The post-80s operators made each vacuum cup a “golden” one

wondersland (41)in #yiwu • 6 years ago

Give up orders that worth hundreds of thousands of yuan and choose to develop new products. Put dozens of old-fashioned vacuum cups off the shelves, with some of which reach a sale volume of more than ten thousand yuan per month. This determined decision is made by Zhang Sina, a post-80s operator. In order to keep improving, she decides to make every vacuum cup into a “golden” one which can be the best seller and win the heart of customers.

A large number of coming orders prove that her choice was right. Zhang Sina gradually grasped the initiative of the market, and also became more and more confident when negotiating with her customers.

Confidence grows in the persistence of independent innovation

When meeting Zhang Sina, she is communicating with an African purchaser in English. This purchaser placed an order of over a thousand cups in instant. “It’s a second order of this client.” Zhang said with delight that this order seems to be small in the volume but the profit of each cup increases by 5% more than the old-fashioned ones.

“I can still remember the first time this African purchaser came to my store. He shook his head at the price of the vacuum cup and insisted on bargaining. But he could not find such types in other shops, so he just took some of our products for trial sale. And just within a month, he came back to order more.”

My confidence comes with the persistence of independent innovation, said Zhang. And that is not the only example. All these benefit from the development and design innovation of our own.

Zhang Sina took out two vacuum cups from the cabinet, one is an old-fashioned vacuum cups which is popular for more than ten years and very common in the market. Some operators can sell more than 100,000 pieces per month but with almost no profit. And peers constantly lower the price in order to win business. The other one is a new design of the vacuum cup of Zhang’s. The price is about twice as high as the ordinary one, but it has also been unanimously recognized by domestic and foreign businessmen.

In 2015, Zhang Sina, who had just entered the industry, invested more than one million yuan in research and development to redesign the vacuum cup from its appearance to its function. In that year, Zhang Sina developed a total of 7 types of vacuum cups, and the production process of new products is also more complex, with each cup needs to go through tens of processes. “We do not go for the quantity of production but the fine art of each cup, making them perfect.” Zhang said that now her products are sold to Italy, Middle East and other countries and regions and returning order rate reaches about 50%.

Target consumption creates new market

“Is the contact area of vacuum cup handle too small?” “What if the vacuum cup pours over the car?” Since the beginning of independent research and development of new products, Zhang took root in the front line. Based on consumers’ feedback and understanding of cutting-edge collocation elements, she discussed with designers repeatedly, devoting to product innovation.

After some time of careful observation, Zhang found that the handle of the old-fashioned vacuum cup was narrow and slender, which was very inconvenient for customers with wide palms to hold. After improvement, the handle length of the new type of vacuum cup increased from 9-10 cm to 17 cm, and the thickness also greatly increased to meet the needs of different groups of people. At the same time, some anti-skid design elements were added at the bottom of the individual vacuum cup to adapt to different situations.

Zhang introduced that most of the old-fashioned ordinary vacuum cups are formed by an integrated mold which saves time and labor and costs less, but the products produced by this way inevitably have problems such as rough edges, irregular seams and so on. Since one molding is not enough, then we do it step by step and mold cup lid, handle and cup body separately, small but fine. And then assemble at last. Every additional mold cost an additional 100-150 thousand yuan of investment.

“Consumption need is where we’ve been working toward,” said Zhang. In Yiwu market, there are still many operators like Zhang Sina. They are experiencing a new change.

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