The storage box with annual sales of over 100 million is the market raised by AJ and blind box

There are fascinating truths to be found in the intricacies of business rules.

At the beginning of the 19th century, a new mining area was discovered in California, and the gold prospectors flooded in, but more people were empty-handed. Only those who sold water and shovels to the gold prospectors were sure to make a profit. Levi's jeans not only made money, it became a 100-year brand.

"Gold diggers" and "shovel sellers" often emerge along with the tuyere. In the online car-hailing war a few years ago, passengers rode for free and drivers' income doubled, but it was the car brand with high cost performance that really dug out the dividend, which was the humble seat cushion and waist back pillow.

Takeaway business war, the most winning money is not the restaurant, not the takeaway, but the electric vehicle industry, do takeaway food box people.

This batch of shovel sellers, hidden in secret corners, some accurately dig the value of the field of segmentation, some differentiated entrance to provide supporting services, more or less, have earned money.

From another point of view, when the wind stops, the pig will fall, but the shoveler will still have a relatively stable income depending on the long tail effect.

"Big waves panning for gold, we all need tools."

In 2020, the opening of the blind box business has opened a new billionth tide play market. The epidemic has made live e-commerce the hottest Internet celebrity this year.

Who are the shovel-sellers?

E-commerce online launched a series of reports on "selling shovel people in the gold rush", in the face of fleeting opportunities, to find the most sensitive groups in this era of the great wave.

How to double the price of a mediocre shoe polish? -- Just say AJ (Air Jordan) only.

Such AJ effects also apply to shoebox storage. Once many literary and artistic young people will be filled with MUJI style Japanese storage boxes, as a way to promote a minimalist attitude to life, and now the shoe cabinet into a whole shoe wall is probably the new goal of the current male consumption upgrade.

These play "high transparent", "look around barrier-free" acrylic shoe box, stacked out of the straight men dream of the shoe wall - and the traditional storage mentality is different, the shoe wall to each pair of shoes are exposed, with "scale" effect to meet their own happiness in the collection.

This "wall", buried into the hearts of all trendy players, has become a most intuitive form of display. In addition to tide shoes, hand, blind box, refrigerator stick, bag, in the name of tide, all can be a wall.

Therefore, these transparent storage box, has become the indispensable accessory of the fashion player, when the bubble Matte market, drive the whole trend of economic take-off, that group of people selling shoe polish and storage box, became the "shovel person".

The evolution of trends in storage boxes
In 1986, a Japanese household brand named Tianma designed a combination drawer storage box, which defined the storage box of this plastic material in our life. With this "invention", Tianma successfully listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

Today, the combination drawer storage box has become a home storage standard, which also extends many home brands, such as MUJI, Alice and IKEA.

With the "broken house from", "Heartache life finishing magic" and other best-selling books in the domestic popularity, set off a "Japanese style collection trend", many people began to enjoy the happiness of the collection, rows of display in the wardrobe of the combination of storage boxes, to help people sort out the life of the complex and trivia of emotion, but also the arrangement of anxious mood.

In fact, the receiving box is also a projection of the consumption view. From the 80s of last century, marriage should be matched with a large wardrobe, and the reception is just to find a space for the limited supplies in life, but as Wang Ning, the founder of Bubble Matte, said, "I think the modern society must be satisfied with non-rigid products." More and more useless and idle goods are filled up at home. People begin to need goods that are "de-branded" and simply used, just like these simple storage boxes, which put down material needs and pay attention to people's needs.

Under the new wave of consumption, the storage box has a new value, and it has become a part of the trend culture.

In 2016, Chen Zineng, who just graduated from university, paid attention to the tide shoe market. He thought that since everyone loves to cook shoes, there is always a need to maintain shoes. He started the business of sneaker cleaner, and the goal is also very clear - AJ special care agent.

Such labels have attracted a group of precise target customers -- those who wear AJ and collect AJ and are not poor in money. The word "special" makes brands and consumers find a sense of identity with each other.

After seeing customers' feedback that they needed boxes that could be used to store shoes, Chen started designing boxes for trendy shoes and founded GOTO. And from shoes extended to the trend of toy storage, bag storage and other categories.

There are a number of brands that serve trendy items on the market, such as SupBro, circleclean, crep, etc. The common feature of these brands is that they are new brands that specialize in selling cleaning sets and storage boxes as vertical tracks.

"There's no way I could use Camellia or Alice for trendy shoes. They're a little low." "Shoe enthusiast Brian told e-commerce Online. In the eyes of hipsters, storage also needs to be fashionable enough.

(Left is the traditional shoe box, right is the new shoe box)

If you carefully compare the details of the goods, you can find the different "tonality" of the new sharp shoe box and the traditional storage box. MUJI, Alice such a traditional storage box, generally will focus on healthy and environmentally friendly PP material, plastic presents a soft sense, to rounded edges and suitable for putting into the wardrobe or bed, more emphasis on the practicality of storage. And the new sharp shoe box brand, mostly with high transparent acrylic material, shape sharp and angular outstanding personality, more emphasis on "no deformation", "full transparency", "look around barrier-free" characteristics, tight sealing to protect the shoes from dust and wet gas invasion, prolong life. Portable opening and closing design, easy to take out to avoid damage, but also to the shoe box to add LED lighting effect, voice control system and other scientific and technological elements.

