The Three Year Sales Volume Is 600 Million U.S. -- The Way Of The Giant's Brand To Sea.

In today's lack of good brand, Hangzhou superstar is undoubtedly a leader in the hardware industry. In the third year of its brand launch, in 2018, the total export volume was $621 million. "Before we have our own brand, we have always been relatively passive." Li Feng, senior vice president, said.

From the traditional OEM seller to the transformation of the big seller of cross-border electricity supplier, the superstar has spent about 4 years, and it wants to use the cross-border electric business road to go out with its own brand.

Founded in 1993, the giant star technology was originally a production enterprise. Over the world, there are more than two supermarket chains, such as hardware, building materials and auto parts, which sell their products at the same time. In 2018, the company achieved operating income of 5 billion 932 million yuan, with an overall net profit of 737 million yuan.

At present, the export business of giant star accounts for about 10%, and net profit can reach tens of millions of dollars, showing a doubling growth trend.

　　 play

In the way of brand to sea, the superstar chose to continue to acquire overseas brands to help shape its brand image. Li Feng said that the giant star originally had its own brand and was already in the sea. But in the process of sea going out, consumers' recognition of the brand was very low, and they could not get the brand premium quickly.

"In this case, by buying foreign brands and merging with superstars, we can quickly help the stars improve brand awareness."

Li Feng said that because some brands of giant stars have already been sold in some large supermarkets abroad, only by using the online platform can they quickly get out of the brand without having to spend money on marketing.

At present, Amazon, Shopee, AliExpress and other online platforms sell self owned or acquired private brands. And offline, giant star has about 10% of its own brand, and 90% of the OEM order products are on sale. In the future, the superstar will also expand its private brand to around 25%.

Superstar will continue to buy some brands this year, and will cooperate with large domestic enterprises in the manufacturing industry, such as CIC rubber.

First of the industry, and it is likely to be acquired by the end of August this year. Meanwhile, giant stars are also buying some high-end brands, such as the nail industry leader, European storage cabinet brand LISTA.

In addition, being a OEM superstar has also helped the top ten brands in the industry for decades. According to Li Feng, he is very clear about the "insider" of these enterprises, for example, their consumer groups, markets, pricing trends, and so on, and also know very well what products on the market are good to sell.

"Because of this experience, giant stars can easily grasp the shopping psychology of consumers, but also guarantee the quality, updating and market positioning of their products."

Li Feng said that the top ten brands are basically superstars who are doing OEM for them, and their prices are usually about 50% higher than that of giant stars. Therefore, superstars should try to make their brands as high as possible. "This is also the premise of the giant star when it comes to the layout of the brand, otherwise it will be difficult to go to PK with the international brand."

At present, the price difference between some star products and European and American brands can reach 30% to 40%. For example, for the same type of product, the big selling in the US can be sold to ten dollars, while the superstar only sells for about seven dollars. In this case, the sales of giant stars often exceed those of these big brands. "In the current global economic downturn, the American consumers also pay attention to good quality and low price, pay attention to cost performance."

So, after a year in the market, the brand products of the giant spanner, screws and Toolkit were placed on the front page of its platform listing without spending money on the rankings.

"Long ago, we didn't want to compete with these big brands. After all, they are our customers. But now the giant stars have made a brand out of the sea and want to be a centenary brand, so we must compete with them." Li Feng added that since the big brands do not have factories and are sourcing in China, so far, because superstars are irreplaceable as their factories, there will be no fear that these brands will abandon their cooperation.

How to define a real brand? Li Feng's answer is: "the result proves everything. That is, consumers' high recognition of brands. When consumers search for a product on the website, your brand can appear on the front page of the search results, which means that it has been recognized by the consumers.

In his view, the current stage, the star has basically realized the true meaning of the brand to sea.

　　 resistance

Nowadays, there are endless cross-border electric business under the banner of the sea, but the real brand can not be seen in the sea. This leads to the fact that there is no explosive force for the whole brand to sea. The reason is, Li Feng said, there are many restrictive factors, such as the lack of qualified personnel, the fierce competition in the market, the rise of the operating costs of enterprises, and the important capital turnover of enterprises.

"Cross border electricity providers need a lot of investment in the early stage, but if their own policies are not willing to invest, even if the government has greater support and help to train talents, it will be difficult for enterprises to develop." Li Feng said.

He thinks, when the electricity supplier starts, it is to burn money, "we must spend a lot of capital stock, because the sale of goods is the pressure of funds". Unlike OEM, brands will require more stringent product quality and have their own R & D team, which requires a large amount of cost in the early stage.

