Sales increased 8 times within one year of its launch, and it has now become the number one company on Amazon.

It is well known that foreign consumers love pets, but the hygiene problems caused by pet hair loss often make them frustrated. After trying countless methods, the sweeping robot that can free their hands has successfully captured the hearts of foreigners and made them willing to pay for it.

The demand for products in overseas markets has boosted sales on the platform. On Amazon, searching for sweeping robots shows that the sales of this product in the past month have mostly been over 500, or even over 1K. Moreover, compared with China, the penetration rate of sweeping robots overseas is higher, with 15% in the United States, and 8% in Germany and Japan.

Such an attractive cake naturally attracted many Chinese sellers to share. Data shows that in 2023, among the top 10 brands in terms of sales on Amazon US, 5 are from China. It is obvious that Chinese brands have mastered the secret of overseas development and even have the momentum to overwhelm foreign brands.

Sellers who have been deeply involved in this category have not been disappointed in 2023 as rumored, but have frequently received good news, such as Roborock and Roomba, which have performed well abroad. How did they occupy the high ground overseas? Perhaps interested sellers can find out from this article.

Even with a high customer price, it can still achieve monthly sales of 1,000+, and it successfully became the number one in Amazon.

By analyzing the overseas consumer market, we can find that almost every family has several smart small appliances. Although traditional products such as color TVs and refrigerators still dominate the market, some smart products with innovative designs and functions are gradually becoming the new favorites of the market, and sweeping robots are one of them.

Based on consumer demand for sweeping robots, this category has grown rapidly in recent years. It is expected to continue to increase at a compound annual growth rate of 6% in the next five years, and shipments will reach 25 million units by 2028.

Chinese companies have occupied more than 50% of the overseas market with their excellent supply chain advantages . In the future, Chinese brands are expected to carry more overseas market share. Previously, Amazon planned to acquire iRobot, the global leader in sweeping robots (which occupies more than 60% of the industry), for US$1.4 billion, but recently it was blocked by multiple regulatory agencies such as the European Union and abandoned the agreement, and its market share plummeted. This is undoubtedly an opportunity for Chinese sellers.

According to incomplete statistics, in the past three years, more than 100 companies related to sweeping robots have been newly established in China , and many of them have already won several rounds of financing. For newly established sellers or sellers who want to enter the cross-border market, the experience of successful overseas brands is undoubtedly a stepping stone for their progress. (If Chinese brands want to successfully go overseas, they cannot do without professional market analysis and accurate brand positioning. The end of the article provides you with solutions)

Roborock is one of the most outstanding Chinese brands in overseas markets recently. Roborock, which is affiliated with Stone Technology, received investment from Xiaomi as early as 2014 and once produced a number of products for Xiaomi. In 2018, when the growth rate of the domestic market peaked and profits declined, Roborock went overseas through Amazon and independent websites. One year after its launch in overseas markets, it successfully entered the first echelon of overseas brands with an 8-fold increase in sales and a performance of over 40 million US dollars.

Roborock has delivered perfect answers one after another . In 2021, Roborock sold 1.23 million sweeping robots in the first half of the year, which has deeply rooted in the hearts of American consumers. This situation continued until this year, when Roborock successfully topped the US market.

In early January this year , Roborock, which had always been suppressed by iRobot, successfully surpassed iRobot, which ranked first, with a sales growth of 89.6%, a sales volume growth of 85.8%, and a sales market share of 23.6%, becoming the first on the US and Asian lists.

Hot-selling products with high customer unit prices have become a powerful tool to help Roborock reach the top. Searching for Roborock on Amazon shows that even a single product priced at $1,399.99 has sold more than 1,000 units in the past month.

Not only the Amazon channel, the development of its independent website should not be underestimated. According to Similarweb data, in January this year, the total number of visits to Roborock's independent website reached 1.9 million. Looking back at the data of the previous three months, the average monthly number of visits to its independent website reached 2.1 million. It is estimated that the recent monthly sales of its independent website are 15.37 million US dollars. (Since the data is estimated, there may be slight discrepancies)

Behind the success, Roborock has two sharp weapons in its hands. First, it is willing to invest in product research and development. In the first half of 2023 alone, its R&D investment reached 287 million yuan, accounting for 8.49% of the current revenue, and it has 499 R&D personnel.

