With an investment by Anker and Shein at the same time, how does this cross-border musical instrument brand do it?

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Shein and Anker are undoubtedly the two peaks of cross-border e-commerce, and there is only one in the cross-border e-commerce circle that can make these two e-commerce upstarts invest in it - Guangdong Lanshen Technology Co., Ltd.

Who is Blue Deep Technology? According to the data obtained by Zhixiang Network, in 2020, the sales of Lanshen Technology reached 1.5 billion yuan, ranking among the top three in the world in the sales of Amazon musical instrument brands. In 2021, its sales are expected to reach 2.1 billion.

Founded in 2009, Lanshen Technology can be described as a veteran of cross-border e-commerce. However, in the first few years of its establishment, Lanshen has been tepid, until 2014, its performance finally exceeded 100 million yuan. Since then, Blue Deep has taken to the fast track, growing by nearly 100% every year.

How did the seemingly impossible miracle come about? In 2014, Lanshen Technology (hereinafter referred to as Lanshen) transformed to Amazon to do its own brand, here, it found a blue ocean of musical instruments across borders, focusing on creating its own musical instrument DTC brand Donner.

Like Anker, after the fires abroad, he began to open up the domestic market. With the increase of domestic musical instrument consumers, Lanshen tested the domestic market.

In an interview with Zhixiang Network, the relevant person in charge of Lanshen Technology said that Lanshen defined itself as a global music digital innovation enterprise, not only overseas, but also domestic; moreover, not only hardware, but also software, it even developed an application called Donner Music.

On the track where the instrument goes to sea, can another "Shein" be born?

Start

According to the American magazine "Music Trades", in 2020, China's total sales of musical instruments and equipment accounted for 10%, ranking second in the world, but the per capita consumption of musical instruments was low, only $1.22, compared with $21.52 in the United States.

In addition, taking guitars as an example, guitars manufactured in China are not sold in China and are sold to Europe and the United States. Japanese and Korean guitar brands, which are regarded as second- and third-rate in Europe and the United States, are sold in China at high prices for foreign brands.

Relying on online channels, can Chinese companies break out of the world overseas and build real brands?

Industry insiders analyze that taking the guitar as an example, musical instrument companies are roughly divided into three types, the first such as Enya and Nahuo, which belong to the research and development type of OEM or industry and trade integration, take the Apple style, highlight the design elements.

Next is some traditional foundry enterprises, the added value of the product is not high, and then there are some manual customization classes, the bargaining space is relatively large, there is no enforceable standard.

The last one is the factory type. Most of them are OEM products, mainly domestic trade. Foreign cross-border also do, but through cross-border e-commerce companies to do distribution. Like some companies in Shenzhen, such as Little Angel, Zhuole, Moore, Anoma, etc., mainly do musical instrument peripheral products, such as accessories, audio, effects, wire.

In the field of cross-border e-commerce, there are actually few sellers of musical instruments. "Not many people do musical instruments because it's a niche category." Industry insider analysis.

In addition, there are restrictions on logistics and transportation conditions. "Traditional Chinese musical instruments are all large pieces. Cross-border shipments, there are still some requirements for volume. Therefore, like guzheng and guqin, these are not suitable for going to sea. And these wooden musical instruments, and its humidity, temperature has a relationship, if the local climate conditions are not good, it is easy to mold, affecting the customer experience. ”

Compared with 3C and clothing brands, the road of musical instrument brands to the sea has just begun.

The above-mentioned people also concluded that those who have done success are those who have overseas businessmen, channels, or the company's volume is relatively large, such as Tongtuo and Lanshen.

Large space for small categories

"In the eyes of the outside world, Lanshen is a traditional cross-border e-commerce enterprise, but in fact, Lanshen has been doing positive transformation in recent years, and has no longer defined itself as a cross-border e-commerce enterprise from a few years ago." Mike, assistant to the chairman of Lanshen Technology, revealed.

This transformation is to divest the non-musical instrument business, "return to the original intention, focus on musical instrument categories and audio products", and at the same time, focus more on the Donner brand itself.

Open the home page of Donner's independent station, you can see that its sales categories are relatively rich, covering percussion, strings, wind music, keyboards, audio, accessories and other subdivisions, but there are not many SKUs in each category.

As a brand going overseas, Donner's main market is in Europe and the United States. Many of its products ranked high on Amazon's sales list and received rave reviews. Many musicians share their reviews of Donner's instrument products on social platforms such as YouTube and find them worth the money. Especially for beginners, Donner is a good choice.

Mike introduced that Donner's core target group is beginners and entry-level music lovers, and product pricing will pay relative attention to cost performance. "You can understand that you can buy good products, but the price is not expensive. We will not position ourselves as yamaha, Fendi, the brand premium is particularly high. "

Andy, the founder of NAOMI, a musical instrument brand in the sea, believes that Donner has done a good job in the selection, small and beautiful. And it has accumulated a certain channel advantage overseas, so the sales volume will not be bad.

Amazon is still Donner's largest sales channel. But the company began to work on independent stations last year.

In the first half of 2021, Amazon's suspension storm caused many commercial fortresses built for many years to collapse overnight. But Blue Deep is also already actively laying out independent stations.

Mike believes that "it is impossible for (Lanshen) to be attached to the third-party platform for a long time, because the policy of the third-party platform may change greatly at any time, last year was compliance, this year may be security norms or other." "

According to Similarweb data, in December 2021, Donner's standalone sites had a total of 375.97K of visits, with 63% of the traffic coming from the United States, followed by Canada, Singapore, Brazil and the United Kingdom. Nearly 40 percent of that traffic comes from searches and 17.4 percent from social networking sites, mainly Facebook and YouTube.