But many companies are unwilling to pay, and the reason why cross-border electricity suppliers are difficult to sea is that. "They only want to make quick money and blindly pursue cost-effective, which will not go far. And in the long run, we must attach importance to product quality, and at the same time, we should make use of brand advantage to make public praise and influence. Li Feng said that the premise is to be willing to sacrifice.

Li Feng said that many Japanese and European brand businesses can be run for generations, with hundreds of years of entrepreneurial spirit. The brand success in this sense is the real need for Chinese enterprises to learn from it. "Enterprises must go steady step by step, survive first, and earn small profits step by step, so that they can gradually go out and drive the whole industrial chain of Chinese brand enterprises to sea."

In addition, he also stressed that at present, a common problem in many small and medium-sized enterprises is to imitate each other, and even to have vicious competition that is harmful to others. "In the process of going out, the important thing is to learn to embrace each other and learn from each other. Therefore, it also requires enterprises to make good positioning and advance short-term and long-term planning.

For example, when the enterprise is going to sea, it will first be faced with the choice of the first choice channel or the market choice. In Li Feng's opinion, we must first recognize the market. That is, we must first locate the business market and products, and then choose the channels.

And the choice of the market should be based on the quality of its own products. "The consumption level of every market is different from that of the humanities. Only by selecting the right products can we survive in the target market. The market of different quality and pricing products must be different, and there must be a clear market positioning.

All along, the giants are the main European and American markets, mainly in the channel, Amazon platform. Today, it responds to the call of the initiative of all countries and regions, and also to develop new markets such as Southeast Asia and South Africa.

Superstars visit South Africa 1-2 times a year. When he entered the market three years ago, the products of Li Feng's hardware market were basically made in Europe, and 50% came from Taiwan. As a result, after entering the South African giant, the giant introduced all the buyers and developed a series of products that are consistent with the market position in South Africa.

"Now, all the big supermarkets and dealers in South Africa have our products, and the market share of products made before Taiwan and Europe has been greatly reduced." Li Feng said that although the Chinese products imported to South Africa had a 25% tariff, the products of giant stars were still much cheaper than those made in Europe. This also shows that China's manufacturing industry still has great advantages.

　　 Broken bureau

Of course, superstars are not going smoothly on the road to the brand. As he said, as the price competition of the traditional OEM generation is too fierce, the star's positioning of its products is not clear at the beginning, leading to many twists and turns in the process of sea going. So that the rate of return is low and profit margins are small.

So at that time, the superstar began to carry out a lot of market research. But in the process of starting investigation, and because the target is not clear enough, and do not know the sales status of its products in the market, many product lines have been put into line, so that a large number of stocks have not been sold in the later stage. It wasn't until nearly a year later that we gradually defined our product positioning.

"Before we have our own brand, we have always been relatively passive."

He said that it is difficult to make a brand to sea, but it is not terrible. At the very beginning, business managers need to make clear the company's guidelines and policies, namely, to make their own brands or OEM.

Therefore, in the past few years, the superstar has been doing the integration of online and offline businesses to enrich the product line in the process of developing cross-border e-commerce. Its aim is to make the star brand. Li Feng believes that if a company wants to go further, it must make its own brand.

"OEM generation processing has no pricing power, and the market competition is fierce. It is always what others say. Only by making influential brands, grasping the right to speak, making the products competitive, can the profits of enterprises be enlarged, so as to ensure their core competitiveness." Li Feng said.

As a result, giant stars will develop new products that are patented as private brands. So far, it has more than 200 invention patents for cross-border brands.

Li Feng believes that it is difficult and time consuming for a real brand to go to sea. Like giant star's own brands, such as the middle end brand, the WORKPRO brand and EVERBRITE brand of lighting products are going to sea.

In addition, in April this year, superstar just bought a manufacturer with strong warehouse background to help him sell overseas operations.

"Because we want to really make the brand go to sea, besides the necessary factors mentioned above, we must have overseas warehouses to ensure timely service." Li Feng said that overseas consumers are very concerned about customer service, especially when products are sold out, otherwise they will easily receive complaints, which is not conducive to brand development.

Due to the high cost of third party warehousing and logistics, warehousing and services have been a major problem for giant stars. So, the giant chose to buy some overseas warehouses and build their own overseas warehouses. "Only in this way can we compete with other brands and help develop direct business and serve end customers." Li Feng said.

At present, the giant star has acquired overseas warehouses in the US and California, and has established overseas warehouses in the United States, France and the United Kingdom. The next step will be to establish an overseas warehouse in Japan, and its new company in Japan has been established.

"Pay attention to the training of talents, clear their positioning, and willing to invest, not only looking at the immediate rewards, but also long-term goals. If the enterprise achieves above three points, when the brand goes to sea, it will be much better. " Li Feng concluded.