Another is that marketing is done well and branding advantages are significant. Google Trends data shows that in the past five years, the search volume for the term "Robot Vacuum" has shown an upward trend, especially during major shopping festivals such as Black Friday and Cyber ​​Monday, the search volume has increased significantly.

Looking at the data of Roborock's independent website, we can find that the monthly visits to Roborock's website are 2.4M, the average visit time is 01:25, the number of pages per visit is 2.38, and the bounce rate is 62.96%. The high visit volume shows that the brand has a strong influence, but the short user stay time and high bounce rate need to be improved. We can effectively improve user participation and satisfaction by optimizing user experience, improving content quality and guiding users to browse in depth.

Analyzing the traffic sources by channel, the website mainly focuses on direct traffic and natural search. The data for the past year mainly includes 3.479 million natural searches, accounting for 56.56%; 1.506 million direct traffic, accounting for 24.48%; and 448,000 paid searches, accounting for 7.28%. It can be seen that Roborock has put a lot of effort in publicity and promotion, and its brand has a high degree of recognition among users.

Moreover, since the establishment of the website in 2018, Roborock's traffic has shown an increasing trend year by year, which also shows that the market's recognition and demand for the Roborock brand is increasing. Although the overall trend is upward, the fluctuations show that there is room for further optimization. Roborock can continue to strengthen SEO optimization, content marketing and user experience improvement to maintain and increase the growth of natural traffic.

The United States is one of the regions with the highest penetration rate of sweeping robots and is also the main source of traffic for Roborock. Among the top three traffic sources of the website, the United States has 182,000 visits, accounting for 32.98%; Germany has 84,000 visits, accounting for 15.17%; and South Korea has 54,000 visits, accounting for 9.77%. This means that Roborock products are more popular in the United States and have a higher market share, but Germany and South Korea are also stock markets that cannot be ignored.

Men are loyal buyers of high-tech products. As shown in the above figure, the main force of Roborock purchases is men, with 205,000 users, accounting for 53.35%; there are 179,000 female users, accounting for 46.65%. Among them, the age distribution is mostly over 65 years old, followed by people aged 45-54. The economic ability of this group of people is mostly medium to high, and they are more receptive to new things.

Roborock has also put a lot of effort into traffic generation . Here we mainly analyze social media and display advertising alliances.

Its social traffic mainly comes from three platforms, of which YouTube accounts for the largest proportion, reaching 66.46%; Reddit is second, accounting for 14.63%; and Facebook accounts for 13.00%. This shows that YouTube is the main source of traffic, far exceeding Reddit and Facebook. In the future, we can focus on content creation and promotion on the YouTube platform to further expand influence and traffic.

As can be seen from the above figure, Impact and Google Display Network are the main traffic sources of the advertising alliance, among which Impact has a slight advantage, and CJ Affiliate's traffic accounts for a smaller proportion. In order to optimize the effect of display advertising, you can focus on the delivery strategy and performance of Impact and Google Display Network. By analyzing the performance of each platform, optimizing the advertising delivery strategy, and more effectively improving the overall advertising effectiveness.

In terms of advertising creativity, Google search ads use brand words combined with typical product description structures. The advertising materials are mainly scene pictures and white background pictures, which is an advertising strategy that focuses on both attractiveness and user experience.

Facebook ads mainly use single images and carousel images. The landing page jumps to the homepage of the independent website, and some jump to Amazon. By cooperating with celebrities in various fields, Roborock promotes its products to more users, builds its brand image, and gathers user word of mouth.

