The personal care industry has reached a point where its growth logic has clearly changed. In the past, many brands achieved steady growth through channel distribution, terminal coverage, and regional deep cultivation. However, against the backdrop of rising traffic costs, continuous channel fragmentation, and rapidly changing consumer demands, relying solely on shipments and distribution can no longer explain today's growth. For personal care brands, the new question is not just how to get products onto shelves, but whether products can truly respond to user needs, whether brands can establish sustained choice, and whether channels can become interfaces for connecting with users. On March 17, at the 11th China FMCG Conference, Cao Yelin, Marketing General Manager of Baiya Co., Ltd., shared insights and explorations on how personal care brands can shift from channel-driven growth to user-centric growth, and how brands, products, channels, and organizations can be restructured around users. The following is an excerpt from his on-site speech (with some deletions), compiled by New Distribution for our readers.
The Old Logic Is Failing,
and Personal Care Brands Must Re-understand Users
The core of personal care brands' past growth was channel rooting. First, do regional markets, first, do distribution coverage, first, get products to terminals, and then use the distribution system to scale up. This approach is not wrong; many brands have come this far precisely because of this logic. But the problem is that today's market has changed. Consumers change faster, channel structures are more complex, and brands no longer face an environment where "if you can distribute it, you can sell it." In this sharing, one judgment is clear: what many traditional brands face today is not a single problem, but a set of challenges brought by the old logic. For example, path dependence, still focusing more on shipments than on sales; data blind spots, where user data cannot be accumulated; under profit games, consumer experience is often put aside; and with platform e-commerce, content e-commerce, and instant retail continuously diverting traffic, the single growth logic of traditional channels can no longer support today's competition. The pressure on the personal care industry also lies in the fact that it has entered a more typical stock competition. Especially in mature categories like sanitary napkins, the room for incremental growth is not ample, and much growth is essentially stock substitution. The competition among brands is no longer about who first establishes channels, but who sees changes in user needs earlier and who can turn those changes into product and brand actions faster. This is why "Can we keep up with consumers' pace?" has become the most important question before this sharing. What is truly worth asking is not whether channels have changed, but whether brands are still using old logic to understand the new market. The old way of "first distribute goods, then see how they sell" is no longer sufficient today. Because consumers are not just buying a basic functional product; they care about whether it is healthier, more comfortable, more trustworthy, and whether the brand understands them. Therefore, for personal care brands, the first step in reconstructing growth logic is not to adjust channels first, but to shift the mindset from "channel is king" to "user is king." Brands need to re-answer several questions: What do users really need? Why would they choose the brand? What value can channels still create for users? If these questions are not re-examined, the subsequent product, brand, channel, and organization will easily remain old methods applied to a new market.
Get the Product Right First,
and Brand Growth Has a Starting Point
If the core of the old logic is to do channels first, then the starting point of the new logic is to do products first. This is not empty talk, but one of the most core changes in this sharing: product development should start from user insights, not from corporate experience. In the personal care industry, basic functions are still important, but basic functions alone are no longer enough. Users' expectations for products are shifting from "can it be used" to "is it more suitable for me," "is it healthier," and "is it more reassuring." In response to such changes, the launch of Free Point probiotic sanitary napkins is not simply adding a concept, but a product upgrade made around changes in user needs. Behind it are clearer user insights, a longer R&D cycle, and a more solid verification process. The product development took two years of polishing, and included human efficacy verification and multiple clinical tests, with the aim of ensuring the product is not just conceptual but truly responds to needs. Behind this is a very important change: the product is no longer just the work of the R&D department, but the starting point of the entire brand's growth. Because if the product itself cannot respond to user needs, no matter how much communication, channel distribution, or activities are done later, growth will be hard to sustain. Especially in mature tracks, why users choose you first depends on whether the product has differentiation and perceptible value. On this basis, the logic of brand building is also changing. Brands are not just telling consumers "what this is," but answering "why choose you." This includes market insights, understanding of users' life scenarios and emotional needs, and how the brand clearly communicates its positioning and differentiation. For personal care brands, branding is not just about cognitive coverage, but more importantly, making consumers willing to build trust. Therefore, this sharing breaks down brand growth into three clear steps: first, see what users need; second, see why users choose you; and third, see how to make users continue to choose you. This order is very important. In the past, many enterprises started with channels, sales, and distribution; now, a more effective path is to get the product right first, establish brand differentiation, and then define the role of channels. From this perspective, the product is no longer just a sales object, but the first interface for the brand to connect with users. What truly drives growth is not simply adding an SKU, but a product that is perceptible, clearly differentiated, and can build trust.
