The dark horse in the category became the number one in the United States in just 3 years!

Mentioning Karl Lagerfeld, the helmsman of the fashion circle, many people will remember his cool look wearing sunglasses and black clothes. He once said frankly: "Sunglasses have become a part of my body." Not only Karl Lagerfeld, in the eyes of Europeans and Americans, the role of glasses is no longer limited to correcting vision, but also a common accessory with a "fashion symbol".

Data shows that the average number of glasses owned by each person has increased fivefold over the past five years, and consumers are more willing to replace lenses, frames and sunglasses according to changing fashion trends. On Amazon, there are many glasses with monthly sales of thousands or even tens of thousands, which shows the huge demand for glasses products in the overseas market.

China is the world's largest exporter of eyewear-related products, but most of its exports are through OEM and OEM. However, glasses are a product with rigid demand and high profits , and their prices can often increase by dozens or even hundreds of times after export.

Some Chinese companies have sensed this business opportunity and started to develop their own eyewear brands overseas. Brands including Zeelool and TIJN have found entry points from the perspectives of customization and foldability . However, in order to avoid platform competition and rule constraints and build brand image, their first choice for overseas expansion is independent websites. After years of development, these brands have successfully overtaken the curve in overseas markets and become the leaders in the United States.

It became the first in the United States in 3 years, breaking out of the competition in the eyewear market

There are two obvious trends in the eyewear category: first, there are at least 2.2 billion people in the world with myopia or hyperopia, and the number has been growing. It is estimated that by 2050, half of the people on the earth will need to wear glasses; second, more than 4 billion people in the world wear glasses just to match their clothes.

The continued growth in consumer demand for glasses has led to a gradual increase in the market size of the glasses market. According to Grand View Research, the global glasses market size in 2020 was US$147.6 billion, and will grow at an annual compound growth rate of 8.5% from 2021 to 2028. Among them, North America is the most important glasses market, and China and India are the fastest growing glasses markets.

Taking the largest US market as an example, eyewear brands are currently divided into two camps. One is the established eyewear brands that grew up from the traditional retail model and later transferred their business to online, such as Luxottica; the other is the DTC brand Warby Parker that directly faces C-end consumers. Before the emergence of DTC eyewear brands, Luxottica occupied nearly 70% of the market share in the United States, almost reaching the level of monopoly, and only 1% of glasses were sold online.

After the emergence of Warby Parker , the US eyewear market was divided up, the competition landscape changed, the market size of DTC eyewear brands continued to expand, and many Chinese overseas brands stood out by relying on their supply chain advantages (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) .

Zeelool is one of the best eyewear brands in China that is currently developing overseas. We can often see it in some overseas brands' social media influence lists. In the "BrandOS 2022Q4 Overseas Brand Social Media Influence Analysis" list released by Onesight, Zeelool surpassed TEMU, which was very popular overseas at the time, and jumped to sixth place ; in Q3 2023, Zee lool also surpassed Cider, Cupshe and other unicorns in the clothing category .

In 2017, when a number of independent website giants were gaining a foothold overseas, Little World of Warcraft smelled a business opportunity in customized products and created the prescription eyewear brand Zeelool, which focuses on thousands of products such as myopia glasses, reading glasses, and sunglasses , and rushed into the North American market with Zhengzhou, Henan as its foothold .

Selecting the eyewear category and going global with a brand model also laid the foundation for the rapid development of Little Monster. Soon after its establishment , Zeelool gradually filled the DTC eyewear market in more than 150 countries and regions around the world by relying on the advantages of China's supply chain. With its own factory as a backing, Zeelool has made its products extremely cost-effective . The prices on its official website are between US$3-50. Sometimes there will be super promotions, where you can get fashionable glasses for US$7 and prescription glasses for more than US$100.

In order to further differentiate itself from similar products, Little Monster took out its "trump card" and set up a special product design department, gradually transforming from factory procurement to independent product design. In order to meet the aesthetics of different genders, Zeelool also hired overseas designers and launched extremely fashionable and personalized styles to attract consumers. At the same time, considering the attributes of personalized products, Zeelool also provides VR trial wear and the fastest 7-day glasses matching service.

