Hot sale: 500,000 units sold in one year! Outdoor sellers are popular in Europe and America

There has been a recent upsurge in outdoor camping in China. According to data from Alizhu, the number of camping orders during the May Day holiday increased by more than 350% month-on-month. The camping economy has driven the popularity of outdoor equipment. Compared with the domestic market, outdoor sports are almost an indispensable lifestyle for Europeans and Americans, and people have a stable and high demand for outdoor products.

The survey shows that the global outdoor products industry's revenue in 2020 will reach nearly 160 billion US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 28.33%. It is expected to exceed 230 billion US dollars by 2025.

The continued popularity of outdoor sports has led to an explosion in the business of this category. Naturehike is one of the best and a representative of the successful overseas expansion of Chinese brands.

The best-selling sleeping bag sold 500,000 pieces a year, and NOKER quickly became popular

In 2017, a hiking sleeping bag quickly became popular in Europe and the United States, with annual sales reaching 500,000 units. Because of the popularity of the sleeping bag, the NOKER brand spawned several popular products that sold like hot cakes on e-commerce platforms at home and abroad.

Before May Day this year, orders for NOKER surged, and some products were sold out. New customers accounted for more than 80% of the orders , and the main customers were families who went camping during the May Day holiday. In the current economic downturn, the business of the outdoor brand NOKER is booming.

NOKER is a brand of Zhejiang NOKER Sporting Goods Co., Ltd. The company was founded in 2010 and is located in Ningbo, Zhejiang. It is a global enterprise that provides one-stop outdoor camping equipment and travel products.

Talking about the opportunity to establish the brand, Ji Jianming, the founder of NOKER, said: "In 2003, I joined an outdoor products foreign trade company. At that time, the outdoor equipment used by everyone came from abroad, and there were no truly good outdoor brands in China. In my experience of playing outdoors, as a user, I hope to get better products and a more comfortable experience, but foreign brands are relatively slow to respond to products. Based on my personal understanding of outdoor sports and familiarity with the product supply chain, I founded NOKER."

At the beginning of its establishment, Norke established a global layout. After 12 years of development, Norke has now grown into a well-known domestic outdoor products merchant. The core competitiveness that helped its brand go from obscurity to being well-known is its products.

At present, Norwegian has formed 9 major product series, including tents, air cushions, sleeping bags, tables and chairs, lamps, outdoor tableware, trekking poles, backpacks, and outdoor clothing. These products almost cover the major categories of food, clothing, housing, and transportation, making it a global one-stop camping equipment brand.

With its strong product strength, NOKER's tents, tables and chairs, sleeping bags, air cushions and other products have won the first place in Tmall's single category sales for many times. The domestic outdoor products market is in a stage of rapid development. At present, the participation rate of outdoor sports in China is only about 5%, but with the impact of the epidemic, more and more people are eager to participate in outdoor activities. Taking camping as an example, young consumer groups born in the 1980s and 1990s aged 25-40 account for the vast majority, and first-tier and new first-tier cities are the main customer groups for camping.

In overseas markets, Nookie has won numerous awards. In 2018, it was awarded the title of Amazon Global Expansion Seller and Tmall's Top 20 Global Overseas Brands; in 2020, it was shortlisted for Tmall's Top Ten New Overseas Chinese Brands of the Year; in 2021, it was awarded the title of Amazon Global Navigator Seller; and was rated as one of the "Top Ten Overseas Brands of the Year" by AliExpress three times in 2018, 2020 and 2021; currently, the company's overseas sales account for about 20%.

Based on the different target consumer groups at home and abroad, Norke's products overseas are mainly hiking and adventure camping equipment, including RVs, cars and other related camping products. At present, the domestic market for exquisite and comfortable camping is growing rapidly, and the company is constantly developing related products around camping scenes.

Today, NOKER has many popular products, including sleeping bags, inflatable tents, self-inflating sleeping pads, etc.

Talking about the experience of creating hot-selling products, Xiang Weimin, the marketing director of NOKER AliExpress, said that the core logic of the company's products is not only how much goods are sold and how much sales are achieved, but also the needs of the target market consumer groups. Based on demand analysis, we provide consumers with what they really need.

