PHILIPPINE BEAUTY & WELLNESS
Beauty & Wellness
BOOM!
THE PHILIPPINES BEAUTY & WELLNESS INDUSTRY
is one of the fastest growing and most profitable investment markets in the world.
Like in the United States just a few decades ago, when billionaires like Ewing Marion Kauffman, who formed Marion Laboratories, in his basement with just $5,000 in seed money, spearheaded the evolution of the US pharmaceutical industry.
Some 30-years later, the basement pharmaceutical start-up was earning $930 million a year, just before it merged with Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals in the late 90’s. Just as in the United States when Kauffman formed his company, the Philippines is not yet largely regulated: the epitome of a Mega-booming economy.
The hyper-growth of the Philippines beauty and wellness industry is solid and not expected to waver any time soon. With over 120 million people, and a market where over 75% of the population ‘use a beauty or wellness’ product, known globally as one of the world’s most beautiful people and a employee-market where ‘beauty and wellness’ is a job-requirement.
Such massive demand enables Philippine clinics, dermatologist, estheticians and doctors to be amongst the most experienced and talented in the world. Another highly lucrative aspect of the industry are the product and merchandise distributors and suppliers who meet the market demand for everything from glutathione and placenta, to botox, soaps and creams. Distribution companies which provide the medications, supplements, procedure training, product seminars, supplies and tools of the trade, have tapped into a new stream of wealth.
Since the first derma and pharma-clinics popped-up in the Philippines, promoting and performing Western technology such as liposuction and the tumescent technique, the beauty and wellness boom has made fortunes for the early investors and entrepreneurs.
In the early-days, beauty was something highly-marketed directly to the rich. In addition, it was more centered-around vanity, as opposed to necessity or everyday life. However now, like with Ford Motor Company, Mc Donald’s and Walmart in the US, beauty and wellness has gone mainstream and has been democratized, allowing the masses to partake.
Now, five key factors have changed an entire industry.
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1. Beauty Is On Sale And Going Fast!
The deflation of the cost of beauty and wellness services and products has made the competition high, as well as bumped up the service standards. The cashier at the grocery store, the company middle-manager, even the housewife, can all afford pampering in one of the Philippines thousands of luxurious clinics and spas. Furthermore, the cost of opening a spa is just around P2 million –or just around $40 USD: the cost of opening a basic barbershop in the United States.
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2. Emerging Middle-Class.
The rise of incomes by the lower and middle-class markets offers a new pool of millions of beauty and wellness customers who are choosing products, services and specialist for the first time. These ‘beauty newbies’ are the ones you see in the before and after campaigns and are the best advertising any beauty and wellness professional can have.
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3. Guaranteed Clientele.
A great smile, clear skin, healthy figure, and even light-skin are required or encouraged by most PH-based employers. Therefore, daily dermatologist maintenance products, such as soaps, creams, deodorants, sun-blockers and supplements are the bread-and-butter of many suppliers.
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4. Derma and Medical Tourism.
The country spends millions of dollars on tourism marketing and advertising, to attract foreigners for travel and leisure. Due to waiting list and high-cost, a growing number of internationals are making the Philippines more popular for everything from heart surgery, to breast enlargement, skin-whitening and plastic surgery. Some to look better and to build confidence, however, many are medical procedures needed to improve one’s quality of life.
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5. International Investment.
Needless to say, the huge ROI (returns on and of investments), offered by a growing market, coupled with the $40-50 to 1 conversion rates, make the Philippines beauty and wellness industry a tempting proposal. As Western consumer markets ability to splurge on non-essential products and services decline, investors are looking for new horizons. Another key component brought about by the conversion rate, is the fact that more ‘investors’ are able to get-in ‘the game’ with less dollars, pounds, yen or won’s invested: bringing a new interest from within the ‘micro-investor’ market.
The next huge, compounding growth will come from the millions and millions of new working people. Some 5 million new jobs have popped up over the last 5 years, and there have been more legitimate Philippine-based millionaires and billionaires created in the past decade than over the last 50-years. As retiring expats, FilAms and Balikbayans –Filipinos returning home from working and living abroad- that list of millionaires will triple seemingly overnight.
That translates into millions of families who now have large amounts of what America calls “disposable income” or more money which they will spend on things such as entertainment, travel, vacations, beauty and wellness.
These factors, make PHILIPPINE Beauty & Wellness our top emerging investment opportunity, even surpassing the real estate, food & beverage and automobile industries especially, when you compare the risk vs. reward. Limited regulatory barriers and the small investment capital required to launch the initial start-up of the business is the lure. Though risk can be minimized, no investment can be guaranteed, so be wise. Have fun in the Philippines…always invest and spend your money wisely.