Zeelool has a deep understanding of the core of brand overseas expansion, such as cost-effectiveness, differentiation, and service. Its brand effect and competitiveness are more prominent, and it quickly stands out from a large number of eyewear brands and becomes the choice of most families in North America. With the support of consumers , Zeelool has achieved a significant growth rate, achieving an annual growth rate of 100% for three consecutive years overseas , and has also become the No. 1 vertical category in cross-border e-commerce .

A search on Google Trends shows that Zeelool has been gaining popularity in the US for the past five years, so it's not hard to see why Zeelool 's sales have been rising. PipeCandy data shows that the sales of Zeelool's brand website, zeelool.com , alone can reach $25 million to $50 million a year , with orders ranging from 10,000 to 50,000 .

Looking at the data of Zeelool's independent website, we can find that its brand building is quite successful. Die-hard fans account for the vast majority of the traffic sources of the independent website. The data shows that the monthly visits to Zeelool's independent website are 2.4M, the average visit time is 04:17, the number of pages visited each time is 5.37 , and the bounce rate is 43.35%. It can be seen that Zeelool's website attracts a lot of visitors, and the stay time and browsing depth perform well.

The website's traffic sources are analyzed by channel, and they are mainly concentrated in two aspects: direct traffic and referral traffic. In the data of the past year, the top three traffic sources are direct traffic of 21.049 million, accounting for 55.85% ; referral traffic of 6.056 million, accounting for 16.07%; and natural social traffic of 5.54 million, accounting for 14.7%. It can be seen that direct traffic and referral traffic account for the highest proportion, which means that Zeelool has put a lot of effort in publicity and promotion, and has established a good reputation among users, with a high brand awareness.

Moreover, since the website was built from scratch in 2018, Zeelool's organic traffic has been steadily increasing for six consecutive years , which is a result of the brand's rising power abroad. By 2024, Zeelool's organic traffic will reach 241.2K.

In North America, Zeelool has absolute brand influence. Data shows that Zeelool's traffic sources are concentrated in the United States, the largest eyewear market. Among the top three traffic sources of the website, the United States has 4.37 million visits, accounting for 84.12%; Canada has 144,000 visits, accounting for 2.77%; Puerto Rico has 117,000 visits, accounting for 2.25%. This may mean that Zeelool products are more popular in the United States and have a higher market share. Although the number of users in Canada and Puerto Rico is relatively small, they are also stock markets that cannot be ignored.

However, in terms of population distribution, the main force of Zeelool glasses buyers is obviously women. Data shows that Zeelool's user base has obvious gender differences and age characteristics. Among them, there are 1.374 million female users , far more than male users, accounting for 60.43%; there are only 900,000 male users , accounting for 39.57%. The age distribution is mostly 35-44 years old, followed by 45-55 years old. It can be seen that Zeelool is more inclined to attract female users in terms of products and marketing, and develop and sell products that women are interested in.

In terms of advertising channels, Zeelool chose Google and Facebook. Its operation methods are worth learning from its peers in the independent website↓

From the above data, we can see that Zeelool Google search ads are mainly based on product words, supplemented by brand words . This strategy of focusing on both product marketing and brand building ads helps to increase ad exposure, attract more potential customers, and consolidate the market position of the Zeelool brand.

In terms of advertising creativity, Google search ads use a typical structure of official website links combined with product descriptions or discount information . This is an advertising strategy that focuses on both trustworthiness and attractiveness and user experience. It is very helpful to improve the click-through rate, conversion rate and user satisfaction of Zeelool ads , thereby achieving significant marketing results.

On Facebook, Zeelool did not choose to blindly promote the brand, but reached cooperation with a number of influencers, mainly displaying videos, converting the content of the influencer cooperation into brand content advertising, and then combining it with daily advertising, using a small amount of money to achieve the maximum advertising optimization effect. Using the influence and appeal of the influencers to increase the exposure and interaction of the advertisements, while using product display as an auxiliary to highlight the product itself, thereby enhancing the brand image and marketing effect, which is of great help to retain users and order conversion.