"Take the popular sleeping bag as an example. We have been studying the user needs of the target market. For example, in which scenarios buyers may use this product, and the feedback given by consumer groups in different markets around the world after using it. We integrate these feedbacks and make adjustments based on the feedback from different markets to make the product best suited to the needs of buyers."

In the future, Norke will continue to focus on the outdoor product line. This year, the company will launch a new outdoor functional clothing product. Xiang Weimin said that outdoor clothing will add some fashion elements and more design sense on the basis of paying attention to functionality, so that ordinary people will also feel that outdoor clothing can be worn not only for outdoor hiking, but also for going out shopping, making outdoor life a lifestyle.

Currently, the expansion of the new clothing product line of NOKER has started. The team has gone through the running-in process from last winter to now, and has been slowly launching new products. It is expected that the new products of this product line will be fully launched this winter.

In order to make better products, Norwegian established a new product innovation laboratory center, which covers an area of ​​1,200 square meters and has an investment of about 15 million yuan. It mainly includes product proofing and product testing and certification in accordance with national standards. Currently, only Hong Kong or the United Kingdom have laboratories that can do these tests, and it often takes a month to test the product. Establishing your own laboratory is of great benefit to product quality control and improving product R&D efficiency.

Last month, Nookie announced that it had completed a financing of nearly 100 million yuan, exclusively invested by Zhongding Capital.

Regarding the future after the investment, Norke revealed to En.com that it will focus on product originality and strength. Because the domestic market is highly competitive with homogeneity, if it stays at the stage of imitation, it may soon be defeated by some particularly low-priced brands. Norke hopes to add more Chinese elements to the original design and combine it with camping culture.

With products as its core competitiveness and riding on the favorable trend of cross-border expansion, in 2016, after making a name for itself in China, Norwegian quickly began to develop overseas markets. Currently, Norwegian products have been sold to 68 countries around the world.

Overseas sales exceeded 100 million yuan. Why has Nookie’s overseas expansion been so smooth?

Norwegian's main overseas channels are divided into B2C online self-operated and B2B overseas agency distribution. It also has third-party platforms such as Amazon and AliExpress online. It has now achieved certain results in major regions such as Japan, South Korea, Southeast Asia, North America and Europe. The company's sales in the main overseas markets have exceeded 100 million, with an average annual sales growth of more than 40%.

On the Amazon platform, Norwegian has set up 3 sites in the North American market, 6 sites in the European market, and the Japanese site in the Asian market. According to Norwegian, in 2021, its sales on the Amazon platform exceeded 10 million US dollars, doubling its growth.

On Amazon Japan, where consumers are relatively picky, Norwegian tents can get high ratings of more than 4.5 stars; on Amazon Germany, where the return rate is high, the brand's return rate is less than 1%, which is enough to prove the strength of its products.

Thanks to its strong product strength and China's supply chain advantages, Norwegian's overseas growth has been smooth sailing, unlike other brands that have experienced difficulties in adapting to local conditions. According to Norwegian, its advantages in overseas growth mainly include the following:

1. More competitive prices . Most foreign consumers prefer local brands, which have the advantage of being first-mover advantage. However, compared with these brands, Norwegian's products not only have a sense of design, but also have a certain price competitiveness. Especially in the early stage, the company will provide consumers with some products with good cost performance and gradually occupy the target market.

2. The increasingly mature domestic supply chain resources. The product development cycle of foreign brands is about 1 to 2 years. Compared with European and American brands, Nooker's market response speed is faster. Backed by a strong supply chain, the company can complete product development within half a year, greatly shortening the development cycle.

3. Conduct market research carefully. Nookie will analyze consumer groups in different regions and develop products based on the preferences of people in different regions through market research. For example, in Japan and South Korea, consumer groups pay more attention to the beauty of outdoor photos; the consumer groups in the United States have relatively diverse demands, and some low-income people are more concerned about the cost-effectiveness of products, so the competition for outdoor products in the United States is also fierce.

