He has been deeply involved in the blue ocean category, with annual sales reaching 100 million US dollars, ranking among the top three in Europe and the United States!

In the past month, Xiamen-based brand ECO-WORTHY has seen an explosion in traffic.

Relying on breakthroughs in the European market, this new energy company's product sales have more than doubled.

The "sales surge" is not a "flash in the pan". As countries around the world propose emission reduction targets such as "carbon neutrality", the demand for renewable energy increases. Clean energy products represented by solar energy are ushering in long-term development opportunities in the cross-border e-commerce field.

As early as 2007, three engineers firmly believed that clean energy could improve people's lives, so they decided to invest in the solar energy business and founded the Xiamen local brand ECO-WORTHY , selling solar panels, lithium batteries, solar off-grid systems, solar system accessories, solar water pumps, wind turbines, LED solar street lights and other products.

Starting from a studio, after more than ten years of hard work and persistence, ECO-WORTHY is now in full swing . In the past three years, its business on eBay has been growing at a compound growth rate of 40% to 50%, ranking among the top three in the European and American cross-border markets. It has currently served more than 500,000 customers.

Looking back on the rise of ECO-WORTHY , it is actually a typical victory of long-termism.

Mining for riches in emerging blue ocean industries

Wang Hao, one of the founders of ECO-WORTHY, started his relationship with new energy in 2007.

At that time, Wang Hao was still working in a solar cell factory doing quality inspection on solar cells. He gradually discovered that the business cooperation of most traditional solar factories was with local government departments or enterprises, and the mainstream market users were large-scale public power generation projects. No one looked down on the market demand for civilian distributed photovoltaic products . However, for remote areas without power grids and people with mobile electricity needs, the demand gap for using solar energy is growing.

In addition, in recent years, the Chinese government has introduced a series of policies and measures that are conducive to the development of the clean energy industry. Wang Hao has become more aware that with the continuous development of human society, vigorously developing renewable clean energy is an inevitable choice for mankind in the future.

So he left his original factory and started selling solar products in China, but the sales of products were not ideal and the company's operations were once difficult.

However, this trend started to reverse after correcting the market direction .

During a conversation with his old German friend Sven , he saw the broad development prospects of overseas markets and began to turn his business to overseas markets.

"Foreign countries have a very early awareness of new energy and environmental protection, which was initially formed about 50 years ago. In our cognition, we believe that new energy is mainly used in commerce, industry or large-scale agriculture. In fact , new energy products are closely related to daily life , " Wang Hao observed. In recent years, natural disasters have become more frequent, seriously affecting the stability of global power supply. People's awareness of disaster prevention and preparedness has been continuously enhanced, and emergency backup power supplies have gradually become an important emergency backup product in family life.

In addition to emergency response after natural disasters such as tornadoes, new energy products can also be used in daily outdoor scenes such as camping, RVs, and yachts. As the electronic equipment and electrical products required for outdoor activities become more and more abundant, human dependence on independent energy increases.

Although there is a lot of buyer demand, the competition is not yet fierce. Clean energy is truly the "child of tomorrow."

"Currently, the company's product exports are 30% to the United States, 35% to Europe, and about 35% to Australia, Japan, Canada, etc.," said Wang Hao. Before the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the United States was the largest market for ECO-WORTHY product exports, and now Europe has jumped to the first place.

At present, more and more cross-border sellers like Wang Hao are digging for their own gold mines in the huge new energy opportunities in markets such as Europe and the United States.

eBay backend data shows that clean energy products such as solar panels, inverters, lithium batteries, controllers and portable outdoor energy are showing a rapid upward trend in the European and American markets, and the market share of Chinese sellers is steadily increasing.

Taking the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany as examples, from January to February this year, the United States, the largest single market for clean energy products, continued to maintain double-digit growth after two years of strong growth, with portable outdoor energy storage nearly doubling; in the United Kingdom, inverters nearly tripled; in Germany, solar panels and solar energy storage lithium batteries doubled.

It is worth noting that since the outbreak of the epidemic, German consumers have paid more and more attention to keywords such as recyclable, resource conservation, no microplastics, and climate neutrality when searching for products. Germany, which advanced its goal of "achieving 100% renewable energy supply and abandoning fossil fuels" to 2035 at the end of February this year , has also caused Chinese photovoltaic component companies to receive more inquiries from channel dealers recently.

Leveraging platform traffic and bonuses, sales took off

In the early stage of going overseas, Wang Hao's company's main sales came from traditional B to B customers. Later, he saw the unlimited potential of cross-border e-commerce platforms such as eBay, founded the brand ECO-WORTHY, and began to enter cross-border e-commerce platforms such as eBay in 2011, trying the B to C model that directly faces consumers. ECO-WORTHY's main eBay platform sites are the United States, Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Germany. In addition, sites in Spain, Italy, France, etc. are also being fully promoted with the support of eBay. The main products include solar panels, lithium batteries, solar off-grid systems, solar system accessories, solar water pumps, wind turbines, LED solar street lights and other new energy products.