In addition to the Chinese overseas brand Zeelool mentioned above , perhaps we can also compare it with Warby Parker, the originator of DTC glasses in the overseas market, to learn from the winning strategy of eyewear brands going overseas.

With a valuation of over $3 billion, what’s the magic behind the most successful DTC brand?

In the first part, we mentioned that Warby Parker is the pioneer and master of American DTC brands, breaking the monopoly of Luxottica. In fact, the development of Warby Parker is also an example of the changes and unlimited space of the American eyewear market.

In 2010, Warby Parker was founded, and the high-priced American eyewear market began to suffer. At that time, Warby Parker mainly sold prescription glasses, sunglasses and contact lenses through independent websites, accurately grasping the price range of about US$50-100, and reducing the price of each pair of glasses to one-third of the average price in the US market (Note: Compared with Chinese brands such as Zeelool, Warby Parker's glasses are still very expensive, and the high cost-effectiveness is also based on the glasses frames produced by Chinese factories).

With such pricing, Warby Parker's first sale was a success, reaching its first-year sales target within three weeks, and becoming a shining star in the eyewear industry. Later, Warby Parker focused on the eyewear category through a parallel model of physical stores and online independent websites. From 2018 to 2020, its annual net sales continued to grow, reaching US$273 million, US$370 million, and US$394 million, respectively.

After riding on the fast-growing e-commerce express train, Warby Parker has developed even faster, and even embarked on the road of capitalization. It was successfully listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2021, with a 30% increase on the first day of listing. It also made many Chinese eyewear brands smell the development space of the overseas DTC market and enter overseas. At the same time, traditional offline eyewear brands overseas have also begun to transfer their business online. At present, Warby Parker's valuation exceeds US$3 billion and its annual revenue is nearly US$600 million.

In fact, if we look closely, in addition to seizing the market vacuum, another very important factor that enabled Warby Parker to achieve such success is its efforts in brand marketing.

Observing that consumers care most about "Do glasses look good when they wear them?", Warby Parker launched a virtual try-on mode, the Home-Try-On free trial service, where customers can upload various data such as face shape, frame, frame color and material on the official website to choose the glasses that best suit them. If you encounter any problems during the trial, you can call customer service, and even if you return the glasses after trying them on, you don't have to bear any postage.

On the other hand, Warby Parker also provides free vision testing and glasses to those in need through activities such as super low price promotions and cross-institutional cooperation. After the launch of this activity, more than half of the customers have worn their first pair of glasses.

In this way, Warby Parker, which combines warmth and personalized service, has successfully established its own brand reputation among a number of eyewear brands and captured a large number of consumers.

Data from the Warby Parker website shows that it has 5.1M monthly visits, an average visit time of 02:38, 4.29 pages per visit, and a bounce rate of 53.25%. A large number of users visit the website and tend to stay for a while, which means that the content of the Warby Parker website is rich and relevant, or that users are interested in the products and information and are willing to learn more.

In terms of traffic channels, the traffic of Warby Parker website is mainly concentrated in direct traffic and natural search , which means that the website has achieved good results in brand building and search engine optimization. Data shows that among the top three traffic sources in the past year, direct traffic is 22.206 million, accounting for 42.45%; natural search is 19.763 million, accounting for 37.38%; referral traffic is 3.869 million, accounting for 7.39%.

Specifically in terms of organic traffic, it can be seen from the data in the above figure that it has shown a stable growth trend except for 2022. But you should know that the Warby Parker website was built from scratch in 2009. After 15 years, Warby Parker's organic traffic reached 2.2M in 2024. Users' awareness and loyalty to the brand far exceeds that of a number of independent sites, which shows its profound internal strength in brand building.

The largest source of traffic for Warby Parker is still the United States, with 6.433 million visits , accounting for 93.72% . Canada and the Philippines are next, with 287,000 and 16,000 visits respectively , accounting for 4.19% and 0.24% respectively . It can be seen that Warby Parker occupies an absolute dominant position in the United States, with a considerable audience and extremely high brand awareness.