4. Improve brand awareness . In the early stage, the competitive prices are provided. The first stage of the project is to accumulate consumer groups in the target market. After that, the project will gradually enhance its brand power in the second stage, so that consumers can recognize the brand and feel the service. Following the pace of e-commerce platforms, it will seize consumers' brand purchasing minds on the basis of selling goods.

According to the market research of Nordic, in the field of outdoor products, overseas consumer groups are currently mainly concentrated in developed countries such as Europe, the United States, and Japan, and the scale of the outdoor market is relatively mature. Taking the United States as an example, the participation rate of the whole people in outdoor sports accounts for 55%, which has a huge user base. The consumer group is mainly concentrated in adult consumers over 25 years old, but the outdoor consumption of young people is also growing rapidly.

While refining its product advantages, Norke also focuses on overseas marketing. In mature markets such as Japan, South Korea, Europe and the United States, it conducts marketing through user marketing and self-media promotion. On social platforms such as YouTube and Instagram, Norke has a large number of loyal fans. Norke has increased its brand awareness overseas through the operation and promotion of social channels. At the same time, users can interact more with Norke, which promotes the brand's better development overseas.

As live streaming becomes increasingly popular, Nookie has also followed the trend and seized the opportunity of live streaming to increase sales in overseas markets and further enhance its brand influence.

The best-selling tent sold for $500,000 in one day through AliExpress

On the domestic Tmall platform, Norwegian is the "general who always wins" in the outdoor products category. When the company expands its business overseas, Alibaba's AliExpress naturally becomes the key overseas channel. In the second year of its overseas market layout, Norwegian entered this platform.

Products are the stepping stone to the market. Norwegian has researched outdoor equipment in different markets around the world, and the product R&D center promotes development, collaborates with supply chain partners to quickly respond to supply, and then discusses marketing methods with the platform's outdoor products category clerks to promote products in various market activities.

So far, Norwegian has created a number of popular products covering different categories on AliExpress, including inflatable tents, inflatable sleeping pads, etc. On the 2021 Double Eleven promotion day, the sales of one of its inflatable tents reached 500,000 US dollars, which was an amazing performance.

Naturehike has gradually become a star seller on the platform. It has also been rated as one of the "Top Ten Overseas Brands" on AliExpress three times in four years. After operating on the platform for five years, Naturehike believes that as a Chinese cross-border e-commerce platform, the operating logic of AliExpress is more in line with the thinking of Chinese people. "It is very friendly to Chinese buyers and will not close the store at every turn."

For cross-border sales, efficient logistics is very important. Consumers in mainstream countries have high requirements for timeliness, and customer praise, low return rate and high repurchase rate all depend on this. What makes Norwegian happy is that AliExpress has been deeply engaged in last-mile delivery, which makes the experience of both buyers and sellers better and better.

Previously, the platform launched the Preferred Warehouse, where merchants can prepare goods in the Preferred Warehouse in advance, and Cainiao will help with the complete packaging and delivery work. Nookie said frankly that this was a great help to them.

"The biggest help that Youxuan Warehouse provides us is that we don't need to prepare warehouses for delivery. Before Double 11, we had to hire temporary workers to deal with the emergency, but now Youxuan Warehouse has helped me solve the manpower problem. Another aspect is efficiency. According to the previous self-delivery, we may have to work for several working days to deliver all the goods for Double 11, but Youxuan Warehouse is very efficient. Basically, the orders we place on the same day can be arranged for delivery the next day at the latest. So buyers have a very good experience with us.

For example, it used to take 7-12 days to ship goods to South Korea , but now it can arrive in as fast as 3 days. The time efficiency has been greatly improved. "Xiang Weimin said.

Many new companies are added, which may make the industry bigger

Since the outbreak of the global epidemic, many places have taken preventive measures, the number of outbound tourism has dropped sharply, and domestic tours and short-distance camping have become very popular. The recent "camping fever" in China is also one of the effects.

