Word-of-Mouth Effect for Online Sales of K-Beauty Products: Centered on China SINA Weibo and Meipai

In addition to economic growth and national income increase, China is also experiencing rapid growth in consumption of cosmetics. About 67% of the total trade volume of Chinese cosmetics is made by e-commerce and especially K-Beauty products, which are Korean cosmetics are very popular. According to previous studies, 80% of consumer goods such as cosmetics are affected by the word of mouth information, searching the product information before purchase. Mostly, consumers acquire information related to cosmetics through comments made by other consumers on SNS such as SINA Weibo and Wechat, and recently they also use information about beauty related video channels. Most of the previous online word-of-mouth researches were mainly focused on media itself such as Facebook, Twitter, and blogs. However, the informational characteristics and the expression forms are also diverse. Typical types are text, picture, and video. This study focused on these types. We analyze the unstructured data of SINA Weibo, the SNS representative platform of China, and Meipai, the video platform, and analyze the impact of K-Beauty brand sales by dividing online word-of-mouth information with quantity and direction information. We analyzed about 330,000 data from Meipai, and 110,000 data from SINA Weibo and analyzed the basic properties of cosmetics. As a result of analysis, the amount of online word-of-mouth information has a positive effect on the sales of cosmetics irrespective of the type of media. However, the online videos showed higher impacts than the pictures and texts. Therefore, it is more effective for companies to carry out advertising and promotional activities in parallel with the existing SNS as well as video related information. It is understood that it is important to generate the frequency of exposure irrespective of media type. The positiveness of the video media was significant but the positiveness of the picture and text media was not significant. Due to the nature of information types, the amount of information in video media is more than that in text-oriented media, and video-related channels are emerging all over the world. In particular, China has made a number of video platforms in recent years and has enjoyed popularity among teenagers and thirties. As a result, existing SNS users are being dispersed to video media. We also analyzed the effect of online type of information on the online cosmetics sales by dividing the product type of cosmetics into basic cosmetics and color cosmetics. As a result, basic cosmetics had a positive effect on the sales according to the number of online videos and it was affected by the negative information of the videos. In the case of basic cosmetics, effects or characteristics do not appear immediately like color cosmetics, so information such as changes after use is often transmitted over a period of time. Therefore, it is important for companies to move more quickly to issues generated from video media. Color cosmetics are largely influenced by negative oral statements and sensitive to picture and text-oriented media. Information such as picture and text has the advantage and disadvantage that the process of making it can be made easier than video. Therefore, complaints and opinions are generally expressed in SNS quickly and immediately. Finally, we analyzed how product diversity affects sales according to online word of mouth information type. As a result of the analysis, it can be confirmed that when a variety of products are introduced in a video channel, they have a positive effect on online cosmetics sales. The significance of this study in the theoretical aspect is that, as in the previous studies, online sales have basically proved that K-Beauty cosmetics are also influenced by word-of-mouth. However this study focused on media types and both media have a positive impact on sales, as in previous studies, but it has been proven that video is more informative and influencing than text, depending on media abundance. In addition, according to the existing research on information direction, it is said that the negative influence has more influence, but in the basic study, the correlation is not significant, but the effect of negation in the case of color cosmetics is large. In the case of temporal fashion products such as color cosmetics, fast oral effect is influenced. In practical terms, it is expected that it will be helpful to use advertising strategies on the sales and advertising strategy of K-Beauty cosmetics in China by distinguishing basic and color cosmetics. In addition, it can be said that it recognized the importance of a video advertising strategy such as YouTube and one-person media. The results of this study can be used as basic data for analyzing the big data in understanding the Chinese cosmetics market and establishing appropriate strategies and marketing utilization of related companies.

K-Beauty 구전효과가 온라인 매출액에 미치는 영향: 중국 SINA Weibo와 Meipai 중심으로

중국 화장품 전체 교역중 약 67% 정도가 전자상거래로 이루어지고 있는데 특히 한국 화장품인 K-Beauty 제품의 인기가 높다. 기존 연구에 의하면 화장품 같은 소비재의 경우 소비자의 80%는 제품 구매 전 제품정보를 인터넷으로 검색하며 구전정보에 영향을 받는다. 대부분의 중국 소비자들은 화장품과 관련된 정보를 주요 SNS에 다른 소비자들이 올린 댓글을 통해 획득하며 최근에는 뷰티 관련 동영상 채널 정보를 이용하기도 한다. 기존의 온라인 구전 관련 연구는 대부분 Facebook, Twitter, 블로그 등의 매체 자체가 중심이었다. 본 연구에서는 온라인 구전정보의 전달 형태와 정보의 형태를 고려하여 정보유형을 동영상과 사진 및 텍스트로 나누어 연구하고자 한다. 중국의 SNS대표 플랫폼인 SINA Weibo와 동영상 플랫폼 Meipai의 비정형 데이터를 분석하고 온라인 구전정보를 양과 방향성으로 나누어 K-Beauty브랜드 매출액에 미치는 영향을 분석하고자 한다. Meipai에서는 총 약 33만개의 데이터를 수집하였고 SINA Weibo에서는 총 약 11만개의 데이터를 수집하여 화장품의 기본 속성도 고려하여 분석하였다. 본 연구의 의의는 온라인 매출은 K-Beauty화장품에 대해서도 구전에 영향을 받는다는 것을 기본적으로 입증함과 동시에 특히 정보 유형에 대한 구분을 시도 했다는 것이다. 두가지 매체 모두 기존 연구와 같이 양이 매출에 영향을 미치고 있으나 매체풍부성으로 인해 텍스트보다 동영상이 정보를 더 주고 영향이 크다는 것을 입증하였다. 또한, 정보 방향성 측면에서는 색조화장품의 경우 부정 댓글의 영향이 크게 나타났다. 실무적으로는 화장품 판매 전략 및 광고 전략에 기초 및 색조 화장품을 구분하여 중국 K-Beauty화장품 매출증대를 위한 마케팅전략을 구사하는데 도움이 될 것으로 기대된다.