Such changes also show that the new sharp shoe box not only needs the function of storage, but also needs to have the value of display and transmission attitude.

Annual sales of more than 100 million trend after the market
Tonal upgrade brings double the price, an ordinary shoe storage box in 10-20 yuan, and the new sharp shoe box can sell for 50-100 yuan.

High pricing does not affect the purchase enthusiasm, the entire trend of goods storage market, is accompanied by the trend of the economy booming upward.

According to the big data analysis report of trend brand released by Nielsen, the growth rate of trend brand consumption is 3.7 times that of non-trend brand. Specifically, the global sneakermarket was valued at $64.3 billion in 2017, and this figure will grow to $95 billion by 2025. Meanwhile, the market size of trendy toy retail in China reached 20.7 billion yuan in 2019, with a compound annual growth rate of up to 34.6%, and is expected to reach 76.3 billion yuan in 2024.

Although there has been no official statistics on the market space of new shoe boxes, if the value of the goods themselves is calculated, the clean storage products of trendy shoes and trendy toys account for about 2%, which also means that the market size of more than 2 billion.

Chen Zineng introduced to "E-commerce Online" that since 2017, the brand has maintained an average annual growth rate of over 100%. Last year, its sales exceeded 40 million, and this year it has broken 100 million. It participated in Tmall Double 11 for the first time and won the first place in fine classification. Its consumer groups are mainly post-95 and post-00, and the male to female ratio is about 6:4.

This is very consistent with the consumption circle of the whole trend culture. "After 90" and "after 95" are the main consumer groups of the trend brand, and the proportion of women is gradually increasing.

If you look at the large perspective, the whole trend market space is larger. According to Statista, the global fashion industry market size in 2019 was $601 billion, and China reached $280.7 billion, accounting for more than 1/3.

The trend industry is closely related to the fashion industry. In addition to the tide shoes and tide play, clothing, accessories, bags and so on are part of the trend consumption. These goods have the demand for collection, display and cleaning, especially when the goods reach a certain amount, there will be the demand for storage. This also means that in addition to doing cutting-edge shoe boxes, you can also lock bag boxes, clothing boxes, jewelry boxes, to meet the needs of "everything can be wall".

"We are already trying to make some breakthroughs, such as clothes storage, bag storage, and special cleaners for blind boxes of toys." "Mr. Chen said.

The Superuser Rule
"Washing and care products are profit points, shoe boxes are drainage money."

Just as Chen said, the product is not the core of the brand. As the "infrastructure" of the trend products, the storage box only provides a flow entrance. What she really wants to do is to become a brand with trend attributes like supreme.

Therefore, design and development is not the main task, to engage in cross-border IP joint, do commemorative limited release, is the first step to let a shoe box has a premium space.

(Photo from Source)

In fact, there has always been a trend to collect limited edition shoeboxes, and some high-end Nike shoes are often paired with limited edition shoeboxes, and some shoeboxes are even worth more than the shoes themselves. Chen Zinang is trying to launch a joint shoe box with AJ, NBA, Peak and other brands, so that the ordinary box is branded with the trend, bringing a higher premium.

For customer positioning, these brands are very clear from the beginning: people who like sneakers and people with high incomes will definitely need professional cleaning and care services, as well as the corresponding storage items, and the high price also plays a certain degree of screening customer function.

"We want to run people more than sell goods."

Trendy brand spending follows the power user rule very closely: 10 percent of hardcore users account for 48 percent of the market. Chen Zineng introduced that his brand has more than 2 million fans throughout the network, but only a few thousand seed fans, and these thousands of people are the real core value.

To this end, he built a set of operation "pyramid", starting from the video grass, through the talent, star in front of the shoe wall exquisite group photo, let the tide play crowd to capture the sense of trend behind the storage box, and then through the joint, trend exhibition exposure, give the shoe box with higher value space. Last year, goto also opened a flagship store on Tmall, expanding its business radius, and using platform algorithms and scene grass to push niche long-tail categories to more hippie players.

"Our product development and design, and every choice, are designed to meet the needs of these consumers." "Mr. Chen said.

How long can the new sharp box last
"If I buy an expensive shoebox, I just buy it for the antioxidants. Functionality comes first." Sneaker lover Qin Jun admits, how many people love shoes, but really can put up a wall of shoes few and few.

Between the functional and trend attributes of the new sharp shoebox, the service group is also very limited.

In fact, no matter in the e-commerce platform or offline channels, brands such as Goto and SupBro have not yet had a clear industry track. No matter in the field of shoe cleaning or storage boxes, they can only be considered as new brands. Although the growth rate is fast, it is not easy to continue to break the circle and expand the circle.

"Or let the brand itself to achieve trend attributes, like supreme itself does not need to have products, but put up with this brand can sell very well, because the storage box alone this field is too small." Chen Zineng said frankly.

Although these accessories of the trend economy strive to increase the trend label, they are still inseparable from the practical function. If they exert too much force on the brand attribute and ignore the texture of the product itself, it is a big problem whether they can become a kind of sustainable consumption.