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Small stationery hides big business. Among the many overseas markets, stationery is a fast-moving consumable product with a wide audience and high repurchase rate, which is a market full of vitality and opportunities. The latest survey by Fortune Business Insights shows that the global stationery market size will reach US$151.5 billion in 2023 and is expected to grow steadily at an average annual compound growth rate of 5.0% in the next five years.
With its demographic dividend and geographical advantages, Southeast Asia is increasingly becoming the preferred destination for Chinese stationery exporters seeking overseas market opportunities. At present, the Southeast Asian stationery market is in a period of rapid growth. The increasingly strong consumer demand and the ever-increasing consumption potential have given unlimited imagination to those going overseas. Countless Chinese sellers have entered the local market by relying on the advantages of the domestic supply chain and have successfully opened up their brand reputation overseas. ▲ The picture comes from the seller interviewed Since its establishment in 2022, SHENSHI Stationery has quickly emerged in the overseas wave of the Southeast Asian stationery market. In just two years of development, the brand has achieved remarkable success on Shopee, standing out from the niche stationery field and growing into a leader in the category. What are the key factors behind this success?As a big seller specializing in the stationery vertical market, the story of SHENSHI Stationery began in Southeast Asia. Since its establishment in 2022, this emerging enterprise has started from scratch and quickly climbed to a leading position in this market segment through a solid strategy. With its diverse and rich product line, SHENSHI Stationery has successfully won the love and trust of consumers in multiple markets in Southeast Asia. But along the way, SHENSHI Stationery's overseas journey was not smooth sailing. In the initial start-up stage, it encountered multiple challenges such as lack of experience and poor market information. The reason why SHENSHI Stationery was able to overcome numerous difficulties and stand out in the fierce competition is inseparable from its three secrets of success. 1. Seize the opportunity: Stationery exports to overseas markets will bring benefits From the demand side, stationery is a fast-moving consumer product with strong demand and a wide audience. On the supply side, stationery is a relatively regular and light item with low transportation costs and the domestic supply chain is well developed. The Southeast Asian market has a large population base, an increasing education rate, and rapid economic development, which has driven consumers' demand for stationery to become increasingly diversified and personalized, providing a broad market space for Chinese stationery to go to Southeast Asia. SHENSHI Stationery is targeting the opportunity point when the stationery export to Southeast Asia is just in full swing , and resolutely chooses to enter the stationery track. "On the one hand, we have mature suppliers and partners in China, and on the other hand, the population structure in Southeast Asia is relatively benign, that is, with a younger population, it means that there will be relatively more school-age people. Finally, with the development of the local area, the Southeast Asian government has gradually increased its attention to education. Combining the above three points, we chose to do the stationery category." Mr. Zhang, the brand manager of SHENSHI Stationery, said. 2. Anchor market: Southeast Asia has huge growth potential Seizing the opportunity is just the beginning. If you want to take advantage of the opportunity to get off the ground successfully, you cannot do without choosing the opportunity market. "First of all, the local products in the Southeast Asian stationery market are not updated as quickly as those in China. So for sellers like us whose production lines are in China, we can create a good time difference. Secondly, the rules of e-commerce platforms in Southeast Asia, led by Shopee, are more friendly to novices, so it is relatively easier for us to get started." Mr. Zhang, the brand manager, revealed. Overall, compared with the European and American markets, Southeast Asian consumers prefer high-cost-performance products in their stationery consumption preferences. Therefore, products with price advantages are often more likely to attract consumers' attention. ▲ The picture comes from the seller interviewed Looking at the various markets in Southeast Asia, there are also deviations in consumption habits. "At a high level, consumers in Vietnam and the Philippines care more about cost-effectiveness, while consumers in Malaysia and Thailand have higher requirements for products, and they consider everything from the quality of the product itself to the packaging. Because festival culture is prevalent in Malaysia and Thailand, many stationery products are given as gifts, so there are certain requirements for product packaging." Through in-depth insights into consumer portraits in various regions in Southeast Asia, SHENSHI Stationery has successfully captured the minds of local consumers and created a number of popular products in succession. 3. Choose the right platform: Seize the opportunity of Shopee At present, the Southeast Asian e-commerce battle is in full swing, which brings broad growth opportunities but also more complex challenges. In the process of entering the Southeast Asian market, SHENSHI Stationery fully realized the attractive business potential of the region, and also realized the key to the success of cross-border merchants by choosing the right platform. As the leading e-commerce platform in Southeast Asia, Shopee has become the preferred channel for SHENSHI Stationery to enter the Southeast Asian market. "From the buyer's perspective, Shopee is the leading platform in Southeast Asia with the highest market share. Consumers have a higher degree of trust in the platform and have developed a habit of placing orders from the Shopee platform. Whenever they think of buying something, their first reaction is to open Shopee. From the seller's perspective, the platform rules are currently more friendly to sellers, and the various policies introduced one after another have also been beneficial to sellers. " said Mr. Zhang, the brand manager. After only two years of entering the Shopee stationery market, SHENSHI Stationery has achieved a leap from 0 to 1 and then to 100. Today, its store business is stable and improving. During the peak sales season for the stationery industry, such as the start of school, SHENSHI Stationery has accumulated 20,000 orders per day on multiple platforms.
According to Mr. Zhang, the brand manager, SHENSHI Stationery has successfully created a number of popular products, including markers and document bags. Among them, a marker pen suitable for all ages is the best-selling one. With its high cost-effectiveness and design that meets the needs of all age groups, it has captured the hearts of a large number of audiences.
