Yangzhou City, Jiangsu Province is a famous "plush toy and gift capital of China". After decades of development, Yangzhou plush toy industry belt has absorbed hundreds of thousands of employees and registered nearly 2,000 enterprises, large and small.
However, with the changes of the trade environment and consumer market, the industrial model based on foreign trade processing can’t meet the requirements of the domestic demand market gradually, and the problems such as lack of independent design, lack of keen market perception, lack of flexible production and high inventory restrict the sustainable development of Yangzhou plush toy industrial belt. "Yangzhou has been short of well-known toy brands for decades. Everyone is a factory that makes stuffed bears and stuffed rabbits. I don’t know what consumers want." Xiao Shuai, the founder of Yangzhou Pinai Toys, said, "It was not until I started to broadcast live that the road from design to brand to sales was smooth."
Nowadays, the commercial road in the toy live broadcast room is smoother than the waterway in Yangzhou. The plush toy manufacturers in Yangzhou have realized more direct interaction with consumers through short videos and live broadcasts, and they are more sensitive to market demand. Many businesses have even developed "explosive" plush toys and cartoon images with sales exceeding one million, exploring a new growth path for Yangzhou plush toy industry belt.
Plush toys have sold the feeling of "having a holiday every day"
Xiaoshuai has ten years of experience in the plush toy industry. In his view, plush toys have experienced a development process from "improper eating and wearing" in the eyes of consumers to "gifts" on holidays, and then to the daily consumer goods of the public. However, the domestic plush toy industry as a whole lacks brand awareness and the sales volume fluctuates greatly.
"I have been doing traditional e-commerce channels before, and the fluctuations in the off-peak season are particularly obvious, and the inventory pressure is great. In addition, plush toys have a scale effect in traditional e-commerce. Compared with international brands, the marketing and sales costs of our small start-up brands are much higher, and the living space is greatly compressed. " Xiao Shuai introduced.
At the end of 2020, Xiao Shuai visited Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Hebei and other places, and found that his peers began to sell products through live broadcast channels such as Tik Tok e-commerce, and decided to take the team to transform and test the water live broadcast. To Xiao Shuai’s surprise, after only two months of operation, Xiao Shuai’s brand ushered in an outbreak: "The sales of live broadcasts on weekdays exceeded the sales of previous major festivals. We joked that there is a feeling of festivals every day."
Legend: The anchor introduces the products in @ Pinai Toys Live Room.
Xiao Shuai found that the original products designed by his team are more likely to get attention and become "explosive products" in Tik Tok e-commerce: "The traditional channel is that consumers need to know that this product is interesting first, and look for it themselves, and the existing products and brands on the market are more likely to get attention. However, Tik Tok’s interest in e-commerce is that I take the initiative to tell consumers that this product is fun, how to play, the marketing cost and cycle of launching new products are lower, and we dare to develop novel and innovative products. "
Xiaoshuai has now formed a set of more efficient development links with the help of Tik Tok e-commerce: after designing and developing a new product, he first interacts with consumers in the live broadcast of Tik Tok to collect feedback from consumers, and if the feedback is good, he will immediately put it into production, basically achieving a cycle from drawings to products in two to three days. "In the past, there may be two or three new products every month, because it takes a month or two to know the market reaction when new products are put on the shelves. If the reaction is not good, it can only become inventory. Now that the cost of testing and marketing has been reduced, we put more than 100 new models on the shelves last year, and we basically achieved rapid feedback. " Xiao Shuai said.
Through the live interest e-commerce and quick feedback mechanism, Xiaoshuai also successfully developed a "35-year-old customer base". "The cost of opening up new groups before was too high to try easily. Now plush toys are becoming more and more household items. We have opened a new account for people around the age of 35, and the products are more warm at home. A rabbit toy with a crooked head in the New Year has a general test effect in the original customer base, but it is very popular with the 35-year-old customer base. After it was put on the shelves, it sold more than 30,000 pieces. "
Connect with consumers from products to emotions.
"What is the experience of owning the DuDu Miao family at the age of 22?" "Today, I will arrange a small skirt for my toot-toot!"
By opening all kinds of social media, we can find that the "DuDu Meow" plush toy designed by Yangzhou Este Crafts Factory is as popular as popular stars among students. In addition to exchanging ideas about the styles and decorations of DuDu Meow, there are also fans sharing their own extended works such as cartoons featuring DuDu Meow. For the explosion of DuDu Miao, Tiger, the relevant person in charge of Este, believes that this is inevitable after the distance with consumers is narrowed through live broadcast.
