The niche brand made a comeback by going overseas, selling 4 million units a year!

In the era of booming cross-border e-commerce, there is no shortage of domestic products that have been widely disseminated through e-commerce platforms or social media, and have been favored by overseas consumers, thus achieving explosive sales in many countries and regions around the world.

Under this trend, even an inconspicuous small product can find big business opportunities in the niche market. Shenzhen brand SUNUV is a typical example.

SUNUV seizes big business at your fingertips

Public information shows that SUNUV was founded in 2010 and is affiliated to Shenzhen Yuchuang Synthetic Optoelectronics Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Yuchuang"). With a small nail lamp, it successfully fought back from a foundry to become a well-known brand in the global nail market, and its products have a global market share of up to 40%.

In the early days of its establishment, Yuchuang was just a small enterprise, focusing on providing OEM services for domestic brands. The company's business involved nail lamps, medical industry and other related products. But later, more and more factories engaged in this business, fierce competition and the market "price war" continued to intensify, Yuchuang began to rethink its future path.

At that time, although the domestic nail art market was huge, the target audience was almost all female consumers. Overseas, consumers of different age groups and genders, including men, women, young and old, were the main force in the nail art market, with a relatively wide coverage, and perhaps more opportunities.

After discovering this potential business opportunity, in 2016, Yuchuang decided to turn its business to overseas markets and officially established the company's own brand - SUNUV.

It is understood that nail curing lamps are SUNUV's main product. With only a single product category, it has entered the overseas market and now has more than 5 million users from more than 100 countries. Many people can't help but wonder what is so special about this brand?

In fact, a careful exploration of SUNUV's development history reveals that it has put a lot of effort into product performance, user experience, and other aspects.

On the one hand, SUNUV is one of the first brands to integrate UV LED technology into nail lamps. Its products can drive LED chips through electric current to generate ultraviolet energy for lighting and curing, which is very friendly to consumers for nail care and nail polish application.

On the other hand, SUNUV conducted sufficient investigations before developing products, went deep into the market to understand users' needs and pain points, and actively researched solutions to continuously improve product performance, quality, and portability.

For example, according to feedback from some consumers, most nail lamps in overseas markets have a slight burning sensation when in use, and in severe cases can even cause pigment accumulation, darkening the color of the skin and nails.

To address this major pain point, SUNUV has incorporated the company's unique technology into its products, not only adding a "painless mode" but also improving the efficiency of baking nail polish. After the product performance innovation, the bonding speed of nail polish is 4 to 6 times faster than that of ordinary nail lamps on the market, and has been unanimously praised by a large number of users.

Furthermore, SUNUV also designs and sells different products according to the consumption levels of different countries. In Europe and the United States, since consumers have high requirements for product performance and appearance, SUNUV mainly promotes products with attractive appearance and sufficient power; while for countries with slightly lower consumption levels such as Russia, SUNUV mainly sells cheap and practical nail lamps.

Moreover, because different countries have different requirements for plug standards, SUNUV has specially designed multiple types of plugs with British, American and European standards, and is committed to meeting the needs of users in multiple countries and regions in terms of product details.

It is worth mentioning that before going overseas, SUNUV was one of the leading manufacturers in the domestic UVLED industry, accounting for about 80% of the domestic nail market. With years of experience and extreme requirements for products, SUNUV also performed well at the beginning of its overseas expansion. In the first year, its market share in the overseas nail market reached 40%, and it even won nearly 60% of the market share in the Amazon nail lamp category.

With multi-channel layout, it ships 4 million units a year

To date, the annual shipments of SUNUV products have exceeded 4 million units, with sales in more than 100 countries and regions around the world. The monthly revenue of a single product on e-commerce platforms has exceeded US$400,000.

If SUNUV made its name overseas with its cost-effective products, then its achievements in recent years can also be attributed to its comprehensive marketing strategy of "e-commerce + social media".

It is reported that SUNUV has a presence on cross-border e-commerce platforms such as Amazon, AliExpress and eBay, social media platforms such as Youtube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and independent websites.

Entering the official website, you can find that its page design is mainly pink and white, which is in line with the psychology of most people who love beauty. The main products are nail lamps. Although the type is single, there are more than 20 models, which are divided into three categories: beginners, creators, and professionals.

According to the introduction, SUNUV is the global leader in UV LED nail lamp technology, and "Dare to Shine" is the brand's slogan. Data shows that its independent station has a monthly traffic of about 25,000, of which natural traffic accounts for as high as 70%, and more than 90% of the popular search tags are directly related to the "SUNUV" brand, which just shows that users highly recognize and trust the brand.

On Amazon, SUNUV has more than 20 product models and has topped the Best Seller list in the same category on the platform many times. Among them, gel nail lamp is the most popular product and often appears in different scenarios such as home manicure and professional salon.

On the AliExpress platform, SUNUV was also listed in the top ten export brands of the year in 2017.

In addition to independent websites and e-commerce platforms, it also makes full use of social media platforms to continuously expand brand awareness.

Taking TikTok as an example, SUNUV’s official account has more than 20,000 followers and more than 510,000 likes. The content shared on its account mainly showcases novel nail art, how to use products, DIY nail art tutorials, etc., which has successfully attracted a large number of loyal users. One of the videos sharing special-shaped novel nail art has received nearly 100,000 likes.

In addition, SUNUV has also cooperated with many influencers on major social media platforms to promote products, thereby expanding its fan base and significantly increasing product orders.

There is another point that must be said. An important reason for SUNUV's success is that it chose a track with great development potential.

According to statistics from authoritative organizations, the global nail market will reach $12.46 billion (about RMB 91.5 billion) in 2024, and is expected to continue to grow in the next few years. At the same time, the global nail tool market will reach $21.09 billion (about RMB 155.4 billion) in 2023, and the compound annual growth rate is expected to be 4.8% in the next few years; while the global nail care product market will be $23.41 billion (about RMB 171.4 billion) in 2023, and is expected to grow to $36.26 billion (about RMB 265.8 billion) by 2032, with an annual growth rate of about 4.99%.

It is not difficult to see from the data that in the future, new potential and business opportunities will continue to emerge in the nail art-related segments. Sellers can learn from SUNUV's overseas experience, delve deeper into this track, make their own brands bigger and stronger, and bring Chinese-made products to a bigger stage.