Text: Zhang Ziyi
Edited by Yuan Silai
When going overseas has become more and more the core strategy of a Chinese company, how to conquer the global market has become an extremely professional topic. In the evolution of globalization, many Chinese brands have stood at the forefront of the trend, they have the leading players in the subdivided field, and there are also new forces for brands to go overseas. In view of this, Hard Krypton launched the "Insight Global" column, through in-depth excavation and reporting of these companies, founders and the traders behind them, trying to reproduce the "trading book" of the road to brand building, from the growth and change of the brand, to explore the cutting-edge direction and opportunities of the times for Chinese brands to go overseas, and to provide thinking and inspiration for players and the industry to go overseas.
This is the nineteenth issue of our column - "Smart Pie" stepped into the cross-border e-commerce industry in 2015, from the production of stem kits to the development of 3D printers, the revenue increased sixfold in five years, stepping on the window period for consumer-grade 3D printers to take off overseas, and becoming the world's No. 1 brand in LCD consumer 3D printer shipments.
The genes of the "intelligent faction" have a keen sense of money, which is probably inseparable from the background of the founder, Hong Yingsheng, and the Chaoshan people. He grew up in Shenzhen, and is the most frequent trade in Huaqiangbei. The story of "money begets money" is everywhere here, and it is difficult for those who are immersed in it to let go of any opportunity.
"Smartpie" has become the world's No. 1 LCD consumer 3D printer shipment brand, and it has been involved in the field of consumer 3D printers for less than four years. At present, the company's product line includes light-curing 3D printers, FDM 3D printers, laser engraving machines and STEM circuit suites (stem refers to multidisciplinary integrated education).
The "money" that Hong Yingsheng grabbed for the first time was cross-border e-commerce. In 2015, he established the intelligent faction and stepped into the cross-border e-commerce industry, which was still quite unfamiliar to the outside world. With the family's advantage as a distributor of electronic components, the initial business was to sell STEM circuit kits overseas.
"That business will be RMB for US dollars, and 300% of the profit will be normal. However, after the STEM circuit kit business became the first in Amazon, the performance growth rate could not be sustained, and new increments had to be found. Chen Bo, deputy general manager of the intelligent faction, told 36 Krypton.
In the process of looking for new business, Smartpie has also tossed overseas sales of projectors, but it is trapped by the excessive inventory in the projector industry.
But fortunately, Hong Yingsheng soon found and seized the opportunity for the second time, that is, a 3D printer.
At that time, domestic consumer-grade 3D printer brands had not yet ushered in a performance growth flashpoint, but the export growth rate was considerable. According to the data compiled by Antarctic Bear, in 2019, China's 3D printer exports reached 1.902 billion yuan, with a growth rate of 56.8%.
In the face of grasping market data and its own accumulated component advantages, Smartpie launched the first light-curing 3D printer in the third quarter of 2019, stepping on the eve of the outbreak of 3D printers in China.
In 2020, the global outbreak of the new crown epidemic triggered a wave of soaring demand for consumer-grade 3D printers, with a growth rate of 77.4%. The number of exported units also soared from 1,431,900 units in 2019 to 2,539,800 units, far exceeding the expectations of most 3D printing companies.
Flying in the wind is particularly natural. According to the data provided to 36Kr by Meng Si, the head of Intelligent China, the company's overall annual revenue will exceed 800 million yuan in 2022, and sales are expected to exceed 1.2 billion yuan in 2023.
Back five years ago, the sales of smart pies, which were still making STEM circuit kits, had just exceeded 200 million yuan. This certainly isn't going to be a story that can take off with just a sense of business.
01 Industry price "killer"
In the consumer 3D printer market, there are not many companies that take the route of light-curing technology.
Consumer-grade 3D printers are mainly divided into two technical routes, namely FDM (fused deposition molding) and LCD (liquid crystal screen light curing molding). FDM layer deposition printer is currently the most widely used 3D printer, the structure and principle are relatively simple, low cost. There are many companies that produce FDM 3D printers, and the market competition is fierce, which makes the product price continue to fall and consumer acceptance is high.
