Text: Liu Yiqi
Edit|Si asked
Source: E-commerce Online
"I heard that you are very strong, and you don't have to be strong in the future, because your strength is coming. This local love sentence that was once circulated in the blind date market was placed on the head of Huaqiangbei by netizens of "good things".
Huaqiangbei is known as "China's first electronic street", located in Futian District, Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, from Shangbu Middle Road in the east, Huafu Road in the west, Hongli Road in the north, and Shennan Road in the south. It is rumored that if Huaqiangbei sneezes, the national electronics market will catch a cold.
Here, two 100-yuan bills can buy a genuine imitation Dyson hair dryer with a price of 3,499 yuan. The money to buy a pair of Uniqlo socks can be exchanged for an electronic watch and a set of chargers. The new headphones are unveiled at the press conference one second, and the next second they can flash in the one-meter counter here.
(Photo courtesy of Xiaohongshu blogger "105789086")
In addition to "cost-effective", "fast update" and "wide choice", sometimes Huaqiangbei even stood at the forefront of the consumer market earlier than some large companies.
"Do you have screen headphones?" Feng Xu is a backpacker who wanders around the major electronic malls in Huaqiangbei, commonly known as "Huaqiangbei purchasing agent". In Huaqiangbei, most of the customers faced by merchants with stores are distributors, and they are burdened with rent and inventory pressure. Backpackers are more flexible, and most of the customers they face are buyers for their own use, and they can also feel the market for the first time.
Feng Xu's original main product was mobile phones, but recently, more and more buyers have consulted him about screen headphones, and he simply posted a post about screen headphones in his Xiaohongshu account. "Headphones are a sea of blood market, high-end headphones are eaten to death by Apple, the mid-end pursues the ultimate cost performance, and the manufacturer's shipping profit is less than 5%. The price of the screen headphones he sells is about 150 yuan, which belongs to the low-end category, and in his words, he can't make a few dollars.
But even so, his post still brought him a lot of attention, and in less than a day, he attracted more than 50 new customers. On Xiaohongshu, tweets related to "screen headphones" have the highest number of likes of more than 200,000, and even rushed to the top of the hot list for a time.
As a new "traffic password" in the electronic market, the screen headset looks mediocre from the back, and you can find another mystery when you turn it over. A screen the size of your thumb can not only touch the screen to cut songs, adjust the volume, but also read the lyrics on it. There is a patent picture of Apple's AirPods circulating on the Internet, which shows that a touchscreen screen like Apple Watch is added to the charging case.
Apple's patent application was circulated on the Internet
Apple's finished product has not yet been launched at the press conference, and it was the first to appear in Huaqiangbei. "When Cook comes, he has to buy in a sack," a consumer joked. Although there is a lot of discussion about this screen headset, the store merchants are still quite cautious in getting the goods. "I don't know how long this headset will be hot," Feng Xu said. This screen headset is also like a mirror, reflecting a corner around Huaqiangbei's electronics industry.
Screen headphones, born in the Red Sea
Xu Hui has been dealing with headphones for 10 years. In his opinion, the domestic headphone market has already rolled into a red ocean. Manufacturers have a very subtle psychology of screen headphones, on the one hand, after the limelight of self-hanging headphones has passed, there are few new innovations in the market, and everyone is looking forward to this product. But on the other hand, headphones are not a high-frequency consumer product, and it is difficult to convince consumers to pay for a single screen.
Xu Hui's earliest identity was a dealer, and when he first entered the industry in 2014, he was still the world of cable headphones and Bluetooth headsets.
At that time, the most victorious stage of Huaqiangbei's limelight had faded. The rapid rise of domestic electronic digital brands and the strengthening of the government's protection of intellectual property rights have greatly squeezed the market for assembly machines and copycat machines. This year, Alibaba and JD.com, two e-commerce platforms, were also listed in the United States, and the spread of online channels also had a great impact on Huaqiangbei, which was originally based on offline operations. But even so, Xu Hui still got a piece of the pie in the headphone market. In 2016, he put the first pot of gold earned by the second batch into a factory, and decided to build his own supply chain and brand.
It was precisely this year that Apple did a big thing and launched the wireless headphones AirPods. With a white shell and a minimalist style, this product quickly became the darling of electronics enthusiasts. Feng Xu told "E-commerce Online" that in the headphone market, almost no brand can compete with Apple. In this regard, Xu Hui also gave a default answer.
In addition to the obvious Matthew effect, Shenzhen's brands are also facing serious involution. Compared with chargers, data cables, and power banks, earphones are electronic accessories with the most parts and the most complex assembly process. But compared with mobile phones and cameras, its entry threshold is not too high.
"In Shenzhen, there are no secrets in the headphone industry. "A new product from "want to do" to "go to the counter of Huaqiangbei", the core of the core to solve two key problems. One problem is the design scheme, which is solved by the chip manufacturer, and the other is the processing scheme, which is solved by the manufacturer.
Feng Xu said: "Solving the chip can solve 70% of the technical problems and 40% of the cost problems. "When chip manufacturers complete the design, mass production and external sales, manufacturers who lack self-research capabilities are equivalent to standing on the same starting line, in order to be able to compete for a piece of land, usually can only reduce the cost again and again.
