With an annual income of 1.54 billion, sellers are making a lot of money in this niche market

When it comes to the money-making kings in overseas markets, the first thing that comes to mind is probably smart home appliances, 3C digital accessories, clothing accessories...

However, in recent years, among the crowded overseas markets, there are some niche brands that have gradually emerged in the segmented markets and achieved amazing results, such as the slogan clothing brand See The Way I See, the DIY knitted doll brand The Woobles, and the brand kinobjects focusing on the "Chinese fragrance" culture.

In addition, there is also the small portable printer brand Phomemo, which this article will introduce, which can be put into your pocket and can be used anytime and anywhere .

Taking a different approach to market

Public information shows that Phomemo is affiliated to Xiwen Innovation Technology (Zhuhai) Co., Ltd. and its founder is Guo Jinpeng.

Since the company is located in Zhuhai, the "world capital of consumables", the founder of the brand held a similar idea to "live by the mountain and eat by the sea" and resolutely chose the consumables industry derived from printers - label ribbons in the early days of its establishment. According to Guo Jinpeng, at that time, very few people were engaged in this business, and there were only two companies in Japan and the United States in the global market. With few competitors, differentiated products, and high profits, he easily earned his first pot of gold after starting a business.

But soon, the high profits attracted many peers, and the competition in this field became increasingly fierce. Sellers even started a price war. After seeing the cruelty of reality, Guo Jinpeng knew that his original choice would not work.

In 2015, Guo Jinpeng tried to expand sales channels. In order to speed up the pace of selling printing consumables abroad, he seized the opportunity of Amazon platform investment and quickly opened a store on it. At that time, selling such products to overseas consumers online was very popular, and the company gradually began to make a profit. Moreover, from 2015 to 2018, the brand has always occupied a place in the same category on Amazon.

As the saying goes, "A man is born in trouble and dies in comfort." After making a small profit by expanding its channels, the company did not rest on its laurels. In 2019, founder Guo Jinpeng came up with a new idea, which was to expand the brand's product categories and turn its target products to portable printers.

At that time, there were many powerful brands in the domestic printer market, especially the traditional printer market, such as HP, Lenovo, Canon, etc. Therefore, Phomemo chose to avoid the cumbersome and outdated traditional printer market and began to research innovative and convenient small printers, and took "making everyone print more conveniently, happily and creatively" as its brand mission.

In terms of product appearance, Phomemo has been continuously reducing the size of the product while optimizing the internal structure, truly making it possible to fit the printer into your pocket. In terms of product performance, Phomemo has taken a niche approach, combining the printer with the Internet to design an ink-free printer.

In addition, the brand's products are also equipped with an APP, through which users can edit and modify images at will, such as inserting text, emoticons, tables, QR codes and other elements, and then choose one-click printing, which can basically meet the user's various needs such as learning, office, and making diaries.

According to the director of Phomemo, they conducted research on overseas users when developing the product. Unlike domestic consumers, foreign consumers prefer DIY. Some people will print Bibles on specific holidays and give them to friends after decoration; some people will print blessing notes and put them inside Fortune Cookies to express their emotions; others use it to print notebook stickers, homework documents, thermal stickers or tattoo paper.

By changing sales channels and creating differentiated product appearance and performance, Phomemo has met the needs of a large number of users. In addition, since its establishment, the brand has always taken "making printing a happy experience" as its development goal and is committed to allowing users to easily print what they need no matter where they are. With the above advantages, Phomemo has successfully gained popularity overseas and achieved outstanding results.

Phomemo printers sold nearly 7 million units in one year

Starting with 50 employees, Phomemo now has 7 manufacturing plants and the number of employees has grown to more than 2,000.

Currently, the brand's accompanying APP has more than 7 million active users and ranks in the top three of the education APP lists in multiple markets, including the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, Canada, Ireland, Austria, etc.

Entering the official website, you can see that Phomemo's main products cover various types of portable printers, such as mini thermal printers, Bluetooth barcode printers, error-correcting printers, home office printers, etc.

According to statistics, in 2023, the brand's printers sold more than 6.85 million units in total, with annual sales of 1.54 billion yuan. Its product sales footprint covers 137 countries and regions around the world and are very popular among overseas consumers.

It is worth mentioning that the reason why Phomemo has become popular overseas is inseparable from its diversified marketing strategy.

On the Amazon platform, many of Phomemo's best-selling products have topped the platform's sales charts in the same category for many years in a row, with monthly sales of a single product far exceeding 10,000 units.

Not only that, it has also settled in established e-commerce platforms such as eBay and Walmart, and established a brand DTC independent website. Data shows that last month, the number of visits to Phomemo's independent website reached 338,000 times, among which Youtube (54.77%) and Facebook (24.63%) accounted for the highest proportion of all social media traffic sources, followed by WhatsApp Web, Instagram, LinkedIn and other social media platforms.

Taking Youtube, which has the highest traffic share , as an example, Phomemo’s official account on the platform has nearly 110,000 followers. It mainly publishes tutorial content on it to attract users. At the same time, it also chooses to cooperate with different influencers to expand brand awareness.

In addition, in recent years, Phomemo has also strengthened its layout on TikTok. At present, its official TikTok account has more than 670,000 followers, and its works have received more than 3 million likes. Among them, a video introducing the usage and functions of inkless printers has received more than 440,000 likes and more than 10,000 comments, with users leaving messages such as "I need it", "Where can I buy it", and "How to get it".

On this platform, Phomemo also divides the video content into multiple modules, such as tattoo template patterns, tutorials, hand diaries, labels, packaging orders, etc. This approach is not only conducive to attracting users with different needs, but also further increases the product order volume.

With the continuous development of smart technology and the rising demand for printing and DIY among consumers, the market size of portable printers continues to expand. Data shows that global sales of portable printers will reach 5.394 billion yuan in 2023 and are expected to soar to 8.926 billion yuan in 2030, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 7.3%.

For other brands and sellers, if they want to overtake in this niche track, they may want to learn from Phomemo's successful overseas experience. While creating differentiated products, they must also accurately grasp user needs.