The Transformation Path of the Tesla E-Cigarette Brand

  The Zun Yi Pin e-cigarette started trading in 2010, with its main brand being Tesla e-cigarettes. At that time, like many others, it was an agent for various e-cigarette brands.

Target Audience: The e-cigarette industry is relatively young and vibrant, primarily targeting a younger, fashionable consumer group;

Target Market: Currently focused mainly on the European and American markets;

Brand Tags: Independent brand, grasping market trends, strong product design, and independent R&D capabilities for new functions, adept at creating hit products that lead industry trends.

As the e-cigarette industry grew, we decided to establish our own factory and brand in the second half of 2013. Initially, we took on some OEM orders during the transition period, and in 2014, we officially began designing, developing, and selling our own branded products. Currently, we independently research, produce, and promote our brand and new products, expanding overseas marketing channels through a combination of online and offline strategies.

During the New Trade Festival, we focused on one thing:

Leveraging the influence of the New Trade Festival to promote new products and drive sales.

In January 2018, we participated in a core merchant conference organized by South China. Previously, we attended events mainly for sharing and learning, but this time in Hangzhou, we gained significant insights. We learned about the transformation of Alibaba's international platform, and the March New Trade Festival is a crucial event for this transformation, providing a new opportunity for merchants to reshuffle and train. We must start paying attention to the March New Trade Festival and seize this marketing opportunity.

After the New Year, we began promoting two new products, hoping to boost our sales through these products. These products feature a punk style that is very popular among Europeans and Americans. The punk style originated in the UK, and Americans are drawn to trendy designs. Although the punk style has been popular for two years, we have elevated it to a new peak with these two new products, significantly upgrading them in terms of materials, feel, and details. Therefore, the entire promotional flow during the New Trade Festival is focused on these products.

For new product promotion, we took an important step:

Sending samples to customers

After the New Year, we sent samples of our new products to most of our old customers, along with information that these new products would be available for sale on March 5 during the New Trade Festival. Additionally, we conducted pre-launch promotional activities on the Alibaba platform and across global media to drive traffic, such as overseas magazines, e-cigarette reviews, and social media promotions. The recent products have been well received, and we will seize the opportunity of the New Trade Festival to promote new products, not just for orders but also for overall brand exposure.

Preparing for major promotions with exclusive incentives to motivate the team.

For this New Trade Festival, our team has made significant adjustments, including changes to the salary structure. The foreign trade business is performance-driven, and attention is not focused on backend data. Therefore, we adjusted our team structure for this major promotion.

We arranged for four operation specialists to manage four accounts on the Alibaba international platform, increasing the base salary and setting a higher commission rate for orders from the Alibaba platform, such as 70% for salespeople and 30% for operation specialists.

We also organized a competition between two teams to encourage motivation. Additionally, we established a department specifically for coordinating with credit insurance orders, as there were some financial issues with credit insurance orders that were not running smoothly. We communicated with all parties involved before the New Trade Festival, and many issues have been resolved.

In three years, we have gradually developed overseas warehouses from offline promotions to solve after-sales service issues for overseas products. After transitioning from trade to brand, we have begun to build our brand.

When we first started promoting our brand, we did so both online and offline. For example, last year we fully promoted offline progress, launching 22 brand promotion teams in the US, Europe, and other countries to understand the entire market. For instance, the main types of smoke points in the European and American markets are:

1. Specialty stores, which became very popular in the US starting in 2015. There is one store within a 5-kilometer radius of Los Angeles;

2. Convenience stores like 7-11 that sell various related products in addition to e-cigarettes. They tend to choose simple products;

3. E-cigarette wholesale markets, where customers have a diverse range of purchases, requiring us to provide a comprehensive product range.

Since we are an independent brand, our online promotion is challenging compared to trading companies that represent multiple brands using a large number of keywords for traffic generation. Besides traffic from the Alibaba platform, we also need to leverage comprehensive online promotions to drive traffic to our store. Therefore, we place great importance on new product development, presentation, packaging promotion, and even conduct reviews and engage professional KOLs for e-cigarette usage.

Mr. Liu mentioned that we are considered the second wave of e-cigarette brands in China. A small number of manufacturers are just starting to do this.

Compared to some brands in the US, Chinese OEMs have quality control, after-sales departments, and warranty services. When the brand first started, the biggest issue for smokers was trust. The only way to solve this was through face-to-face interactions.

We introduced our products to customers face-to-face and provided hardware warranties. Therefore, we have established overseas warehouses in the US and UK, allowing customers in these markets to exchange products at these warehouses. For markets outside of these two, we handle after-sales through distributors and dealers, addressing after-sales issues within a specified timeframe.

During our transition from trade to brand, we faced a shortcoming in the perfect integration of online and offline efforts, with insufficient data accumulation and exposure online. Therefore, this year we will focus on enhancing our online presence and intensifying the transformation of our international platform operations. We hope to seize the opportunity presented by the New Trade Festival to accumulate online data.

We emphasize that our goal for the New Trade Festival is not only to generate orders but also to leverage the transformation of the international platform and major promotional events to achieve significant brand exposure. If our brand exposure on the Alibaba platform continues to rise, our orders will naturally increase as well.