LCD 3D printers use photosensitive resin liquid materials, and solidify resin layer by layer through the ultraviolet rays of the LCD screen to build a three-dimensional model, with higher accuracy and finish than FDM 3D printers. However, the principle of ultraviolet irradiation is imaging, so that it has a certain degree of radiation, and there are requirements for the use of occasions, and its printing materials have problems such as toxicity and sensitization, and they need to be cleaned and cured twice after printing, and the price is relatively high in the past while there are few participating enterprises. These problems have invisibly "dissuaded" many potential consumers.
"Benefiting from the integration of the display supply chain at that time, we purchased a display screen suitable for light-curing 3D printing at a price much lower than the market price, and the cost of light-curing 3D printer screens accounted for the largest proportion at that time, so that the cost of 3D printers was reduced. Chen Bo told 36 Krypton.
In addition, because of the large-scale growth of the market side, economies of scale have emerged. From the use of general color screens in the industry in the past to the special high-definition black and white screen jointly customized with the original display factory, LCD technology innovation shortens the screen exposure time, improves the printing speed and prolongs the service life, and also promotes the cost of light-curing 3D printers to further reduce the cost.
Benefiting from the advantage of low cost, the "Mars" series launched by Smartpie in 2019 was the first device in the market with 2K printing accuracy in the $300 range, and the average price of domestic brands at that time was about $500, while the price of overseas brands was more than 1,000 US dollars.
"Performance and cost-effective" is a major feature of smart 3D printers. It has successively launched the light-curing 3D printer "Saturn" The series is the industry's first medium-sized printer below 1,000 US dollars, priced at 500 US dollars, with sales of 10 million yuan after 1 minute of pre-sale on the official website, the first 3K equipment 3D printer with 300 US dollars in the market, and the world's first large-size printer under 1500 US dollars, positioned in the commercial market, with a price starting at 1,000 US dollars, setting the second highest result in the history of crowdfunding for global 3D printing equipment, and sales exceeded 2 million yuan in 30 minutes after being launched.
The ability of intelligent pie to continuously launch products lower than the average price of the industry stems from its control of costs, and the ability of cost control is closely related to the ability of enterprises to manage production.
In Chen Bo's view, the technical difficulty of light-curing 3D printers is the precision control of product batch assembly. Previously, the company produced STEM electronics kits, which were extremely easy to assemble. And the assembly for the production of light-curing 3D printers is calculated to the millimeter.
"When we first developed and made the machine, it was good in all aspects. However, in the trial production stage, the yield rate of the finished product is less than 80%, and each link in the production process of the product needs to be assembled, and there will be a problem of error in the middle. This is a problem that most 3D printer manufacturers will encounter, and it is difficult to implement the project. Chen Bo said.
At present, the company has a 20,000-square-meter plant with perfect production line settings, "only you have to participate in the control of each assembly link, and you can know which link is the problem when the parameter difference occurs when the final product occurs." ”
In addition, on the other hand, from the perspective of product design, production difficulties are reduced. For example, the control and structural adjustment of the internal light source structure of the printer are subtracted
"The boss (Hong Yingsheng) manages the production process in the factory every day. And he has watched his father's generation run a business since he was a child, and he has a lot of experience in controlling costs. If a supplier wants to raise prices, they can accurately calculate what the cost of raw materials is and what is the reasonable range of price increases. Chen Bo told 36 Krypton.
Not only that, Smartpie has established cooperation with the upstream screen supply chain and jointly developed larger-size LCD screens with screen suppliers. "At that time, the market was still competing for small screens, and we were able to get a larger screen as soon as possible, and we maintained our technical priority. ”
The picture comes from Smartpie
02 Firmly control the sales channel
Before the occurrence of the "ban tide" on the Amazon platform, the development of cross-border e-commerce in Shenzhen was in full swing, and many cross-border sellers registered a large number of Amazon stores, with good promotion and operation capabilities.
However, this did not become the choice of the intellectuals.
