Single product sells 1,000 orders a day, new sellers bet on evergreen categories

In June last year , Suki, a girl born in the 2000s, started a business on TikTok Shop with her partner. Their main products were small kitchen appliances. In less than a month, their air fryer sales exceeded 1,000 units per day, making them a new hot seller on the platform.

Suki's experience is a microcosm of the overseas expansion of small home appliances. Small home appliances are small in size, require no installation, and have a relatively low unit price, which is very suitable for e-commerce channels. In addition, the "stay-at-home economy" during the epidemic has boosted the global purchase of small home appliances, and sales in markets such as Europe and the United States have exploded. Domestic companies are targeting overseas markets, and some companies have gained a firm foothold.

In the second half of 2023, demand in the overseas home appliance market rebounded, inventory destocking in developed economies such as the United States came to an end, and with the decline in inflation, the domestic home appliance export trend re-emerged, and the performance and profits of leading small appliance sellers such as Stone Technology both increased.

This "cake" is getting bigger and bigger. Statista predicts that the global small appliance market revenue will reach US$254.3 billion this year, with an annual growth rate of 4.65% between 2024 and 2028, and the sales volume of the small appliance market will reach 4.033 billion units in 2028. Kitchen small appliances account for half of the industry, and last year coffee machines alone reached a market share of US$27 billion.

North America and Europe are the leaders in the small appliance market. On platforms such as Amazon and eBay, small appliances are evergreen categories. From cleaning to kitchen appliances, from cooling to heating, all kinds of small appliances are gradually spreading to every corner of overseas consumers' lives, which also makes sellers rush forward. Domestic small appliance companies have begun to accelerate their overseas layout. In February, Xiaoxiong Technology set up two cross-border e-commerce companies to handle business and seek growth.

In the four major home appliance industrial belts of Shunde, Cixi , Qingdao and Hefei , machines are roaring in company workshops and the manufactured goods are being sold to Europe, America, Southeast Asia, Africa and other regions through e-commerce platforms and other channels.

Small home appliances continue to be hot sellers on cross-border platforms

Small household appliances have become an important export category for China's cross-border e-commerce. According to statistics, China's small household appliances exports in 2022 were 115 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 28.7%.

Overseas demand continued, and the export value of home appliances increased by 14.7% year-on-year in December 2023. According to data disclosed by the General Administration of Customs, the export value of bread machines, electric ovens, blenders, vacuum cleaners, toasters, rice cookers, microwave ovens, and electric coffee machines in December increased by 51%, 29%, 16%, 14%, 13%, 12%, 11%, and 11% year-on-year respectively.

Unlike large household appliances such as air conditioners, refrigerators, and washing machines, which are just basic necessities, small household appliances are an improvement type of consumption. Therefore, with the improvement of people's quality of life and busy work schedules, the demand for small household appliances has steadily increased, and the penetration rate in the European and American markets is even higher.

Small household appliances include several categories: small kitchen appliances (air fryers, coffee machines, deep fryers, toasters, juicers, etc.), small cleaning appliances (vacuum cleaners, sweepers, air purifiers, mite removers, etc.), and small personal care appliances (hair dryers, electric toothbrushes, hair straighteners, curling irons, hair removal devices, etc.).

Judging from the data from several major platforms such as Amazon, eBay, TikTok, and Temu, small household appliances have always been a high-demand category.

Amazon

On Amazon, air fryers, coffee machines, vacuum cleaners, and electric toothbrushes are all consistently hot-selling products. How were their sales last year?

According to Magic Mirror Insight data, sales of vacuum cleaners, air purifiers, humidifiers, sweepers, coffee machines, and air fryers on Amazon's US site will remain considerable in 2023.

Among them, vacuum cleaner sales reached $2.19 billion, a year-on-year surge of 47.2%, sales volume reached 20.078 million, a year-on-year increase of 33%, and the average price of products was US$109.12; coffee machine sales reached $860 million, sales volume reached 11.717 million, and the average price of products was US$73.06; household air purifier sales reached $827 million, a year-on-year increase of 4.7%, sales volume was nearly 8 million, a year-on-year increase of 11%, and the average price of products was US$103.8; sweeper sales reached $780 million, a year-on-year decrease of 15.1%, sales volume was 3.017 million, a year-on-year decrease of 9.9%, and the average price of products was relatively high at US$258.89.

Air fryer sales also continued to rise, with sales reaching $510 million, up 11.9% year-on-year, and sales exceeding 5 million units, with an average price of $101.9. From the sales ranking, the annual sales of the top 8 products are basically above 100,000 units, with the highest exceeding 200,000 units. The sales of other products in the top 20 are mostly between 20,000 and 50,000 units, with product prices ranging from $82 to $240.

