Average monthly sales of 80,000 orders, No.1 seller in the sub-category

Affected by continued inflation, people in Europe and the United States are trying their best to cut non-essential consumption, which makes cross-border sellers very worried. On the contrary, the blue ocean market in Southeast Asia is remarkable. Stimulated by the epidemic, the number of local online shoppers has reached 350 million, and the shopping budget is constantly increasing. This year, the market has a high demand for electronic products, maternal and child products, fashion and beauty products, and online sellers have new sales opportunities.

However, it is not easy to grab a piece of the pie directly. If you dig deep into a vertical category, sellers may be able to maximize the use of existing resources and do well in a niche track that avoids most sellers. For example, you may not have thought that relying on a small Rubik's Cube, this company can become the top toy seller on the Lazada platform second only to Lego.

GAN Rubik's Cube breaks world record and becomes a top seller on Lazada

As an educational product that has been popular around the world for more than 40 years, the Rubik's Cube can train players' concentration, hand-brain coordination, etc. It is very popular among students and parents, with annual shipments reaching 50 million.

Jiang Ganyuan is the first Chinese Rubik's Cube champion. Out of his love for Rubik's Cube, he created the GAN Rubik's Cube brand, focusing on the research and development of high-end, racing Rubik's Cubes. GAN Rubik's Cube has become the leader in racing Rubik's Cube, with more than 500,000 fans worldwide, and frequently appears in various competitions: Polish player Tymon Kolasiński set the new world record of 4.86 seconds for solving a three-layer Rubik's Cube, and the GAN team won the world championship for four consecutive times, all using products of this brand.

GAN Rubik's Cube used to be sold mainly in China. In 2019, the company noticed that distributors had a large overseas shipment volume, so it decided to open a flagship store to engage in cross-border e-commerce. On the one hand, it promoted the brand overseas, and on the other hand, it could directly obtain foreign customers' evaluation of the product. Currently, the business has covered North America, Australia, Europe, Southeast Asia and other places.

GAN CUBE is very popular in Southeast Asia, and a large proportion of its fans on its Facebook homepage are from Southeast Asian countries such as Vietnam, Malaysia, and the Philippines. Southeast Asia's e-commerce has developed to a considerable scale, with the young population and online retail sales growing year by year, and the trend of toy consumption continuing to improve. After the signing of the RCEP agreement, GAN CUBE is determined to enter Southeast Asia.

( GAN356 RS source/GAN CUBE)

At the end of 2021, the brand entered the Lazada platform, and its performance has been soaring since then: GMV increased 10 times in one month; as of August, the store's GMV has increased 83 times compared to when it first entered. At present, its hot-selling products such as GAN356 RS have a monthly sales volume of nearly 1,000 pieces. The store also sells training mats, pendants and other brand peripherals. On the Lazada platform, GAN CUBE has become the TOP1 seller of educational toys, second only to Lego in the toy category. In addition to its own product advantages, the brand's operations are also a plus:

1. With the help of overseas social media such as Facebook, Instagram, and Youtube, GAN CUBE continues to attract existing fans through store openings, new product launches, platform activities, and setting up Lazada exclusive discounts, thereby increasing the site's traffic harvesting power and accumulating new fans;

2. Invest sufficient budget in advertising. In the early stage, the company launched an automatic product selection and promotion plan through Quanxiaobao, and opened Super Nova to speed up the launch of new products. After testing the products for a period of time, according to the 1V1 optimization guidance of Lazada Xiaoer advertising, the products with better results were manually launched to increase exposure and create the main hot products to continuously attract traffic for the brand. (Advertising brought nearly double the GMV growth of its store)

3. Make good use of the traffic and exposure of each promotion. Review the activities with Lazada’s salesperson in advance, plan the activities, optimize the products, warm up with off-site social media, analyze the competition, and further optimize based on brand style and local preferences.

After operating for more than half a year, GAN CUBE has already grasped the preferences of Southeast Asian consumers. Rubik's cubes are divided into traditional Rubik's cubes, smart Rubik's cubes, and special-shaped Rubik's cubes. Southeast Asian players prefer to buy traditional three-level Rubik's cubes. They like to choose according to the configuration and performance of the Rubik's cube, and have certain requirements for the brand and quality of the product.