Occupying half of the global market, it was once favored by Amazon

When talking about sweeping robots, many people first think of iRobot, the originator of American sweeping robots. It was founded in the 1990s and has a 30-year development history. As early as 2012, its global market share exceeded 80%.

iRobot's development has been smooth sailing. In 2002, it launched its flagship home robot, Roomba, which has sold more than 3 million units to date. In 2005, the success of its sweeping robot helped it go public on the NASDAQ. At that time, iRobot had already launched several series of home robots, such as the Roomba sweeping robot and the Scooba floor cleaning robot.

iRobot's CEO once declared in 2015 that "China will become iRobot's second largest market in the next five years", and then vigorously developed the market in China. At that time, iRobot's global market share was close to half.

But all this has begun to change with the rise of Chinese brands. The North American market, which has always been regarded as iRobot's main market, has also been gradually snatched away by Chinese brands, and they are shifting from the role of follower to the role of leader.

According to Mojing 's data from January to July 2023, iRobot's market share in the price range below $500 is 30%, and its market share in the price range of $500-800 is 40.40%, but the rest of the market share is occupied by Chinese brands including Roborock (23.70%). In the high-unit-price market above $800, iRobot's market share is instantly killed by Chinese brands, accounting for only 26%, while Roborock's share is as high as 57.30%.

If iRobot has always been in the low-price market, Chinese brands of sweeping robots are advancing in parallel at the low, medium and high-end levels, and have already occupied a favorable position in the high-unit-price market. With the changes in the market and competition landscape, iRobot's US market share will gradually be swallowed up by Chinese brands in the future.

Moreover, compared with iRobot's single function and slow innovation, domestic brands have made great progress in technological innovation in recent years. They have not only created sweeping robots that can independently complete a series of cleaning processes from sweeping and mopping to changing water and drying, but have also gradually developed humanized functions such as mechanical arms that can wipe the floor, automatically add cleaning fluid, and even sweep wherever you point. In terms of price, Chinese brands rely on their supply chain advantages and can make rapid adjustments based on the market they have cultivated.

It is worth noting that although iRobot's market share is gradually declining, it still ranks at the forefront of the industry, with monthly sales of US$9 million on the website. (The data is estimated and may be inaccurate)

iRobot website data shows that it currently has 1.7M visits per month , an average visit time of 02:04, 3.31 pages per visit, and a bounce rate of 53.04%. Although the current number of visits is not as high as Roborock's 2.4M, its users tend to stay for a while, which means that its website is rich in content and highly relevant, or that users are interested in the product and product content.

In terms of channel traffic, iRobot's website traffic is mainly concentrated in natural search and direct traffic, which means that the website has a good reach in brand building and SEO. In the data of the past year, natural search accounted for 2.269 million, accounting for 39.65%; direct traffic accounted for 1.653 million, accounting for 28.89%; referral traffic accounted for 1.05 million, accounting for 18.34%.

Specifically in terms of the website's natural traffic, the above figure shows the growth of natural traffic in the past 12 years. The natural traffic initially showed a stable growth with slight fluctuations, but then declined after rapid growth, and then rebounded slightly after declining again. This may be related to the impact of Chinese brands on iRobot in recent years.

Like Roborock, iRobot's largest traffic source is also the United States. Among its top three traffic sources, the United States has 289,000 visits, accounting for 70.2%; Canada has 14,000 visits, accounting for 15.17%; and the United Kingdom has 7,948 visits , accounting for 1.93%. It can be seen that, overall, iRobot still occupies a relatively high position in the United States and has a considerable audience.

Among those who buy sweeping robots, men still account for a relatively high proportion. iRobot has 876,000 male users, accounting for 68.57%; and 402,000 female users, accounting for 31.43%. The age distribution is mostly 25-34 years old, followed by 18-24 years old. The main audience group of male users is basically twice that of female users. They pay more attention to the technological feel of the product, which is consistent with the professional and high-end design style of the website.

iRobot's social traffic mainly comes from three platforms, of which YouTube accounts for the largest proportion, reaching 40.28%; Reddit is second, accounting for 26.97%; Facebook accounts for 12.80%. However, its social media accounts are updated less frequently and irregularly. Another traffic source is the display advertising alliance. Specifically, Google Display Network accounts for 53.02%, CJ Affiliate accounts for 35.79%, and Sharethrough accounts for 5.95%.