Channels Are Not Just for Selling,
but for Continuously Connecting with Users
When the product and brand logic are adjusted, the meaning of channels also changes. In the past, when talking about channels, the core was distribution efficiency and coverage capability; today, when talking about channels, the focus has shifted to: whether it can help the brand continuously connect with users. In this sharing, the understanding of channels is very clear. Offline channels are not just for completing distribution, but should become user experience centers and trust interfaces; online channels are not just for sales, but should become important positions for accumulating user data and feeding back to the brand and product; instant retail undertakes the "last 100 meters" scenario satisfaction, helping users get faster and more immediate consumption experiences. This change is evident in Baiya's own channel structure. The early structure was very typical: offline was absolutely dominant, online accounted for only a small proportion, basically a traditional channel map. But by around 2024, the channel structure had changed significantly, with the online proportion clearly increasing, and instant retail also entering a more important position. This change is not simply due to e-commerce growth, but because online and instant retail allow brands to get closer to users faster, get feedback faster, and drive product iteration faster. The most noteworthy point behind this is not that online sells more, but that user data has become a growth asset. In the past, offline, it was difficult for brands to accumulate user-level feedback in a timely manner; many judgments could only rely on interviews, distributor feedback, and terminal experience. But when brands go deeper into online channels, user reviews, consultations, repurchases, after-sales, and content interactions will feed back to the product and brand ends faster. For mature categories, this feedback speed is very critical because it directly affects the pace of product updates and strategy adjustments. This is also why the probiotic series has been able to achieve faster growth in a relatively short period. Behind it is not a single point action, but a more direct connection between product, audience, and channel: on one hand, sales scale expands rapidly; on the other hand, audience assets also expand simultaneously. For brands, sales volume is not just simple shipments, but the growth of audience scale and the accumulation of user assets. Therefore, when talking about channels today, we can no longer just look at "how much was sold," but also "what has been accumulated." Whether we can continuously obtain user feedback, turn feedback into product upgrades, and turn channels from sales terminals into user interfaces has become a new competitive point for personal care brands.
True Transformation
Is Not Just Channel Adjustment,
but Building a C-end Command Center
Products, brands, and channels are all changing, and ultimately it will fall on the organization. Because if the organization does not change, the previous changes are likely to be just scattered actions, not sustainable capabilities. The "C-end Command Center" is the final landing point. Its core is not to set up another department, but to bring user research, user operations, and user analysis into all aspects of product, brand, and channel, turning it into a process-oriented organization that starts from user needs. In other words, it is not that one department is responsible for users, but that the entire organization makes decisions around users. Why is this important? Because in many enterprises, a situation often arises: the product department thinks the product is fine, the brand department thinks communication is sufficient, and the sales department thinks terminals are covered, but the real problem is still not solved. In the end, it is discovered that it is not a single link failing, but the entire organization lacking a unified user perspective. The value of the C-end Command Center is to truly turn "what users say" into internal consensus and decision-making basis, so that product, brand, and sales no longer speak their own languages, but coordinate around the same user starting point. Digitalization and AI also play an important role here.
- On one hand, the efficiency of data capture and analysis improves, making business decisions faster;
- On the other hand, information such as user reviews, after-sales feedback, and negative review analysis can more directly enter product and service optimization;
- Going a step further, AI content production also begins to improve efficiency and creative breadth, helping brands respond faster to the market on the content side. For brands, the value of digitalization is not just efficiency improvement, but more importantly, making user experience perceptible, analyzable, and trackable. Finally, the future layout of channels will continue to adjust around this logic. Written at the end
The growth logic of personal care brands is indeed shifting from channel distribution to user symbiosis.
The old order of first distributing goods, then scaling, and finally supplementing brand and user research is increasingly difficult to adapt to today's market. The new logic is more like the reverse: first see what users need, then define products and brands, then re-understand the role of channels, and finally turn this set of thinking into organizational capability.
What is truly changing behind this is not just the channel structure, but the relationship between brands and consumers. In a stock market, users are no longer just objects to be reached, but the starting point for determining product upgrades, brand positioning, channel layout, and organizational adjustment. Whoever can turn user feedback into product power faster, turn channels into interfaces for connecting with users, and truly adjust the organization to be user-centric, will have a better chance of running out new growth in mature tracks. For personal care brands, the next competition is not just about selling goods, but about whether they can be continuously chosen by users.