In the first quarter of this year, some subtle but important changes occurred in the US beauty market: the growth rate of mass beauty products exceeded that of high-end beauty products for the first time. According to the latest report released by market research firm Circana, in the first quarter of 2025, US mass beauty sales increased by 3% year-on-year, while high-end beauty products remained the same as the same period last year, with overall weak performance.
The change in consumption logic behind this has reminded all cross-border beauty sellers that cost-effectiveness and product innovation will be the key to opening the market. Faced with rising costs and the return of rational consumption, brands must more accurately reach the real needs of users.
The three major logics behind the growth of mass beauty products
Mass beauty products usually refer to brands that are affordable and widely distributed in retail places such as drugstores and supermarkets, such as e.l.f. Beauty, whose average price is only $6. Although the profit margin seems limited, judging from the sales volume and consumption trends, mass brands are rising rapidly, especially affected by Generation Z and the resurgence of frugal consumerism.
This round of growth was mainly driven by a 3% price increase, accompanied by several structural highlights:
1. Makeup recovery, sub-categories exploded
Driven by high-frequency use and low customer unit price, just-needed products such as stick eyeshadow and foundation achieved double-digit growth; while niche products such as lip liner and lip oil also became popular due to the social media seeding effect, becoming a new dark horse in sales.
2. Perfume is popular, and the trend of portability is obvious
Perfume is one of the few categories that has maintained growth in both high-end and mass camps. Data shows that high-end perfumes grew by 4% and mass perfumes grew by 8%. In particular, miniature, travel and high-concentration perfumes have become hot topics on social media platforms due to their portability and collection value.
3. Mass skin care sales and sales both increased
High-end skin care sales fell by 3%, while mass skin care not only increased sales, but also sales, showing that consumers are more rational in skin care spending and tend to choose products with clear functions and high cost performance.
Opportunity window for cross-border sellers: high cost performance + innovative design
The trend of the beauty industry has shifted from high-gloss brands to practical, portable, interesting and differentiated small and medium-sized products. For cross-border sellers, this means two focus points:
1. Cut into categories with high repurchase rates and focus on "single product hits"
Categories such as stick eye shadow, mini perfume, foundation stick, lip oil, etc. have the characteristics of lightweight packaging, logistics-friendly, and high frequency of use, which are suitable for developing supply chains with "fast, light, and accurate" as the core strategy.
2. Focus on limited editions and holiday models to amplify social media marketing leverage
On the basis of controllable costs, create holiday theme versions and cross-border joint models, cooperate with platforms such as TikTok and Instagram to plant content and evaluate experts, which can quickly amplify the volume and stimulate impulse consumption. Limited sense and scarcity are becoming the key to premium.
Going overseas is not just about products, warehousing and logistics are also moats
If you want to seize the dividends of the mass beauty market, it is far from enough to rely on "product selection + marketing" alone. Especially in the North American market, beauty products have many SKUs, detailed attributes, and high frequency of returns and exchanges, so the logistics and warehousing system must keep up.
At this time, a highly responsive, efficient, and drop-shipping local warehouse in the United States has become a guarantee for stable business growth.
U-Speed US overseas warehouse: Efficient response to the needs of mass beauty products going overseas
U-Speed currently has two overseas warehouses in the United States, East Coast (New Jersey) and West Coast (Los Angeles), with a total area of 20,000 square meters, supporting general goods, pure electric, beauty and other types of products, with professional cosmetics processing capabilities and platform direct connection system.
As the official certified warehouse of Temu and SHEIN, U-Speed's US overseas warehouse has the following core advantages:
One-stop service for head-end + warehousing + delivery, from domestic cargo collection to terminal delivery in the United States, with full-link visibility;
WMS system + PDA scanning, SKU partition management is fine to avoid wrong delivery or missed delivery;
24H warehouse delivery has a high timeliness rate, which is adapted to the delivery timeliness requirements of platforms such as TikTok and Temu;
The daily processing capacity reaches 100,000 orders, which can easily cope with the pressure of big promotions or holiday sales;
Return and relabeling can be completed in as fast as 48 hours to ensure that secondary sales are not lost.
In addition, U-Speed has achieved system docking with TikTok Shop, SHEIN, Temu, and AliExpress, supports platform order promotion, has a simple operation process, and saves a lot of manpower communication costs.
In 2025, the overseas beauty products will return to "users are king"
From this round of data, it can be seen that American consumers have become more and more savvy and have begun to look for cost-effectiveness in high-frequency beauty expenditures, which is both a challenge and an opportunity for Chinese cross-border sellers.
To stand out in the new cycle, what is needed is no longer blind pursuit of high-end brand power, but to truly understand user needs and achieve efficiency, thoughtfulness, and repurchase-worthy aspects in terms of products, marketing, and delivery.
The mass beauty trend has arrived, and product selection must be accurate, warehousing must be fast, and service must be stable. Combined with local warehouse resources like U-Speed, it is possible to maintain a stable growth rhythm in a volatile market and achieve a win-win situation in terms of profit and reputation.
