators”

From darlings of capital to collective retreat, the reshuffle of sample collection stores or cosmetic stores is not accidental. The core contradiction lies in the imbalance between the “low-cost trial” positioning and the reality of “high-cost operations.” Yuan Shuai emphasized that future development must shift from being “shelf movers” to “aesthetic curators,” transforming core competitiveness from low-price arbitrage to professional scene-based services and differentiated product selection.

Collection stores should no longer attempt to cover all categories but should focus deeply on specific niche areas, creating irreplaceable offline interactive spaces to counteract online low-price impacts. Yuan Shuai suggested that stores must build a strong proprietary brand matrix, improve profitability and supply chain independence, and leverage digital tools to accurately capture member profiles, achieving online-offline integrated private domain operations. Future winners will no longer be just selling products but providing emotional value, professional skincare solutions, and immersive aesthetic experiences—building vertical, specialized community ecosystems to lock in high-loyalty users, rather than merely relying on easily replicable sampling for traffic.

By 2025, China’s omnichannel cosmetics market transaction volume will surpass 1.1 trillion yuan, reaching 11k yuan, a 2.83% increase. Domestic brands continue to lead in competitiveness, with market share rising to 57.37%. The channel landscape is undergoing deep adjustments: online transactions reach 1.1T yuan, up 4.45%, accounting for 65.36%; offline transactions total 721.77B yuan. The era of “online-dominant” single-channel expansion is ending, giving way to a new pattern of integrated online and offline coexistence.

For sample collection stores, future core competitiveness will no longer be “low-price samples” or “internet celebrity decor,” but authentic product assurance, supply chain control, product selection ability, and experience. Wenxi Bo, Vice Chairman of China Enterprise Capital Alliance, believes that the future development focus of sample collection stores has shifted from simply “selling samples” to “selling services.” Brands can upgrade from single product transactions to long-term emotional connections and value services by introducing skin testing, customized skincare plans, and refined member operations. Meanwhile, scene integration becomes a key to breaking through: crossovers with coffee, art exhibitions, and other sectors enhance the store’s social attributes and customer dwell time, aiming to capture minds amid fragmented consumption scenarios.

Wenxi also pointed out that on the operational side, brands should deepen private domain traffic, using offline experiences to drive repeat purchases via mini-programs, countering high customer acquisition costs on e-commerce platforms. In product selection, focus on niche overseas brands and pure beauty products with weak e-commerce coverage, establishing competitive barriers through differentiated supply. Additionally, the sinking market is being revitalized as a new growth engine; some brands retreating from first-tier cities are shifting to second- and third-tier cities, leveraging lower rents and local consumption capacity, adjusting SKU structures to seek new survival space.

Source: Beijing Business Daily

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