After entering B to C, good news came one after another!

In 2012, ECO-WORTHY successfully ranked among the top 100 on eBay. In 2017, it achieved a revenue breakthrough of RMB 100 million. In 2019, the revenue growth rate exceeded 200% for the first time, and the annual sales exceeded 100 million US dollars. "In the past three years, the business on eBay has been growing at a compound growth rate of 40% to 50%," said Wang Hao. eBay has now become one of the e-commerce platforms that ECO-WORTHY focuses on.

The good results are inseparable from the close communication with the eBay platform.

"The eBay platform has various traffic support resources and policies. As long as you meet the policy requirements, the category manager will provide corresponding resource activity docking so that more buyers can see your products." It is precisely because of following the platform's pace in promotion that the traffic of ECO-WORTHY store began to take off, for example, the business expansion in the German and Spanish markets.

When ECO-WORTHY first entered the German market, its lithium battery products were still struggling to break through. We joined the eBay Qianfan Program and were invited to participate in the German Daily   After the Deal promotion, traffic increased 14 times and sales increased 60 times year-on-year, gradually opening up the German market and then entering more European markets.

"eBay's team of account managers and category managers provide a large amount of category data and site development information, providing support for our category and site expansion. eBay will provide us with a current status analysis report for sellers, analyzing issues from multiple aspects such as sales data, account performance, and market expansion, and provide suggestions for improvement." ECO-WORTHY recommends that sellers must communicate in depth with the eBay team when they encounter difficulties and pain points in the process of operating their stores, and develop their business rapidly through the professional guidance of the eBay team.

Behind ECO-WORTHY's "misaligned competition" in the European and American markets

From being a distributor to finding OEM production and then to forming its own R&D team and establishing a factory, after years of deep cultivation in the industry, ECO-WORTHY has not only achieved a 2-fold increase in revenue for three consecutive years on cross-border e-commerce platforms such as eBay, but also ranked among the top three in the European and American markets . It has currently served more than 500,000 customers in total.

Behind the stable ranking in the top three in the European and American markets and the success of multiple platforms, ECO-WORTHY is actually the result of its consumer-oriented approach. On the journey of cross-border expansion, in a homogeneous market environment, staggered competition, focusing on product quality and brand building can find greater growth opportunities.

In the clean energy field where ECO-WORTHY is located, mature brands controlled the market prices at that time, and products with too low prices were shoddy. This market environment gave Wang Hao a belief: customers deserve better products and services at a more affordable price.

But he learned that to get one kilowatt-hour of electricity from solar energy, customers need to invest more than $500, which is not an easy expense for an average family. The key to reducing the cost of use for consumers lies in mastering technology and controlling production.

Because of the insistence on quality and price, the store's sales were not ideal at the beginning, but no one deviated from this original intention. In October 2015, Wang Hao and the ECO-WORTHY team members established a product research and development department. Everyone was full of energy and wanted to develop a single product that could quickly occupy the market.

Drawing inspiration from daily life, Wang Hao and his team finally succeeded in creating a hit product.

It is reported that during the R&D period, Wang Hao often ran to work because he believed that keeping exercising and keeping a clear mind could bring a turnaround in his career. It was also because of his running habit that Wang Hao's private car was often parked in the parking lot for months without starting. When he needed to use the car, the car would not start. After a thorough inspection, he found that the battery was low, so it could not start.

Many car owners face the problem of their batteries self-discharging when their cars are parked for a long time without any input of electricity to replenish them. He immediately thought that perhaps a small solar panel could solve this problem.

After discussion, they came up with several key functional requirements for this unprecedented new solar product:

1. Can be easily installed inside the car;

2. You can continuously charge the car battery without worrying about overcharging;

3. Plug and play, easy to store.

With the design concept of solar trickle charger, the next question is how to make this mini solar panel into a product that can be conveniently used by all kinds of private car users.

After repeated testing on different vehicles, the R&D department found that the initial version of the product had two problems:

1. If the board cannot maintain a certain tilt angle, the amount of solar radiation absorbed will be too little;

2. The cigarette lighter port has some limitations and cannot be adapted to all vehicles.

After realizing these two potential problems, Wang Hao immediately discussed solutions with the R&D center. He carefully observed the internal structure of the car and found that the front windshield already had an ideal light-facing angle, so he designed a suction cup that could place the board on the glass.

To address the problem of the charging interface, an alligator clip cable that can be directly connected to the starter battery is added, eliminating the intermediate medium of the cigarette lighter input port and connecting directly to the battery.

As soon as this product was launched on cross-border e-commerce platforms such as eBay, it received high praise from users in North America and Europe. Six years later, the edging board has solved the problem of battery drain for nearly 300,000 private car owners in various countries.

Cross-border e-commerce platforms such as eBay have reduced end-consumer costs by 30-40%.

