In the overseas track of pet smart products, "selling abroad can make more money than domestically" has become an industry consensus. For this phenomenon, entrepreneur Jason explained its internal logic:

"As far as we can conclude, the overseas market is relatively 'uncrowded and unrolled'." Jason said, "The overall intelligence level of overseas pet products is not high. Even before we appeared, there were only automatic and manual cat litter boxes. Therefore, leading Internet technology Chinese brands have inherent advantages. When we first entered the US market, one product could sell for US$699 (equivalent to more than RMB 4,800), which is more profitable than domestic ones.”

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The smart pet product brand founded by Jason is called CATLINK. The smart cat litter box that can monitor the health of cats is not only well-known in China, but also sold well in Southeast Asia, East Asia, Europe, North America and other markets.

During the "Black Five" period last year, this cat litter box from China ranked first in Amazon's smart list of cat litter boxes in European and American markets, surpassing many established pet product brands in Europe and America. Recently, Xiaguangshe talked with Jason, the founder of CATLINK, a Chinese pet smart product brand, about their entrepreneurial stories overseas.
01

The gestation period is much longer than the outbreak period

At the beginning of 2013, Jason, who was working in a foreign company of smart pet products, fell into the "confusion of getting old".

He was just 30 years old at the time, and his situation was far from a "middle-aged crisis". However, the repetitive work of large foreign companies day after day made him think: Could he just stay in a foreign company for the rest of his life?

It is a foreign company that manufactures automatic cat litter boxes, and its current volume ranks second in the world. The sales center of this foreign company is in the United States. After 2005, this foreign company moved its supply chain to China, and successively reached cooperation with domestic factories and suppliers. During this process, Jason, as a member of the domestic initial team, has been from the procurement manager to the supply chain director.

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In this way, he understood and came into contact with the core process of smart cat litter box production and assembly from beginning to end, but at the same time, he also had more thoughts in his heart. Because this brand already produces mature products, it will not iterate and change models for almost a few years, and the people working here are like arranged machines, repeating the inherent cognition and workflow every day.

"I arrive at the company at 10 o'clock in the morning, and leave work at about 6 o'clock in the evening, and then I have nearly a month's vacation every year. I just feel that if I am in such an environment, I will be useless." Jason recalled the scene at that time. In order to prevent himself from being decadent all the way, he decided to apply for an MBA at East China University of Science and Technology.

Driven by the self-introduction of "working in the company during the day and going to tutoring classes at night", he was finally admitted to the graduate school of the business school, which also opened up another world: "At that time, when the teachers of the business school were in class, they basically used It mainly focuses on actual combat cases, and the entrepreneurial experience shared by the students is very exciting and rich."

So he also began to reflect on what industry experience and advantages he had: "Over the years in foreign companies, I have not only been familiar with almost all SOP processes for pet smart products, including procurement-side negotiations and knowledge in related fields, but also have a lot of overseas experience and knowledge. Overseas agent resources."

Relying on more than ten years of accumulated industry experience, Jason decided to start a business. The business of the first company he founded was to serve as the general agent of his old club Mao smart products in the Southeast Asian market.

In fact, only the production and assembly of this cat smart product from the old company is completed in the domestic bonded area, and almost all the products are directly exported to the European and American markets. Because he was exposed to products for the European and American markets from the very beginning, it also laid the foundation for his own brand to go overseas in the future.

When the time came to December 2017, Jason and his two MBA classmates founded their own brand "CATLINK".

"When we founded this company, we didn't think about only doing the domestic market. We said from the beginning that we would go global and sell CATLINK products to the United States." Jason told Xiaguang News Agency, "But in fact, we The gestation period is much longer than the outbreak period, that is, the preparation time in the early stage is extremely long."

At the beginning, Jason did not choose the European and American markets with the strongest consumption power as the first stop for his brand to go overseas, but chose some overseas markets around Asia, such as Southeast Asia and East Asian countries, for verification. The first markets they entered were Thailand and Vietnam in Southeast Asia, and then their products entered the Japanese and Korean markets (more relevant certifications are required to enter Japan and South Korea).

