Empty bottles sell for 300 yuan, and after using up cosmetics for 3000 yuan, the brand | empty bottles | cosmetics
A brand of face cream that sells for about 3000 yuan can sell for about 300 yuan in an empty bottle after use. Recently, a reporter's investigation found that on some second-hand trading platforms, the phenomenon of buying and selling empty bottles of high-end skincare products occurs every day. When asked by reporters about the purpose of purchasing empty bottles, most buyers would answer that they want to keep them as a collectible and look good at home. However, the reporter learned that the collection may be fake, for real purposes or fabricated.
Ms. Zheng from Beijing said that she saw someone recycling empty bottles on a certain social media platform, and now she sells all the empty bottles she uses. "The recycling price is related to the appearance of the product, whether there is a packaging box, instructions, etc. I will specifically keep the outer packaging of these products now."
The reporter searched for multiple high-end skincare products with the keyword "empty bottles" on second-hand product platforms and found many related buying and selling posts, and the recycling price is not cheap.
At the same time, some high-end skincare products are in the hands of sellers on some second-hand platforms, but their prices have plummeted. A 50 ml face cream of a certain brand costs about 3000 yuan normally, while in some e-commerce stores, the same face cream costs only about 1000 yuan, even 200 yuan at the lowest price.
The reporter contacted a high-end skin care product "A goods" store, and the other party said that they could provide products of different quality such as the face cream of 300 yuan to 1000 yuan. The other party suggests that low-priced items can be displayed at home as storefronts, while higher priced items can be given as gifts. The shop owner emphasized, "Even if you go to the counter to check the bottles, it cannot be found to be fake. Many boys buy them from me as gifts for their girlfriends."
Industry insiders have revealed that bottles are an important basis for distinguishing the authenticity of cosmetics. It is difficult and costly to replicate genuine cosmetic bottles, so recycling genuine empty bottles for counterfeiting and sales has become a business.
Previously, multiple such cases have been investigated and exposed. In July 2021, the Guangling District Prosecutor's Office in Yangzhou City, Jiangsu Province sentenced three counterfeiters and traffickers. Three people produced counterfeit cosmetics in large quantities by diluting genuine cosmetics and then filling them. From 2018 to 2020 alone, illegal gains exceeded 31 million yuan.
Regarding this, Professor Liu Junhai from the Law School of Renmin University of China stated that currently, many companies have not established a sound recycling system, and consumers sometimes find it difficult to distinguish whether empty bottle recycling is used for counterfeiting and selling, or for environmental protection purposes. "In response to this situation, relevant manufacturers should be encouraged to establish recycling systems, close operations, or entrust some trustworthy and qualified enterprises to recycle." At the same time, Liu Junhai believes that second-hand platforms should also use big data analysis methods to filter and prohibit recycling activities that may be related to the black industry chain.
The reporter learned that currently, some cosmetics brands have launched "empty bottle recycling plans", and after successful recycling, consumers will be given gifts such as scarves. Some shopping malls have also joined the recycling industry, setting up dedicated self-service recycling machines for skincare products and cosmetics empty bottles to encourage consumers to place their products through consumption vouchers and other means.