▲ The picture comes from the seller interviewed But creating a hit product is not something that can be achieved overnight. Behind these phenomenal products is SHENSHI Stationery 's refined operation strategy that is tailored to local conditions . Since the overall product line in Southeast Asia lags behind that in China, SHENSHI Stationery pays great attention to exploring market gaps and conducting localized designs during product development to better cater to the preferences of local consumers. "We will first make localized adjustments to the packaging to better meet the aesthetic tastes of local consumers. In addition, the product strength plays a decisive role. For example, there is a board folder in China. The reason why this product stands out is that it has an additional file bag for storing A4 paper on the basis of the board folder. This clever design undoubtedly solves the pain points of consumers. There is no such product in the Southeast Asian market, so this product has a weekly sales volume of up to 3,000 to 4,000 soon after it was put on the shelves." Mr. Zhang, the brand manager, revealed. In order to gain a deeper understanding of the inherent needs of consumers in the Southeast Asian market, SHENSHI Stationery conducted a detailed market survey and accurately divided user groups of different age groups. According to analysis, the main consumers in the Southeast Asian stationery market are mainly women, accounting for nearly 70%. These consumers are mainly concentrated between the ages of 18 and 40, some of whom are parents and the other part are students. During the market research, SHENSHI Stationery noticed that users aged 40 to 55 showed a unique consumption behavior: they browsed a lot of products, but the actual purchase rate was relatively low. The team conducted an in-depth analysis of this phenomenon and concluded: "Consumers in this age group may feel that our products are quite novel compared to similar products they have been exposed to in the past, but at the same time they do not have an urgent need to buy. Nevertheless, this is still a positive signal that our products have broad appeal in the market." After forming a comprehensive understanding of the portrait of Southeast Asian stationery consumers, how to reach this audience and further leverage their long-tail demand became the next issue that SHENSHI Stationery needed to solve. Shopee plays a vital role in the process of product promotion and traffic generation. Currently, Shopee provides a wide range of marketing tools for platform sellers, and what impressed SHENSHI Stationery the most was Shopee Affiliate Marketing (AMS) , which plays an indispensable role in its new product promotion process. When launching new products, SHENSHI Stationery makes full use of the social attributes of the stationery category and uses a systematic approach to tap into local influential KOLs. They analyze the historical works and fan characteristics of these KOLs to find influencers who match the characteristics of the products. "If 70% of a KOL's fans are women, they are mainly between 18 and 40 years old, and the content they post is highly relevant to our stationery products, we will consider working with them and using their influence to promote the products." Practice has proved that the effect of this method is quite significant. In the current Southeast Asian market, Shopee's support for SHENSHI Stationery is not limited to the basic functions of the platform. The business environment in Southeast Asia is complex, and consumer habits vary significantly between markets. Therefore, for emerging brands entering the market for the first time, the key to success lies in a deep understanding of the needs and preferences of local consumers in order to better adapt to the consumer environment. Based on this pain point, Shopee provides localized fulfillment services to platform sellers, and helps sellers break through information gaps and quickly gain insight into market trends through efficient docking services from account managers. SHENSHI Stationery has benefited greatly from this. After launching the "one store, multiple shipments" model of localized fulfillment services, for the "evergreen products" sold by the store, it usually gives priority to using the inventory of overseas warehouses for local shipments; if it encounters out-of-stock or test payment situations, it can flexibly switch to cross-border small package delivery. Mr. Zhang, the brand manager, further explained: "For some of our perennial hot-selling products, we will prepare overseas warehouses in advance according to market conditions. If they are shipped through overseas warehouses, the fulfillment speed will be faster and the sellers will be more satisfied. But sometimes when we want to test a new product in the local market, we generally don’t stock up a large amount of goods without knowing the market feedback, so we use cross-border small packages to ship them. If the response is good, we will go the route of preparing stocks in overseas warehouses." This flexible switching of delivery modes makes SHENSHI Stationery's operations more efficient and smooth, so it can quickly respond to different market demands. For stationery products, the start of the school year is the most critical sales peak. Empowered by Shopee's localized fulfillment services, S HENSHI Stationery successfully seized the peak season and achieved a surge in sales. In Southeast Asia, the time of the school season is not fixed, but is determined by the local government's annual guidance documents. This policy uncertainty poses a challenge to stationery sellers, who need to collect and pay attention to the specific time of the school season in major sales areas in order to better plan product promotion and sales strategies. Due to the complexity of the Southeast Asian cultural environment, there are significant differences in consumption habits between different markets. For new entrants, how to break through market information barriers and achieve localized operations is one of the important tests for building trust with consumers. During this process, Shopee's account managers provided a lot of useful information in a timely manner. At the same time, the platform will provide sellers with real-time search volume and other consumer data as a reference, and then combine it with offline research results to accurately predict consumer trends and create targeted products. After in-depth market insights and product research, SHENSHI Stationery prepared overseas goods in advance through Shopee's localized fulfillment service, and quickly completed logistics fulfillment after the surge in orders. "Such a strategy will make us more competitive, and operations and logistics will be smoother, and ultimately our market share will continue to increase," said Mr. Zhang, the brand manager. Currently, SHENSHI Stationery is developing rapidly in the Philippines, its main sales base. This is closely related to the localized and refined operation strategy adapted to local conditions, and also inseparable from Shopee's escort. Looking ahead, SHENSHI Stationery is full of confidence in the growth prospects of the stationery market and the Shopee platform . It also plans to rely on Shopee's localized fulfillment services to continue to expand its scale and achieve multi-site development, and expand products that have already created market effects in the Philippines to other markets, thereby achieving a double increase in sales and scale. Scan the QR code below or click [Read more] to join Shopee and seize the opportunity to go global in 2024
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