From OEM to brand

"High-end brands, online is difficult to raise, especially like this kind of high-end brands of musical instruments, are the pursuit of such as famous or is the big name, the so-called famous is a famous producer to make a piano, big brands such as Fendi, Yamaha, have a global channel chain, have stores, dealer price system control is very good, channels are also well controlled, online and offline prices are the same."

A musical instrument industry insider revealed, "Consumers would rather go to the showroom or go to the manufacturer to buy high-end musical instruments." ”

However, the first step in Donner's branding is to pinpoint its own customers – instrument beginners. "In fact, Lan Shen believes that music is not only exclusive to professional music players, or those who have talent." Mike introduced, "In fact, our core target group is beginners and entry-level music lovers, the pricing will not be too high, relatively cost-effective." ”

Compared with foreign big brands, "the advantage of Chinese musical instruments going to sea is that we have a relatively high efficiency of funds from product ideas, to design, to landing production, and then the quality of the products produced is also relatively strong, and now we also attach great importance to intellectual property protection." The above-mentioned industry insiders revealed, "The disadvantage is relatively speaking, or see other people's things to be slightly imitated." "Industry insider analysis.

Regardless of the blue depth, or the Shenzhen big seller Tongtuo, which has outstanding performance in the musical instrument category, when it started in the early stage, it relied on OEM.

However, "musical instruments exported by China, in 2022 or 2021, are simply understood as OEM products, or are considered to lack core technologies, which I personally do not think." Mike explained.

Obviously, OEM does not mean that quality is not good. Like many international big names, such as Yamaha and Fendi, many of their assembly lines, as well as some factories, are also located in China.

Take the town of Guoguo in Weifang, Shandong Province, as an example, it is a well-known "Chinese guitar town" in china, and more than 80% of the products of the guitar town are exported to more than 30 countries and regions such as South Korea, the United States, and Australia. Guitars of internationally renowned brands such as Fendi are manufactured here. This town has become an indispensable part of the world's guitar industry.

In addition to the town, Huiyang District of Huizhou City, Guangdong Province, Zheng'an County of Guizhou Province and other places are also known as important guitar manufacturing industrial bases in China and even the world, "the hometown of Chinese guitar manufacturing". According to public information, China's guitar production accounts for 60% of the world's total production, and China has become the world's largest guitar production base.

"The core is that their selection of suppliers and the control of the process are really good, in fact, in terms of the source, it is still made in China." Mike explains.

Many brands are aware of China's huge advantages in the musical instrument industry chain. Taking Lanshen as an example, "engineers account for more than 40% of the company's total number of people, if we purely take OEM or OEM, in fact, there is no need to invest so much in research and development or supply chain." ”

On the other hand, Lan Shen began to learn from the practices of Western big names and did refined management of suppliers. The high-quality supply that has reached strategic cooperation with Lanshen has reached dozens.

Programmer + craftsman + new material

Overseas, Donner represents a group of new Chinese musical instrument brands, relying on online channels to gradually pry open the pattern of being dominated by Western brands. However, all Chinese D2C brands have to think about whether this road can be passed if they only follow the thinking of Western brands in that year.

"Most of The products and research and development of Lanshen rely on relatively complex talents, and the so-called compound talents are both understanding of the musical instrument product itself, but also understanding the user, and knowing how to do a product that the audience likes." Mike introduced that the supply advantage of China's new talents is not available to Western musical instrument brands.

The rise of brands such as Anker and Shein has inspired many latecomers. Their core strengths are strikingly aligned: strong supply chain advantages, coupled with efficient computer engineers.

The same story takes place on the track where the instruments go to sea. Take the domestic fire of the musical instrument brand take the fire as an example, "they are to make a smart guitar, a new material guitar, and then, add some software for human-computer interaction, which is like the concept of 'Apple in the guitar', to create such an IP." ”

Of course, this is also related to the background of the founders. Lu Zitian, founder and CEO of Nahuo, graduated from the MI Conservatory of Music and the UCLA Film Soundtrack Department.

The same goes for another brand, Enya, which launches the NEXG guitar, an abbreviation for Next Generation, which can be called the "guitar of the future." It uses a carbon fiber body and one-piece molding technology, and the body is equipped with a Bluetooth speaker with a power of up to 50W, a 30W ultra-light neodymium magnetic woofer, and a combination of two 10W tweeters.

At the same time, the NEXG guitar also has a live broadcast function, equipped with Enya's D2 chip, which can be used directly as a live sound card. In addition, Enya also launched a music app.

Blue Deep is taking the same route. Mike introduced that Lanshen has been actively transforming in recent years, transforming from traditional cross-border e-commerce to technology-based enterprises.

In 2021, Blue Deep launched the Donner Music app. At present, a number of music tutorials have been released, and an online music community has gradually been established. Mike introduced, "The significance of APP is to realize the whole chain connection of people, musical instruments and digitalization. Because for many music beginners, they lack a platform for communication and learning, which is also a bottleneck for many beginners. "

By equipping the musical instrument with a chip, it can connect with the app and extract relevant data and feedback it to the user, so as to achieve digitalization and intelligence.

Moreover, compared with traditional Western brands, Chinese brands are very enthusiastic about new materials. In October 2021, the carbon fiber violin designed by Lan Shen won the bronze medal in the industry group of the 2021 China Design And Intelligent Manufacturing Award. According to reports, compared to the traditional acoustic violin, this carbon fiber violin has a faster response time and a crisper sound in the high-frequency field. At the same time, the product reduces the weight of the body to a certain extent through thinning edges and simple design.

Chinese brands are exploring ways that are very different from the big names in the West.