Among these leading small household appliances, Chinese brands occupy multiple seats.

eBay

Due to factors such as seasonal changes, the start of the school year, and Father's Day, home appliances became a hot search category on eBay US in May last year . Consumers frequently searched for products such as portable fans, portable air conditioners, mini refrigerators, and ice makers.

Summer is just one of the battlegrounds for small appliances. According to eBay analysis, most households in the United States have large-sized homes, which puts a lot of pressure on cleaning the whole house. Most families also lay carpets and keep pets, which makes cleaning work arduous and the demand for cleaning tools remains high. Vacuum cleaners and sweeping robots have always been the evergreen categories of home appliances in the United States, and the spare parts market is also growing continuously.

Americans have the habit of cooking at home. In addition to the popular air fryers, toasters, blenders, coffee machines, etc. are also the kitchen appliances that local consumers pay the most attention to, and the traffic on eBay US site has been steadily increasing.

TikTok

Suki, a post-00s girl from Zhongshan, is a "second-generation factory worker". She just graduated from college last year and learned about TikTok's full hosting model, so she decided to start a business with her partners to sell small kitchen appliances produced by her own factory on the TikTok Shop platform. It took Suki less than a month to go from a few orders a day to more than 1,000 air fryer sales per day. At the peak, the store's monthly sales reached 15,000 orders, making it onto the platform's small appliance sales list. A few months later, she has become one of the top sellers in the small appliance category.

Previously, there was a craze for Chinese small household appliances on TikTok. The number of video views under the tag #chinagadgets quickly exceeded 100 million. Sweeping robots, thermos cups that display temperature, smart voice recognition speakers, and washing machines for underwear have all made netizens addicted to them. The "Made in China" small household appliances have completed a wave of popularity.

According to a research report by Orient Securities, domestic home appliance companies have gradually set up TikTok Shop in the United States. From the perspective of product categories, cleaning appliance companies are more active. Roborock, Dreame, and Tineco have all opened stores and sold products on the platform. Currently, the platform is still a blue ocean for home appliances.

Domestic home appliance brands have experience in operating Douyin and are quicker to adopt TikTok, while overseas brands are slower to respond to new channels and have not opened stores, leaving huge market dividends for domestic home appliance brands. This will also be an opportunity for domestic small home appliances to overtake others.

Temu

Temu has been surging overseas and has also opened seats in the home appliance and smart home categories, selling hair dryers, juicers, massagers and other products, but the product range still needs to be enriched.

However, most of the well-known small home appliance brands in China have not yet deployed on this platform. On the one hand, the companies are not sensitive enough to overseas business or are still observing, and on the other hand, the platform has set a threshold for high-priced products in the early stage. Therefore, small home appliance products on Temu are mainly white-label products, and brands with a certain degree of popularity can quickly open up the market.

A leading home appliance seller launched Temu in the first half of last year. Because there were fewer sellers in the category and the price pressure was not high, the sales volume quickly increased under the "brand power + mature sellers + compliant products" model. Currently, the sales volume of large stores is steadily increasing, and the company has launched new stores.

Relying on e-commerce channels and offline supermarkets, Chinese small household appliances are rapidly making money overseas.

During the overseas Black Friday and Cyber ​​Monday in 2023, Stone Technology's GMV in North America increased by 30% year-on-year. Even with its own factory, the production pressure is very high, and coupled with the production capacity of the OEM factory, it is still in short supply.

Xgimi Technology has two legs to walk overseas. Not only has it laid out mainstream channels such as Amazon and Japan's Rakuten, but its products have also gradually entered major offline retail channels in Europe, the United States, Japan and other regions. Its market share in the Japanese home projection market has ranked first for many years.

Three teams rush overseas, small home appliances bet on e-commerce channels

Compared with the "follower" role of many categories , China's small household appliances have performed amazingly in overseas markets and are beginning to lead the market.

Taking cleaning appliances as an example, the National Business Daily and Shenzhen Yishi Technology recently jointly released the "Cross-border E-commerce Smart Cleaning Appliance Brand Influence List ( 2023/12)", in which Chinese brands occupy the majority of seats. The top ten are dyson, Roborock, Eufy, Shark, Dreame, iRobot, Tineco, NARWAL, Ecovacs, and ILIFE, of which 8 are Chinese brands, and they all have independent sites and Amazon sales channels.

Dyson ranked first, with vacuum cleaners as the main product category, and the search popularity was the highest, far exceeding brands such as Roborock, irobot, and Ecovacs, which mainly focus on sweeping and mopping robots. However, with the upgrade of innovation and technology, Chinese brands are eroding the market share of overseas leading brands. Although the American brand iRobot is the originator of sweeping robots, its market position has been declining under the siege of the later waves, and it has now fallen behind Roborock, Dreame, etc.

