At the annual Tmall Golden Beauty Awards held in Shanghai on August 31, the platform shifted its focus to a pressing question: with the vast majority of consumers already shopping online, where can beauty brands still find new growth?

Ji Yun, General Manager of the Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) and Tmall Luxury divisions at Taotian Group, stated on-site that future brand growth will no longer be primarily driven by expanding user bases, but rather by shifting consumers' share of wallet. Looking ahead to the next decade, the “biggest challenge” every brand must confront is breaking through category boundaries.

This signals a clear shift in Tmall Beauty's operational priorities. In the past, the platform and its brands relied heavily on advertising, promotions, and blockbuster products to attract traffic and new customers. As user growth plateaus, the operational focus has now pivoted toward increasing purchase frequency, category coverage, and lifetime value among existing consumers.

Ji Yun argued that consumer choices are no longer dictated by fixed identity labels. The same individual may adopt different spending strategies across various categories and scenarios—prioritizing value for money in daily necessities while willingly paying a premium for brand, quality, and experience in interest-driven areas like beauty, fragrance, or sports. Therefore, brands should not merely chase a generalized “high-spending demographic,” but rather identify the specific moments, categories, and contexts where consumers exhibit a desire to upgrade their spending.

So far this year, the number of 88VIP members in Tmall's FMCG sector has surpassed 60 million, new member transaction growth in stores exceeded 30%, and repeat purchase member scale increased by over 10%. Through the synergy between brand membership programs and 88VIP, the platform aims to transform one-off transactions into sustainable, long-term user assets.

To further expand consumers' share of wallet, Tmall has integrated its beauty and personal care teams this year, encouraging brands to move from singular hero products and single categories toward a multi-category product portfolio. In Tmall's view, cross-category operations not only help reduce the cost of acquiring repeat customers but also allow brands to integrate into a wider range of consumer lifestyles. Brands like L'Occitane and Jo Malone London are already expanding bidirectionally across the beauty and personal care segments.

Search, in-store livestreaming, and membership systems form the core pillars of this operational approach. After brands seed content on external platforms, consumers often return to Tmall to search and complete their purchases. In the first half of the year, the number of users who searched after being exposed to content grew over 30% year-on-year, while core merchants saw store livestream growth exceeding 20%. Following the transaction, brands leverage membership systems to drive repeat purchases and cross-category buying.

For instance, the rise of pet-owning households has spurred demand for specialized detergents, women's activewear scenarios require deep customization in makeup and sunscreen, and emerging sports like pickleball and HYROX are unlocking new growth in the personal care segment. AI is being deployed as a supporting tool here. Tmall has integrated AI into consumer shopping guidance and merchant management tools, using user insights and trend identification to feed some capabilities back into product definition and new product development.

As an example, Kefumei's Soft-Focus Serum, co-created based on Tmall consumer insights, achieved ten-million-yuan sales in its first month on the platform. Kérastase's Tmall-exclusive launch of its “Golden Goodnight Hair Elixir” helped drive a 61% year-on-year increase in the brand's 618 campaign sales. To date, “Tmall Exclusive” products have surpassed 1,000 items.

Data released this year shows that the resurgence is not limited to emerging brands. From January to July, L'Oréal, Estée Lauder, and Shiseido all recorded double-digit growth on Tmall. Among the top 20 brands by transaction value, 15 achieved double-digit growth, with Estée Lauder, SkinCeuticals, HR (Helena Rubinstein), Clarins, and Guerlain all posting year-on-year growth exceeding 50%.

Ji Yun attributes this round of growth to a renewed focus on brand equity, product strength, and user experience. Compared to the past reliance on a single marketing tactic or one hero product to crack the market, Tmall aims to help brands cultivate comprehensive capabilities that span product development, supply chain, membership management, and multi-category operations. For Tmall, whether these operational capabilities can be effectively replicated across a broader range of brands and categories will ultimately determine the platform's growth potential amid intensifying competitive differentiation.