"The mechanism of cross-border sales is survival of the fittest, and it will not operate for specific product categories. 3D printers are actually relatively niche products, and their sales in many big sales systems are not good. We tried for a while, but we cut off the sales channel for external supply. Chen Bo said.
Relying on diversified platforms such as Amazon, independent stations, eBay, AliExpress, etc., Zhizhipai has sold millions of products to more than 70 countries and regions around the world.
In Chen Bo's view, self-operated sales channels are indeed more expensive for start-ups, and they will also limit the laying of channels and the volume of products. However, the biggest difficulty in the early stage of 3D printing production is the lack of output and production capacity, and the expansion rate is not fast. If the brand control becomes weaker after overseas distribution, it is easy to smash the price system, which will affect the brand building and the subsequent launch of new products.
In addition, the pricing of intelligent products is low, and the profit cost is strictly controlled, so it is difficult to ensure profits by opening up distribution channels.
At present, 92% of the users of Smartpie are in Europe and the United States, 58% of the e-commerce platforms are overseas Amazon, 2% and 4% are respectively in eBay and AliExpress, 15% are in direct sales on the official website of Shopify, and 5% are in the domestic official market. The monthly sales of independent stations in November have exceeded 6 million US dollars, and it is possible to break 7 million US dollars in November.
Before the construction of independent station channels, the sales of intelligent pie on Amazon accounted for as high as 95%. Amazon's "ban tide" has made Smartpie realize the importance of multi-channel construction.
It is not easy for the smart faction to build an independent station channel, and it must solve the problem of where the traffic comes from. Traffic purchasing and the "rising tide" traffic fees have plagued enterprises operating independent stations.
However, due to the self-operated sales channels in the past, the SKU is relatively streamlined, and the data accumulated at each stage is centralized, which makes the marketing team more targeted when doing SEO optimization.
The creative characteristics of 3D printers also make most products need after-sales technical support, and the intelligent pie has strengthened its service in this aspect, and paid attention to two-way communication with users, and constantly improved after-sales service. It has accumulated more than 200,000 fans and more than 1 million users on social media channels, which has also become a natural source of drainage.
The creative nature of 3D printers also makes most of the products require technical support, which is also a natural source of drainage. Chen Bo said that the peak monthly sales of independent stations this year exceeded 3 million US dollars.
It is worth noting that the characteristics of Smartpie's insistence on online direct sales have brought great difficulties to its offline expansion. For offline dealers, the 3D printer market space is limited, and only by winning the distribution rights on both the offline and online sides can there be operational power.
However, physical store sales in the North American market are still the mainstream shopping model, although e-commerce is developing rapidly, it is still necessary to operate offline sales channels if Smartpie wants to further expand the market and improve performance.
At present, there is a separate policy for the European offline market, such as offline dealers who sell FDM 3D printers with a one-year protection period, and consumers can only buy them through offline channels.
From the perspective of market size, the current 3D printing is undoubtedly in the blue ocean track. According to the research of Tianfeng Securities, the compound growth rate of the industry from 2017 to 2022 will be 26.7%, and the market capacity will also reach 32 billion. And since 2023, the growth rate will accelerate again, and it is expected to exceed 110 billion in 2026, with a compound growth rate of more than 36% during the period.
Six or seven years ago, some research institutions had a performance threshold of more than 100 million yuan for consumer-grade 3D printers. This was also an industry that was not favored in China, but the rapid development of cross-border e-commerce and the improvement of the industrial supply chain have made one domestic consumer-grade 3D printer after another take advantage of this.
However, the future is still bumpy.
There have been more and more companies involved in the field of consumer-grade 3D printers, volume technology, volume publicity, volume production, volume price, from overseas volume to domestic, it cannot be ignored that the average income of the industry's leading enterprises has just exceeded 1 billion yuan, and the overall market size is about 6 billion US dollars. Fierce competition also means that challenges will be highlighted in the future.
![Imagine 3D 3D Printer 3.8 Section Charm Goddess New Choice[fig]](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAP///wAAACwAAAAAAQABAAACAkQBADs=)