Xu Hui gave an example, in 2018, the battery life of AirPods was about 2-3 hours, and the imitation AirPods sold by Huaqiangbei could reach 6 hours. At that time, their brand also used this chip to produce a headset with a focus on "long battery life", with annual sales of millions. However, this does not mean that the chip of this headset is better than Apple's, the design scheme is an overall scheme, only for battery life, sound quality, function and other aspects may be weaker. ”
Sell 30,000 orders in one go
"Take it out and use it, many friends will ask where you bought it" Li Shu is a junior student, and the biggest reason for her to buy screen headphones is novelty. Feng Xu said that at present, the buyers of screen headphones are mainly young people who are mainly students, and the popular price band is about 150 yuan.
Xu Hui said that Huaqiangbei is not the birthplace of screen headphones. According to his recollection, back in 2022, JBL, an audio brand from the United States, launched a headphone with a 1.45-inch touchscreen display. The brand's official price is 249 euros, and the slogan is: This is the world's first smart earphone charging case. But there are also many netizens who do not agree with Xu Hui's statement, when the product was first released, many people complained about Huaqiangbei. Many people said that Huaqiangbei has long existed, even with color screens.
After JBL launched the new headphones, there was not much reaction from the domestic market. For imitation merchants, the market recognition of this brand is not as good as Apple's, and there is no stable and mature ecosystem. For brand merchants, the domestic headphone market was not in a recession at that time, and it was necessary to think twice about putting into production a new product that had not yet undergone market education.
At the beginning of 2023, screen headphones unexpectedly gained a lot of attention on overseas social platforms such as TikTok and Facebook. Xu Hui obviously felt the attention of foreign traders who did cross-border business to this product. "I have colleagues who open factories around me, and I received an order for 30,000 units in one go. In October 2023, Xu Hui will also start to produce screen headphones.
(Photo courtesy of Xiaohongshu blogger Lu Liu)
"In the beginning, most of the screen headphones on the market were basically JBL-like male model headphones," said Yao Huina, sales director of WEKOME, a trendy brand of electronic accessories. Earlier this year, they teamed up with a digital blogger to move on-screen headphones to the live broadcast room. It was originally expected that 1,000 units would be sold on the spot, but 3,000 units were sold. "The market feedback was better than we thought, and we opened a private model specifically for this product. ”
But the popularity of headphones on the screen is like a firework, with limited sound volume and unknown benefits. Open the Taobao platform, there are very few merchants who have sold more than 10,000 single products. In Xu Hui's view, screen headphones are not like bone conduction headphones, which can bring earth-shaking changes to consumers. The chip factory he is familiar with has accelerated the pace of research and development, hoping to launch a screen headset with song storage functions like MP3.
In Huaqiangbei, the air is filled with the smell of "business".
From the moment he first walked into the SEG Communication Building in Huaqiangbei, Feng Xu understood that he was not afraid of not being able to pick and choose electronic products when he came here, but he was afraid of many choices.
Blue plastic baskets and sealed cardboard boxes narrow the already modest passages, and in some places you have to turn sideways. On both sides are densely packed shops, from small headphones, mobile phone cases, and mobile phone chains to computers, mobile phones, and cameras, like vegetables in a vegetable market, squeezing into these small cubicles.
As the vane of the domestic electronics industry, Huaqiangbei has achieved a large number of dreams about wealth freedom. It is rumored that at least 50 billionaires have come out of here, including Tencent founder Ma Huateng, China Computer founder Wu Haijun, TP-LINK router founder Zhao Jianjun, etc.
There has always been a joke in the market that if you walk from downstairs to upstairs in Huaqiangbei Electronic City, you can spell out an Apple mobile phone. Here, few people care whether the business is big or small. If you ask the boss: are there any screen headphones. The boss was able to quickly pull out a foam box from the seemingly disorganized, layered goods, and the headphones inside were neatly arranged like a guard of honor.
(The crowded "ghost market" in Huaqiangbei)
Without a way, it is difficult to buy top-notch goods. For this reason, backpackers even sorted out a set of strategies on how to get goods in Huaqiangbei. Remember to carry a black bag, the bigger the better; when you see a woman, no matter how old or young, you will always be called "sister", and you will be timid when you call it "beautiful girl"; if you buy a mobile phone, don't just hold one in your hand when asking the price, you should grab a stack......
In addition to having a vicious vision in business, we must also dare to "gamble". Feng Xu once heard a rumor that when the iphone12 was first launched, merchants in Huaqiangbei felt that the next AppleWatch would change the bezel to a right-angle frame like the 12. Before the new product was released, it began to open the mold production. As a result, the final release of the new product still continued the original rounded bezel, and lost a large number of people. And this time the screen mobile phone that was unexpectedly out of the circle, merchants have already launched a pure white, minimalist "Apple version".
Here is the most primitive logic to make money: find the difference. In the past two years, the "price power" that has been regarded as a treasure by major Internet companies is the most basic business experience of Huaqiangbei. The one-meter counter has witnessed the myth of getting rich overnight, and has also witnessed the collapse of the building in an instant. Behind the screen headphones are the merchants who are still eager to try and wait for the next new opportunity.
(The inner cover picture comes from the Xiaohongshu blogger "Huaqiangbei Guide")