Andreas , founder of EaseTech , analyzed that in the relatively emerging consumer electronics category, Chinese brands have generally performed well.

"Small home appliances are not the main battlefield for traditional giants. They invest less, which leaves room for the market. For example, some emerging small home appliance brands in niche categories have the opportunity to enter large chain supermarket channels such as Sam's Club in North America. This is impossible in the large home appliance industry, as the channels are firmly occupied by giants."

At present, going overseas has become an important way for domestic home appliances to seek growth.

Lingtai LT divides China's overseas home appliances into three teams: the first is the "ace team" that has achieved the development of Chinese home appliances from scratch, represented by Midea, Haier, and Gree; the second is represented by smart home appliance companies such as Ecovacs, Roborock, and Dreame Technology, which have launched a series of household cleaning products overseas; the third is mainly domestic small home appliance companies such as Joyoung, Bear Electric Appliances, and SKG, which have now laid out overseas businesses.

In early February, Bear Electric Appliances established Foshan Bear Yousetuo Cross-border E-commerce Co., Ltd. and Foshan Bear Cross-border E-commerce Co., Ltd. , with a registered capital of 1 million yuan each, focusing on cross-border e-commerce business.

Founded in 2006, Bear Electric Appliances specializes in the research and development, design, production and sales of creative small household appliances. It was listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange in 2019. Bear Electric Appliances uses e-commerce as its core channel, and its main market is in China. In the past, its overseas business was mainly ODM , but now it is mainly its own brand overseas and cross-border e-commerce business . The sales areas of its own brand overseas are mainly concentrated in Southeast Asia and the Chinese market in Europe and the United States. Some countries in the Southeast Asian market have already recognized the Bear brand , and it will increase its promotion efforts in the future .

At present, Bear Electric's overseas business revenue accounts for a small proportion, but the rapid growth last year has brought new growth space to the company. In the first half of 2023 , its overseas business sales amounted to 136 million yuan, accounting for 5.81% of its revenue .

Other major home appliance companies have also opened "exclusive channels" for cross-border e-commerce business . Previously, Midea Group established Midea (Hainan) Cross-border E-commerce Co., Ltd. and Little Swan (Wuxi) Cross-border E-commerce Co., Ltd., with the aim of developing global home appliance business. The home appliance industry is optimistic about the development of cross-border e-commerce retail channels.

Not only companies that focus on domestic sales, but also home appliance companies that mainly engage in OEM have begun to reduce the proportion of this business. Instead, they are competing overseas with their own brands, moving closer to cross-border e-commerce, and even deriving channel brands in overseas e-commerce channels.

Xiangjiang Electric was established in Hubei in 2012. It mainly develops , produces and sells electric small appliances, electric heating small appliances, electronic products and daily household items. Its products include egg beaters, blenders, electric knives, juicers, electric steamers, electric kettles, waffle makers, toasters, laser lamps, slide projectors, sports cameras, electronic scales, garden hoses, cushions, etc., with a wide variety.

For a long time, more than 90% of the company's revenue has come from overseas. Its business model consists of two lines: ODM/OEM and self-operated brands. OEM is the main source of income, and Walmart, Philips, Amazon and others are its customers. However, the overseas business of its self-operated brands has begun to gain momentum. On Amazon, its Accuteck and Weighmax brand electronic scales are both top brand products. Some of its best-selling items have more than 10,000 reviews and monthly sales of thousands.

Last year, Heung Kong Electric submitted a prospectus to the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, intending to list on the main board of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange.

Chinese home appliance companies are gradually moving away from the domestic market or the role of mere manufacturers, hoping to draw a new growth curve overseas.

Supported by four major industrial belts, China's small household appliances lead the market

In the small home appliance industry, many Chinese brands have already taken the lead. How was this achieved?

Andreas analyzed that the domestic home appliance software and hardware supply chain has obvious advantages, abundant talent, and fast product iteration, which can make differentiated functional innovations. Consumers can intuitively feel the difference through the products, thereby forming positive feedback and accelerating the overseas penetration of Chinese small household appliances.

Ye Yindan, a researcher at the China Banking Research Institute, believes that Chinese home appliance companies have changed from entering the overseas low- and mid-end markets with cost-effective products in the past to currently relying on research and development to enter the overseas mid- and high-end markets, and improving their overall competitiveness through continuous innovation. This situation is expected to continue.

The takeoff of small household appliances relies on the support of abundant domestic industrial belts.