Logistics is also an important part. In order to improve delivery speed and customer shopping experience and reduce logistics costs, GAN CUBE has joined Lazada overseas warehouses in the Philippines, Singapore, and Malaysia. Among them, the conversion rate of the Philippines site increased by 50% and GMV increased by 182% after the products entered the warehouse in April.

The consumption power of the Southeast Asian market has been confirmed. Next, GAN CUBE will continue to conduct in-depth analysis of the market situation, build Rubik's Cube brand stores that meet the needs of local consumers, and improve the overall framework of the brand stores, store marketing strategies, overseas warehouse layouts, etc., focusing on the refinement and specialization of local brand building.

GAN Cube is not the only company that has experienced the scenery deep in the niche market . Merchants that specialize in mobile phone accessories are also players that have gained popularity by deeply cultivating vertical categories.

Apple mobile phone cases are very popular, with an average monthly sales of 80,000 units

There is a saying in the cross-border circle that "three lucky treasures" refer to the mobile phone accessories, such as mobile phone cases, tempered glass and data cables. This is the magic weapon for many Shenzhen big sellers to start their business, but now it is all red, and the degree of competition is far more than other categories.

In Shenzhen South China City, a Lazada merchant CS sells two of the "three treasures" - mobile phone case films. This company, founded by a boss born in the 1990s, has performed very well among its peers.

In 2019, the merchant CS was optimistic about the prospects of foreign trade in Southeast Asia, so he settled in Lazada and started his business. CS focused on mobile phone cases and accessories. The competition in this category is very fierce, and sellers must have a keen eye for product selection. Earlier, he observed that Apple phone users like simple and basic mobile phone cases, so he seized the Apple case track and only made Apple cases. Now, mobile phone cases alone contribute 80% of the orders.

At present, CS has achieved an average monthly sales of 80,000 orders and a GMV of 170,000 US dollars, becoming the TOP1 merchant of Apple mobile phone cases and ranking among the top five in the Phone Case category.

CS has bet on many new models. Last winter, it developed a three-in-one transparent material case, made of TPU material and with candy-colored edges. It was priced appropriately, so it planned to promote it. When the product was launched, it was promoted on the store homepage, and a small amount of advertising was opened. Because of its novel and simple style, it quickly gained volume.

This year, the seller observed that Apple phone users prefer trendy, stylish and designed styles, so he deliberately chose a funny graffiti element product, which is unique compared to other printed styles on the platform. On the Thailand and Vietnam sites, the seller first tested the market reaction with advertisements, and when he saw good results, he directly kept the style as the main model.

Sure enough, this product was very popular in Thailand and Vietnam, where cartoon elements are popular, and with less competition, it was quickly promoted; in the Philippines and other sites, it also saw a good start without any advertisements. Within 60 days of being on the shelves, this phone case sold more than 5,000 pieces, becoming the best new model of the year.

"We will put the products we think are good on the shelves, observe the exposure, clicks and final conversions of the products, eliminate the poorly performing products and keep the better ones. Mobile phone cases are fast-moving consumer goods, and sellers like us must be very sensitive to 'new products', constantly try new ones, and make replacements. The ones that remain will eventually become the best-selling products."

CS is located in Huaqiangbei, where there are many suppliers and many products to choose from. Purchase is done as soon as the order is placed, so the inventory pressure is relatively small.

GAN CUBE and CS are both leaders in their subcategories. It is understood that the toys and electronic accessories they belong to are the key support categories of the Lazada platform in 2022. Taking GAN CUBE as an example, the platform provides it with a series of support such as Lazmall exclusive resource support, Focus seller strong merchant growth plan project support, advertising 1V1 optimization guidance, and overseas warehouse time efficiency improvement.

It is understood that Lazada has recently launched a plan to recruit merchants in key categories. In addition to toys and electronic accessories, Lazada also focuses on supporting women's clothing, men's clothing, underwear, accessories, beauty, pets, auto parts and furniture this year. Sellers who sign up for the project and are successfully selected will have the opportunity to participate in 30 days of free closed-door operation training, and can also obtain traffic resources such as "hot products all-site", VIP upgrade services and 90-day commission refunds for new merchants and other multiple supports.

In the e-commerce world, traffic tilt means a larger customer base, and refined operations mean higher conversion and revenue. This is the platform's incentive for key supported categories - by releasing more traffic and support, it will push high-quality category sellers to a new level. Scan the QR code below or click "Read original text" to sign up for Lazada's key category support plan and unlock multiple operational supports!

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