In terms of advertising creativity, Google search ads usually use official website links combined with product descriptions or discount information. Advertising materials mainly include scene pictures and white background pictures. A series of simple and elegant advertising strategies are used to increase the click-through rate and conversion rate of iRobot ads. On the Facebook channel, ads are mainly based on activity discount pictures, supplemented by some scene pictures.

The US has fallen from its pedestal, and now is the opportunity for Chinese brands

In recent years, domestic sweeping robot technology has continued to improve. Brands such as Ecovacs, Roborock and Xiaomi have leveraged mature supply chains to launch more cost-effective comprehensive products, but the originator iRobot is still thinking about how to transform single-function products.

This may also be the reason why iRobot, although it successfully opened up the robot vacuum cleaner market, did not deliver a perfect answer in its golden period. Instead, it was trapped by business thinking as the market changed and brand competition became more competitive, and gradually fell behind. According to the 2022 financial report data, iRobot's operating loss was as high as US$240 million.

Due to multiple factors such as low innovation ability and lack of cost-effectiveness, iRobot, the originator of sweeping robots, lost its position in North America, its market share declined rapidly, and it even showed signs of becoming the next "Samsung mobile phone" in the Chinese market.

According to Euromonitor data, iRobot's global sales market share has dropped from about 83% in 2012 to 27.9% in the second quarter of 2023, and its sales in China account for less than 1%. iRobot's declining market share reflects the decline in product strength, coupled with slow innovation, difficulty in seizing chips in high-growth markets, and Amazon's termination of its acquisition deal. The prospect of iRobot's market share recovery is not optimistic.

As the saying goes, when one pearl falls, everything comes to life. While iRobot has been losing money for years, more and more Chinese brands have chosen to stay away from the domestic price war and rise overseas, and have been favored by consumers and recognized by platforms. Take Dreame as an example. Last year, the global sales of sweeping robots exceeded 2.4 million units, a year-on-year increase of 300%. The market share in Germany has ranked first for 8 consecutive months, and it has now entered more than 100 countries around the world.

Roborock Technology has opened online stores on multiple platforms in the United States, which is also due to its focus on the development space in overseas markets. As we all know, the penetration rate of the domestic sweeping robot market is not high, but there are many players, and the competition is becoming increasingly fierce . Since 2018, the registration growth rate of companies related to the domestic sweeping robot market has remained at around 40%, and the increase in players has suddenly intensified the price war.

Relying on China's supply chain advantages and competitive environment, Chinese brands continue to shorten their R&D cycles and create more differentiated and cutting-edge products with higher cost-performance advantages. In 2023, the price of the industry's all-around products will drop from 5,076 yuan to 4,084 yuan, and there will even be a downward trend.

However, in foreign markets, the penetration rate of sweeping robots is higher, especially in North America, where the sweeping robot market remains the world leader and maintains rapid growth, with sales reaching 4.72 million units in 2022, a year-on-year increase of 11%. However, the innovation speed of local competitive brands is not as fast as that of China, and the cost-effectiveness advantage is not significant.

Rather than struggling in a limited traffic space, it is better to control traffic and products and dominate your own destiny. At this moment of brand globalization, the new proposition of cross-border e-commerce going overseas has evolved into brand going overseas. Even products with high customer unit prices can carve out a niche in overseas markets with high penetration rates.

However, many manufacturers seem to be in a very contradictory state: they want to tap into the overseas market very much, but they are held back by various concerns. The journey from 0 to 1 and then to successfully creating a hit product may not be smooth sailing for novice players. Many people often have to go through a lot of trial and error before they can understand the underlying logic of product selection, link promotion, advertising and other links... A professional brand incubation and operation team can help sellers skip the novice awkward period and successfully gain a foothold overseas.

If you don’t want to miss out on the gold rush of robot scanners, you can click on the QR code below to add the Yien Overseas Customer Service WeChat account and communicate with the Yien Overseas Operations Team in detail. We will tailor the most suitable brand overseas planning for you!!!

Meiya

Robot Vacuum Cleaner

Stone Technology