Jason invited some Southeast Asian pet product agents he knew before to the Asia Pet Show to recommend their products. "At that time, it was already going to sea, and the version we launched was bilingual in Chinese and English from the beginning."

In fact, before CATLINK was actually introduced to the overseas market, the product had already been revised several times. The problem of the first version was "the appearance is too bulky and the cost is extremely high", and the problem of the second version was "product functionality did not meet expectations", and the problem with the third edition was that "the design did not match the desired minimalist style".

"The product is indeed out of the scope of what we thought we knew." Jason said that after feedback from the surrounding market, they quickly adjusted their design, production, manufacturing and other strategies. "Where does the APP need to be improved, and which functions do not feel easy to use overseas, we quickly communicate with the agent, and then feed back to the R&D department to quickly iteratively upgrade the product."

It was not until January 2022 that Jason finally decided that the company had enough experience and the strength and capital pool to go overseas to Europe and the United States, and he decided to enter the European and American markets.
02

Going to sea in Europe and the United States "pit avoidance technique"

If you want to sell "explosive" in the European and American markets, you need to avoid many "pitfalls".

"You send a shipment of products to Europe and the United States, and two containers are floating on the sea. It will be too late to find that the products are not good enough-they may directly become a pile of waste plastics. Even if you want to get them back, it will cost you more A sum of money.” Jason told Xiaguang Society.

In his opinion, the timing and market selection of products going overseas need to be very precise: before they are ready, they must not rashly enter Europe and the United States.

“To put it bluntly, the reality is that there is not so much money—if you don’t have the preparation of 6-7 million yuan, you must never touch Amazon. This requires very high cash flow for overseas companies.” Jason said.

In addition, selling goods through Amazon has its own threshold and difficulty for Chinese merchants going overseas: for example, Amazon will measure the turnover rate index of merchants, "If your turnover rate is not high, you will be accepted by Amazon. More warehousing and logistics fees."

In addition, Amazon's ranking mechanism is also a big challenge for many brands: "Originally you have put in a lot of effort to rank at the top, but once your inventory is sold out, the ranking will drop immediately, maybe We need to spend twice as much money on advertising to bring the traffic back to normal levels.”

In order to prevent the inventory from "returning to zero", the operator must do everything possible to increase the price of the goods on the platform: "Seeing that the inventory is low, it is necessary to increase the price of a single unit, and sometimes even add an extra thirty or forty dollars." The purpose is to Never let the inventory "return to zero", "once it reaches zero, it's over."

In other words, Amazon is a platform that only likes "icing on the cake". Only when your products sell well enough, the order volume is large enough, and the brand's operating efficiency and investment are considerable enough, will it show the most "understanding" side .

On the other hand, Amazon has naturally become the vane that can help brands quickly verify whether they can "play" in the European and American markets. Countless brands have paid huge tuition fees here, but there are also more brands going overseas. With their courage and prudence, they have turned Amazon into a good platform for going overseas.

On the other hand, Amazon logistics may have the problem of inaccurate shipping schedules.

"Overseas logistics system is far behind the development of China's logistics system. Amazon's logistics is basically small and medium-sized ships. Sometimes the shipping schedule is not accurate, and when Amazon's warehouse itself is on holiday, etc., it should be 3-5 days. For those who enter the warehouse, sometimes it will be delayed to 8-10 days."

"Before Black Friday last year, we had already prepared a lot of goods in the Amazon warehouse, and the logistics after the outbreak can keep up." Jason said.

After sorting it out, it is just to optimize the product details page, adjust the text of product introduction, straighten out the logistics system for going overseas, figure out the time point suitable for warehouse entry, figure out the number of containers that need to be sent out at one time, and how much cargo needs to be prepared domestically For detailed work such as warehousing, how to arrange production plans, etc., CATLINK has been preparing for nearly a year.

Contact:amy@pethuhou.com