Ten years of deep cultivation in the slippers category! How did POSEE quickly become the number one cross-border shoe brand on TikTok Shop?

Focusing on vertical categories, POSEE uses "professionalism" to open up the Southeast Asian market!

The footwear market has a large market share and many opportunities, and each segment has huge development potential. POSEE, founded in 2013, made its fortune with a pair of slippers. With the comfort of "stepping on shit", it has gradually grown into a leading brand in the slippers industry, with annual sales exceeding 1 billion . It not only firmly occupies the top 1 in the category of the five major domestic e-commerce sales platforms, but also has made its name known in the international market. It has achieved outstanding results in just 8 months since entering TikTok Shop, with sales rising steadily, and now ranks first among footwear brands.

In the big wave of brands going global, POSEE changed its track and still topped the sales list from scratch. What is the secret to stand out in the fierce competition? What wonderful stories can be shared on the road to going global? What benefits has POSEE gained by focusing on the "slippers" track? How has it promoted brand growth and achieved the ultimate consumer experience? What new opportunities have new overseas sales tracks such as TikTok Shop brought to sellers? ... Regarding the common questions about brands going global, Sean, the person in charge of POSEE's overseas expansion, talked with Yi Enjun, hoping to bring inspiration to everyone.

"The Light of Chinese Products" explores new opportunities for brand development and opens up another golden track through TikTok Shop

When it comes to the term "feeling of stepping on shit", which has a certain flavor, many people can first think of the "pride of domestic products" POSEE slippers, describing the feeling after putting them on as very good and very comfortable to step on!

Good products bring good reputation, and good reputation in turn benefits POSEE. In fact, the inspiration for the popular term "feeling of stepping on shit" comes from a popular video spontaneously released by a POSEE Thai user .

( TikTok user video screenshot)

"In the second half of 2021, a Thai customer spontaneously posted a POSEE unboxing video on TikTok, using the word "stepping on shit" to describe the comfort the product brought after putting it on. This term resonated with many local users and caused a strong response. Many people watched the video and were eager to buy it. For a time , sales of POSEE slippers in other sales channels in Southeast Asia increased by 500% ." ​​Sean and his team sensed the explosive power of TikTok and began to regard it as an important product promotion channel.

Then there were more surprises! Not long after POSEE started live streaming on TikTok, its performance far exceeded expectations. It took only about a month to sell out all the stock, with an average daily sales of US$1,000, so TikTok became even more important.

In April 2022, after TikTok Shop's Southeast Asian cross-border e-commerce business was launched, POSEE resolutely decided to follow suit and officially joined TikTok Shop in June 2022. As an early player, POSEE has indeed reaped the "bonus" of short videos.

"In the third quarter of 2022, almost every video content achieved returns beyond expectations. In markets such as Thailand, the Philippines, and Vietnam, our products achieved an average of 300 orders per day . In the fourth quarter of the same year, live broadcast sales hit a new high, which was about three times that of September." Sean said that the uniquely competitive products, combined with the live broadcast room operation experience and official promotions, have enabled POSEE to achieve more than 100% sales growth in each promotion compared to the previous one.

( TikTok user shares POSEE slippers OOTD)

POSEE is optimistic about TikTok Shop. This year, it plans to closely follow TikTok Shop’s platform planning and make a comprehensive layout of products and talents. It also expects to achieve a sales growth of about 7 times this year!

POSEE has opened up another golden track with the help of TikTok Shop. From a macro perspective, the rapid development of the POSEE brand is closely related to the development opportunities of the platform, but it is also driven by the high demand in the footwear market.

The report "Global Footwear Market Size 2017-2027" released by Statista pointed out that in 2022, the global footwear market size is estimated to be US$381.9 billion, and is expected to grow significantly in the next few years, reaching approximately US$508 billion by 2027.

POSEE localizes the secondary marketing of "feeling like stepping on shit" by focusing on vertical segments and "playing" with marketing

China has always been a major exporter of footwear. According to the data from the Ministry of Commerce, in 2021, China exported 47.9 billion US dollars of footwear, a year-on-year increase of 35%. Behind the huge figures, there are both business opportunities and challenges. POSEE has successfully broken through in the fiercely competitive footwear category, which is due to the strength of its products and the reward for 10 years of deep cultivation in vertical segments!