Among them, women still account for the largest proportion. According to the data from Warby Parker's independent website, there are 669,500 female users, accounting for 58.33%; there are 478,000 male users, accounting for 41.67%. The main audience group is female users over the age of 35, who are more concerned about the quality, comfort and fashion of glasses.

In terms of marketing, Warby Parker mainly focuses on channels such as Google and Instagram. In terms of Google search ads , all of them are mainly based on category words, which also reflects Warby Parker's precise positioning of user search intent and its desire to improve advertising effectiveness by matching advertising content with user search behavior. On the Instagram channel, Warby Parker adopts a cooperation strategy with top Instagram KOLs to attract a large number of fans.

Half of the world's population wears glasses? Another "gold mine" for brands going overseas

For many brands, the opportunities in overseas markets are being squeezed, and the competition space in major consumer categories is getting smaller and smaller. However, with the changes in the economic environment and the adjustment of market consumer demand, niche vertical categories still have opportunities for breakthroughs.

Take glasses as an example. The World Health Organization has previously predicted that half of the world's population will be myopic by 2050. In other words, half of the world's population will have to wear glasses. At the same time, as fashion continues to change, consumers will have an increasing demand for various types of glasses, such as sunglasses.

The rising market demand has brought huge business opportunities to eyewear brands. Looking closely at the eyewear category, we can find that the leading brand Warby Parker has successfully listed, and Eyewa has completed more than 29 million US dollars in financing. The performance of the leaders also sends a signal: there is a lot of room for imagination and development in the overseas eyewear track. For Chinese brands going overseas, it can be said to be a new "gold mine" track.

However, there is a general disadvantage of fitting glasses abroad: the price is high and the procedures are complicated. It takes about 2 months from fitting glasses to receiving the glasses. In contrast, although the delivery time in China is almost the same as that in foreign countries, the mature industrial chain advantage makes its products extremely price-competitive, so that some foreigners go to great lengths to fit glasses online.

Especially after the opening of online virtual try-on and other functions, more and more consumers flocked to the online market, and some Chinese brands also tried to find new growth points overseas. However, affected by factors such as restrictions on cross-border e-commerce platforms and fierce competition among brands and merchants, many eyewear brands choose independent websites as their overseas base.

Xiamen eyewear brand TIJN is also aware of this and started to transform from Amazon to an independent website early on, following the DTC model of Warby Parke. Currently, the company has opened multiple independent websites, and its products have expanded from glasses to shoes, bags, accessories, etc. On the one hand, it avoids the competition and rules of the platform, and on the other hand, it introduces functions such as product matching and virtual try-on to form users' brand awareness and increase customer repurchase rate.

Rather than struggling in a limited traffic space, it is better to control the traffic and dominate your own destiny. At this moment of brand globalization, the new proposition of cross-border e-commerce going global has evolved into brand going global. Even in the market with low profits and segmented markets, the most basic requirement for brand going global is to build an independent website.

But at the moment, 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. This is because the journey for novice players from 0 to 1 and then to successfully creating a hit product may not be smooth sailing. 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.

E-EN has been deeply engaged in cross-border e-commerce for 14 years, providing market and marketing services to many global Internet giants such as Google, Meta, Microsoft Bing, Alibaba, TikTok, Amazon, etc., and has accumulated rich experience and resources in e-commerce overseas expansion.

Een.com originated from the Een Community, an e-commerce overseas marketing BBS in 2011. Since 2023, Een has begun to develop its brand overseas incubation business - Een Overseas. The core members of the team are senior executives and marketing operations experts from leading cross-border companies. As an elite team with 14 years of experience in e-commerce overseas, we can eliminate the pain points of unprofessional overseas market analysis, imperfect operation system, and inaccurate brand positioning. From industry analysis, user research to optimization suggestions and delivery strategy formulation, we provide tailor-made brand overseas plans and implementation for domestic companies with global e-commerce layout needs, such as consumer brands, technology brands, fashion brands, industrial brands, and cross-border platform head sellers with independent station operations and full overseas marketing needs, helping sellers reduce the trial and error costs of global layout and explore digital overseas with ease; and provide new opportunities for sellers on cross-border e-commerce platforms to help them achieve "selling globally" at low cost.

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