According to the analysis of Norwegian, the overall impact of the epidemic on the outdoor industry is still relatively positive. "One obvious data is that during the May Day holiday this year, the number of camping-related searches on Xiaohongshu increased by 746% year-on-year. Affected by the external environment, everyone has been stuck at home for a long time. When there is an opportunity to travel, many people will spontaneously choose a destination that is closer."

In addition, from March to April this year, due to regional epidemic factors, all sleeping bags were regarded as epidemic materials. Various places purchased large quantities of them for epidemic isolation, and some departments purchased them and sent them overseas for support. All sleeping bag products have been sold out.

The popularity of outdoor products has been rising, attracting many players. By the end of 2021, there were 1.653 million outdoor product-related companies in China; by the end of April this year, there were nearly 40,000 "outdoor camping equipment"-related companies.

The increasing number of competitors will inevitably have a certain impact on existing enterprises. Weimin is optimistic about this project, and he believes that this is an opportunity to expand the industry pie.

"Like new energy vehicles, Tesla led the industry in the beginning, but he released the product manual and many patents. He needs more companies with ideas, resources and strength to enter this track and participate together, so that new energy can become a mode of transportation. If only he was the only car company doing it, the industry would not be in its current good state. Of course, each brand has its own positioning and user groups are different.

The same is true for the outdoors. We can feel that it is slowly becoming a lifestyle, and we hope that this lifestyle can be led and developed by Norwegian. If you have ideas, we can work together to optimize this lifestyle. ”

According to Nordic analysis, in Europe and the United States, the government's issuance of epidemic subsidies to promote consumer spending and the increased penetration of e-commerce platforms such as Amazon have driven the rapid development of the local outdoor industry. In the post-epidemic context, more and more people regard the outdoors as a part of their lives, and outdoor products will increasingly penetrate into daily life. It may be possible to make outdoor activities a lifestyle as natural as breathing.

Judging from the market development trajectory of the pioneers Europe and the United States, the global outdoor industry still has a lot of room for development.

Taking camping as an example, economically developed countries such as Europe, the United States, Japan and South Korea are major camping market countries, and the demand for the camping market is maintaining a good growth trend.

The National Camping Association ( Kampgrounds) report shows that in 2020, 48.2 million households in North America camped at least once, including 10.1 million first-time campers, and the proportion of first-time campers increased fivefold from the previous year; in 2020, sales of camping equipment in the UK increased by 60% year-on-year; according to data released by South Korea, South Korea's exports of camping products reached US$102 million in the first half of 2021, an increase of 84.7% year-on-year. During the same period, imports of camping supplies amounted to US$191 million, a year-on-year increase of 105.1% .

China is the world's second largest economy. As national income steadily increases, people's demand for quality of life and outdoor activities is also rising year by year. Market research company Report Linker believes that by 2027, China's camping equipment market is expected to reach US$15.9 billion, with a compound annual growth rate of 9.1%.

Young people account for a high proportion of the camping community. In North America, millennials and Generation Z account for more than 50% of the luxury camping and camping communities.

The epidemic has accelerated the development of the outdoor industry, but even if the epidemic situation has eased, its development speed has not slowed down. In 2021, overseas travel bans were gradually lifted, but in the United States, the number of families participating in camping activities still increased by 18.09%, which shows that camping has become a common activity. In addition, the current order feedback from outdoor product companies also shows that the demand for outdoor products in Europe and the United States is still relatively strong after the epidemic.

The product categories of the outdoor products market are becoming increasingly diverse, covering everything from food, clothing, housing and transportation, and can meet people's needs from simple camping to sophisticated camping. Nowadays, in addition to improving the quality of existing products and covering more categories, outdoor product companies also need to find subcategories with greater growth potential and conduct in-depth exploration, such as the outdoor functional clothing that Norke is about to launch.

According to market research firm Transparency Market Research, millennials are increasingly wearing outdoor clothing for fitness activities, which has affected the development trend of outdoor clothing. It is expected that the global valuation of the outdoor clothing market will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 5.6% between 2022 and 2031. For outdoor companies, this is also a value-added market.

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