Only when a brand is meticulous can it stand firm! Sean believes that by continuing to operate in the vertical needs of users, the brand will gain multiple experiences including R&D, design, supply chain and marketing, gain more loyal users, obtain greater profits, and pave the way for category expansion. It is understood that after doing a good job in vertical categories and laying a solid foundation, POSEE continued the core brand mentality of "comfort" and tried "comfortable sandals" at the end of last year. It took only about 2 months to achieve the good result of TOP 3 sales.

How does POSEE do a good job in vertical subdivision? Sean said:

"In the process of building a brand through vertical segmentation, it is very important to let users recognize the product and gain their mind. Secondly, it is also necessary to provide users with a good localized consumer experience. Content production and product details pages must be refined to gain user recognition through professional management. At the same time, fulfillment work must be done well. In terms of supply chain management, both annual planning and overseas local fulfillment must be "meticulously crafted". Only by thinking through the segmentation points of the entire user consumption experience process and operating it professionally can the brand become better and better."

POSEE's vertical business philosophy coincides with the tone of TikTok Shop. Recently, the platform has launched an advocacy to encourage merchants to operate professionally, focus on vertical categories, provide consumers with high-quality and guaranteed goods and services, and further enhance consumers' shopping experience.

( TikTok user shares POSEE slippers OOTD)

Marketing is a compulsory course for promoting products, and it is also an important part of improving the competitiveness of current cross-border sellers. "POSEE uses the pyramid model through TikTok's influencer ecosystem to get in touch with local top, middle and tail influencers, and spreads brand concepts in promotions, new product launches and other links. At the same time, in this process, we will listen to the empathy and feedback of users or influencers on the products to further improve marketing and exposure." After Sean and his team found marketing inspiration from the fact that local Thai users described the product as feeling like stepping on shit, they copied and localized the word while deeply cultivating the language and cultural ecology of various Southeast Asian markets. "Clouds" and "dinosaur poop" can be said to be the derivatives of "feeling of stepping on shit" in the Philippine and Malaysian markets .

"In the Philippine market, after user research and communication with influencers, we found that the word 'Yun Duo' has a certain amount of search volume in the local area, which means that the word is recognized by local consumers, but it has not yet become a brand marketing word. This is also our next focus. In the Malaysian market, we also got the inspiration for the word 'dinosaur poop' from a local cooperative marketing agency, and found that the effect is very good after using it."

In summary, on the one hand, POSEE has gained the love and loyalty of consumers by deeply cultivating vertical categories and combining insights from different markets to achieve "extreme" products and marketing; on the other hand, the "excellent soil" of TikTok Shop has also brought a positive cycle of business growth for brand marketing and development.

TikTok Shop realizes the important closed loop of product marketing, conversion and retention, and more and more domestic brands are going further!

"TikTok Shop plays an important role in promoting the global development of brand businesses, and it is a development trend that sellers must seize." Sean believes that TikTok Shop has achieved an important closed loop of the user's three life cycles: marketing, conversion, and retention .

In terms of marketing, from a global perspective, TikTok is currently a very popular short video content marketing platform. First, the local celebrities on TikTok are still in the development stage, with high commercial value, and the entire ecosystem is conducive to marketing; second, native ecological advertising is very suitable for brand promotion; third, TikTok has the strongest stickiness among young people in various regions around the world, and marketing can be quickly replicated in different markets.

In terms of conversion, TikTok is a great conversion platform! Short video influencers and influencers are very popular among overseas users, and users will pay for influencers they trust. The live broadcast room ecosystem is also an important trust-building platform. Through the live broadcast room, the trust of old users can be further enhanced, and users can be continuously reached to promote new purchases.

In terms of retention, good retention can help products generate word-of-mouth and spread. On TikTok, whether it is expert content, brand-built live broadcast accounts, or TikTok e-commerce, these can form a closed loop in the TikTok ecosystem to continuously help brands reach users through content and increase user stickiness, repurchase, and sharing desire. POSEE can reach more than 50% of live broadcast fans by publishing videos through TikTok Shop.

Under the new foreign trade format, the curtain has been raised on a new era of Chinese brands going global. They have deeply cultivated subcategories and seized new business opportunities such as videos and live broadcasts to achieve soaring sales. POSEE is just one of the typical representatives. At present, many Chinese sellers in various vertical tracks such as clothing and home furnishings are seeing more possibilities for opening up new markets through TikTok Shop. We are also happy to see that in the future, more Chinese products will capture more overseas consumers with their strong product and brand power.

POSEE

TikTok Shop