When doing cross-border e-commerce, cost is a topic that cannot be avoided .

Wang Hao believes that the cost of clean energy has dropped significantly compared to about 20 years ago.

"In 2003, the price of solar panels we exported to Europe was 3.5 to 4 US dollars per watt. Now it has dropped to 0.35 to 0.4 US dollars per watt, a decrease of about 90%." In Wang Hao's view, electricity prices may not necessarily fall in the future. Instead, they may continue to rise. As the industrial chain of the clean energy industry gradually matures, the prices of bulk materials will inevitably fall, the threshold for consumers to use will be lowered, and demand will be strong, which will ultimately bring more opportunities to businesses.

It is precisely because Wang Hao has always held positive hopes for the development of the clean energy industry that he did the opposite when many of his peers were shrinking their fronts and reducing their business scale last year . He doubled his inventory in 2022 and stocked up until June of this year.

Facts have proved that sales have continued to rise. The conflict between Russia and Ukraine has led to a peak in sales growth. It is also because of the correct prediction of the situation that products in the European and American markets have been sold out without being out of stock.

Directly facing consumers through cross-border e-commerce platforms such as eBay can also significantly reduce operating costs.

"Faced with the current situation of inflation, if we sell products through traditional dealer channels, the operating pressure will be very great." In Wang Hao's view, first of all, the price of energy is the most sensitive. If energy is too expensive, no one will use it. People are more inclined to save electricity. In other words, if there is a large demand for energy, there must be a low price, otherwise the demand for energy will not be large. Traditional channels are layers of distribution, so you must let the energy price rise by 30 to 40%, which is not in the interests of consumers. Through cross-border e-commerce platforms such as eBay, ECO-WORTHY can reduce the cost of end consumers by 30~40% .

Overall, although the supply chain has been affected to a certain extent, ECO-WORTHY's total gross profit has not decreased due to its support from e-commerce platforms such as eBay and the continued increase in product sales.

Future development strategy: branding, verticalization and expansion of emerging sites

The overall clean energy market is in a state of vigorous development. The new generation of consumers who have grown up in an open, diverse and inclusive Internet environment will continue to make new demands on clean energy products, which will also create more new market opportunities for Chinese clean energy brands to go overseas .

Wang Hao decided to continue to increase the development of new products based on the development of the industry, market conditions and the company's own development plan. "Lithium batteries are our main new products starting in 2021. We hope to provide solar users with more portable, clean, and longer-lasting energy storage power sources." At present, the company's team has added more than 20 new people, and the team size is still expanding.

"The company's long-term development strategy is to improve operational efficiency, find ways to reduce costs, and allow more consumers to use cheaper products ." In 2022 , ECO-WORTHY 's development strategy will focus more on branding and vertical boutique operations , while doing a good job in listing refinement, inventory rationalization, team verticalization , and expansion of emerging sites .

Branding : In the early stages of development, ECO-WORTHY was more concerned with how to use eBay's existing resources to promote product sales and conversions, improve product quality, and consider consumer needs, weakening brand promotion. The first step for ECO-WORTHY to establish a brand is to put the ECO-WORTHY brand logo on the products so that buyers can recognize our products. Secondly, highlight the advantages of products and stores to distinguish them from competitors in the same category. Finally, deepen the brand impression through social media promotion.

Vertical and high-quality operations : Deeply cultivate vertical categories. Currently, the main category of ECO-WORTHY is the home category, and most of the products are published in this category. We choose to use this category to open up the situation and continue to expand other categories. Our new lithium battery will continue to expand its market share in the rechargeable battery category with the support and help of eBay in the future.

Listing refinement : Whether the listing is excellent is directly related to traffic conversion. We will work hard on the listing, further optimize the listing and improve the ranking by optimizing the title, subtitle, description, picture, advertisement and other modules. At the same time, we will optimize the service quality of the customer service team, understand user needs in a timely manner after delivering the order, and make adjustments in products, links, after-sales and other areas.

Inventory rationalization : Set sales targets based on sales data from previous years, and subdivide and set monthly sales targets for key SKUs, so as to accurately arrange inventory and ensure that key products are in stock, thus achieving the effect of a boutique store.

Vertical team : With the continuous improvement of the eBay platform, our team mechanism has also become more and more perfect. In terms of products, we are currently distinguishing categories, and forming optimization teams for products under key categories to promote link conversion in a more targeted manner. In terms of personnel, the precision training mechanism is our key breakthrough this year. We have established a teaching and training mechanism, sorted out and improved the operation process, and broken down each module one by one to cultivate professional talents.

Expansion of emerging sites : In 2021, we opened some emerging sites in the EU on eBay, and the initial stage has achieved initial results. During this period, the account manager and category manager team provided us with a large amount of category data and development status, which provided support for our site expansion and product promotion. In 2022, the development of emerging sites is our main focus, and we will strengthen cooperation with account managers and category managers.

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