There are four major home appliance bases in the country: Cixi in Zhejiang, Shunde in Guangdong, Qingdao in Shandong, and Hefei in Anhui. Cixi is a famous hometown of small home appliances.

According to Xiaguang News Agency, Cixi produces about 60% of the world's small household appliances. For example, the annual output of electric irons is nearly 30 million units, accounting for about 50% of the global market share. Home appliance brands such as Fotile, Bull, and Zhuoli all come from this "small household appliance smart manufacturing town."

Official statistics show that smart home appliances are Cixi's largest pillar industry. In 2021, the output value of the city's smart home appliance industry exceeded 100 billion yuan, reaching 104.26 billion yuan. Cixi currently has more than 2,000 complete machine manufacturing companies and nearly 100 supporting companies, with products covering more than 20 series and thousands of categories.

China's home appliance industry meets a considerable amount of global demand for small home appliances. As disposable income increases and lifestyles change, people's demand for small kitchen appliances is expected to increase, and the continued growth of the market will feed back to the home appliance industry.

Statista predicts that the global small appliance market will reach revenue of $254.3 billion in 2024, with an average household sales volume of 1.7 units. Between 2024 and 2028, the market will grow at an annual rate of 4.65%, and sales of small appliances will reach 4.033 billion units in 2028.

In 2023, North America dominated the global small appliances market with a share of USD 39 billion owing to the increasing demand for small kitchen appliances as more people migrate to cities due to the expansion of regional electrification and urbanization, and the growth in disposable income further fueled this trend.

Among them, kitchen appliances can be widely used in homes, restaurants, schools and other commercial places, occupying the largest market share. In 2022, kitchen appliances accounted for 52.90% of the entire small appliance market, and it is expected to continue to grow in the next few years.

According to Global Market Insights , the value of small kitchen appliances will be US$130 billion in 2023 , and the total annual growth rate is expected to exceed 4.7% from 2024 to 2032, reaching US$205 billion in 2032.

Europe and North America are the leaders in the small kitchen appliances market, with Europe expected to grow at a CAGR of 5.9% between 2022 and 2028. The Asia Pacific market is also expected to see significant growth as awareness and living standards increase in countries such as China, India, and Japan.

Small kitchen appliances mainly include coffee machines, blenders, food processors, toasters, juicers, electric kettles, electric fryers, etc. The following is the expected growth of each category of goods in the next eight years .

(Analysis of small kitchen appliances market)

In 2023, coffee machines accounted for a market share of US$27 billion. They provide a quick and convenient way to make coffee at home. Users can press a button and drink a fresh cup of coffee in a few minutes, which can save a lot of time and energy, especially in busy mornings.

With these small appliances, consumers can cook, wash or do personal grooming more efficiently, greatly saving the time and energy required for activities.

On the one hand, new markets are constantly being created, and on the other hand, home appliance companies are constantly investing in research and development, creating more attractive new products, which also promotes the expansion of the market size. Next, which markets will have greater room for growth?

1. Asia Pacific: The growing local population and the increasing commercial and residential construction in countries such as India, China, Japan, South Korea, and Bangladesh have increased the demand for small household appliances .

2. South America. Due to the rapid industrialization and urbanization in countries such as Brazil and Argentina, the South American small household appliances market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 4.61% during the forecast period .

3. North America. North America has a high penetration rate of household appliances and has become a relatively mature small appliance market. In addition, household appliance companies continue to market and launch new products in this market to expand their business, and the revenue of the entire market has increased.

Furthermore, shifting consumer demand towards sustainable home appliances that save energy and reduce environmental harm is also expected to drive market growth.

After rapid development, the small home appliance industry has also begun to face challenges.

As the penetration rate of small household appliances increases and market competition becomes more intense, manufacturers can only face the pressure of constantly developing new products and launching more product versions that can attract consumers who value diverse choices.

Due to fierce competition and the growing demand among consumers for reasonably priced small kitchen appliances, home appliance companies have begun to launch various products at prices comparable to those of their competitors and shift their attention from high-income groups to middle-income and low-income groups.

In addition, small appliances are light and easy to use, but they are also more susceptible to wear and tear than large appliances, have a shorter life cycle, and consumers may need to replace them frequently. For example, small appliances such as microwave ovens, irons, dishwashers, and coffee machines do not have a long lifespan, so they need to be frequently repaired or replaced, which may inhibit the market growth of small household equipment.

From the perspective of macro-environmental factors, overseas demand, raw materials and shipping costs are all fluctuating, and industry competition continues to intensify. It is inevitable that some companies will fall behind, resulting in demand growth that is lower than expected. There is still a long way to go for small household appliances to go overseas.