Tiger, who is an animator, is naturally sensitive to the cartoon IP image. After joining the plush toy industry, he has been looking for an opportunity to make an IP cartoon image. In 2019, I heard from my friends in the same industry that Tik Tok accumulated fans quickly, which could also drive sales. Tiger opened Estelle’s Tik Tok account, and accumulated more than 200,000 fans in two years. Tiger found that consumer preferences obtained through live broadcast are more timely and accurate than data analysis. After two years of preparation, in 2022, DuDu Miao was born in the form of co-creation with fans.
Legend: The designer adjusts the design draft in real time according to the feedback of Tik Tok live broadcast of @ 京京京京京京京京京京京.
"At first, I didn’t expect DuDu Meow to be so popular. I only made three colors, or I added matcha color at the suggestion of fans during the live broadcast. This suggestion alone helped increase the sales of hundreds of thousands. In the past, consumers really liked something, but we actually looked at it in the fog. Now we can both give something more specific. For example, consumers say that they like to watch DuDu Cat bathe in the sun in our short video, which is particularly anthropomorphic and companionship. Consumers will also have more interaction with us, such as matching background music to DuDu Cat, drawing wallpaper, shooting vlog, etc., which has generated more emotional connections from product sales. After gaining the recognition and trust of consumers, the repurchase rate has also become very high. " Tiger said.
In 2022, only one account of Estelle in Tik Tok e-commerce company sold more than 2.3 million toots and meows. Tiger revealed that DuDu Miao is planning to make co-branded cartoons with other IPS and develop peripheral products such as blind boxes and household necessities: "In fact, the domestic consumer market has already had the soil for the birth of cultural companies such as American Disney and Japanese Sanrio. We communicated with fans live, and found that this group of consumers in’ Z Times’ have a special recognition of China culture. We will also develop more new products by combining traditional cultural elements such as Shan Hai Jing. When communicating with consumers, we will find that the aesthetics of plush toys at home and abroad are very different, but this aesthetic demand has no channels and funds to explore and meet in the past. "
A man called "the wishing pool" by consumers.
"Everyone called me’ Brother Chi’ in the live broadcast, saying that I am more spiritual than the wishing pool, and I will make whatever I want. When I said that I wanted a shark riding a horse, I made a doll with a shark riding a big horse and said that I had a’ social fear’. I made a combination of snakes and dinosaurs’ snake fear’. " Liu Fengming, the person in charge of Youqu Youpin, happily shared his new nickname on e-commerce in Tik Tok.
The nickname "Brother Chi" is not in name only. When you open the Tik Tok account of Youqu Youpin, many short videos make people smile: "Shark Banana" is homophonic for "coquetry", which is a combination of a puppet shark and banana skin, and "turtle honey" is homophonic for "girlfriends", which is a big plush turtle shell that friends can wear alone … Only consumers can’t think of it, and there is no plush toy that Liu Fengming can’t make in the live broadcast room, plus Liu Fengming’s personal appearance is humorous.
Liu Fengming’s plush toys are not always full of whimsy. Before they broke out through live broadcast, he had been working in Yangzhou plush toy industry belt for more than ten years. "Our previous products were very traditional. We made a plush cushion, printed some patterns on it at most, or made some well-behaved cartoon tigers and rabbits. I was afraid it was too unique for consumers to accept. Tik Tok is different. Everyone comes to satisfy their interests. They are willing to give it a try when they see that this product can bring happiness, so they have developed many new products. " Liu Fengming said.
Legend: Liu Fengming explains new products in @ Youquyoupin Live Room.
Liu Fengming said that through short videos and live broadcasts, he solved the two business problems that had plagued him before: "In the traditional channels, it was common to make hundreds of products and sell dozens, because they all tried to guess the market, but also promoted publicity, and it took a month or two to know the market feedback. Now, in the live broadcast room, I do whatever the consumer asks for, and I find that as long as I do what the consumer really wants, there will be no shortage of sales. I will even show you the design plan for the live broadcast, and I will know whether this design is right or not on the spot. "
Until now, Liu Fengming will continue to broadcast live for three or four hours every day to communicate and understand consumers’ ideas. "By saving inventory turnover expenses and marketing expenses through live broadcast, I will directly save in the product price, and products of the same quality are much cheaper than in the past. The plush toy industry will always be a carrier of goods, and the quality and design of products are still before the content and marketing. "
Correspondent yue yue
Proofread Sheng Yuanyuan
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