Located in Zhengzhou, Henan Province, ZIEL Home is quite low-key, but it is the hidden champion in China's home furnishing cross-border e-commerce industry. At present, it has become Amazon's largest home furnishing seller in Europe and one of the largest B2C cross-border e-commerce export brands in inland China.

How did ZIEL Technology break out of the siege and become the biggest "dark horse" in home cross-border e-commerce?

Origin: It got on the cross-border e-commerce express at the best time

In 2012, ZIEL Technology formally confirmed the positioning of its main home storage products and other family-related products, and the quality has been benchmarked to international standards. In the spirit of the Chinese people do what they say, ZIEL Technology formally established Songmics, its first self-owned household product brand, in 2012.

In 2014, with the launch of Customs documents No. 56 and 57, the cross-border e-commerce model was recognized at the government level for the first time, and China officially entered a period of explosive and rapid growth of cross-border e-commerce. This year is also known as the first year of cross-border e-commerce.

However, ZIEL seized the opportunity and relied on the advantages of made in China to sell high-quality products abroad at a more reasonable price, thus forming its own competitive advantage, and ZIEL started rapid growth.

With the expansion of the market, SONGMICS, the only brand of ZIEL Technology, is not enough to meet the diversified needs of the market in terms of product categories. In response to this, in 2018, ZIEL Technology added two new brands to the original brand camp, namely VASAGLE, an iron-wood furniture brand and FEANDREA, a pet products brand. The new brand expands on the original category framework and is in line with the original household products brand SONGMICS. 

On the other hand, thanks to the good development momentum of the company itself, ZIEL also asks for and asks for financing.

It is worth mentioning that under the stimulus of the epidemic, cross-border home furnishing e-commerce is booming. In European and American online channels, sales of various furniture products, household products, home office equipment, etc. have skyrocketed, and some are even out of stock. ZIEL has shown a blowout development in the past year, and its performance growth has almost doubled. This also gives ZIEL the strength to sprint for an IPO.

Take off: Four aspects to build a competitive advantage

Being able to break through fierce competition and become the "dark horse" in China's cross-border e-commerce, ZIEL Technology is not only to hit the wind, but also to market acumen, product innovation, and model optimizatio, supply chain integration has its own unique features.

• Targeting the Amazon mainstream market

It can be found that in terms of market selection, ZIEL Technology mainly focuses on the mature market area of Amazon. Compared with markets such as Southeast Asia and India, mature markets have a large consumer base, strong purchasing power, and complete logistics and distribution chains, thus having more stable growth space.

In addition, the needs of mature markets are more diversified, consumers are more pursuing personalized lifestyles, and their acceptance of new products is higher, which is more affected by online opinions and celebrities; at the price level, low prices are no longer an influence. The main driving force for consumers to buy is the added value of the brand.

• Mainly engaged in household daily necessities and small pieces of furniture

In terms of product characteristics, ZIEL focuses on household daily necessities and small pieces of furniture, with an SKU of 1,000+. Among them, its furniture brand SONGMICS mainly includes all kinds of products needed for daily home life; VASAGLE focuses on iron and wood furniture, focusing on capturing European and American "industrial style" furniture lovers; FRANDREA provides pet household products for pets and pets. 

ZIEL Technology’s products are mainly targeted at young European and American groups. The products are fashionable and cost-effective. From the perspective of product differentiation and competition, ZIEL Technology itself has product design capabilities and is not easy to follow suit. It can tap customer pain points and meet customers’ diversified needs through independent design capabilities.

In addition, ZIEL Technology also has a customer service team of nearly 50 people in after-sales service, which can provide consumers with customer service in English, German, French, Italian, Spanish and other languages.

• Reinvest in FBA logistics model

On the last mile, ZIEL also joined Amazon's integrated logistics service FBA (Fulfilment by Amazon). As long as the goods are shipped to Amazon's overseas warehouses in advance, Amazon will be responsible for the inspection and delivery of the goods after the order is generated. Based on the FBA size and charging standards, ZIEL also improved the product packaging and packaging to optimize costs and expenditures. At present, the FBA model accounts for almost 99% of Amazon's total enterprise logistics.

ZIEL deeply binds with Amazon, using the FBA model, enjoying growth dividends and building industry barriers. At present, when purchasing other household products on the Amazon platform, the purchase price plus air freight is more expensive than the retail price of ZIEL.

• Backed by Henan furniture policy resources and industrial advantages

The success of ZIEL is also inseparable from the advantages of the industry and supply chain behind it. It is indispensable for the local government of Henan Province to have a dividend advantage in industry and policies.

Zhengzhou has regarded cross-border e-commerce as one of its growth engines. In terms of industry, Henan itself has the industrial base of a large furniture manufacturing province, and home furnishings have also been included in the "Twelfth Five-Year" development plan of Henan Province and Henan Modern Home Furnishing Industry action plan.

Compared with domestic counterparts, ZIEL Technology has an overseas company layout, overseas product design and R&D team, and overseas warehousing and logistics; compared with foreign competitors, ZIEL Technology has a deeper understanding of the domestic supply chain value system and advantages, and at the same time has better quality factory channels and product quality.

Outlook: Boundless cross-border e-commerce business opportunities for home furnishings

The growth of the global home furnishing online market remains strong.

One Click Retail, an e-commerce analysis company, analyzes Amazon's sales. The total sales of home kitchens are US$5.5 billion, second only to consumer electronics, with an annual growth rate of 20%, which is the first growth rate. In terms of specific markets, Statista predicts that by 2021, 27% of the US home furnishing market will come from online sales. It is conservatively estimated that online sales in the U.S. home furnishing market may reach US$103.3 billion in 2021.

Of course, what cannot be ignored is that under the current international environment, the export tariffs of household products have increased, and the price advantage of Chinese-made furniture may decrease as a result. But in general, the cross-border e-commerce home furnishing category market may continue to be hot in the next 2-3 years.

For ZIEL, compared with the beginning of the business, the company's team has now expanded to more than 500 people, and the company's performance has grown by an average of 109%.

This series of leading and complex strategic layouts has undoubtedly erected a solid and deep guard wall for ZIEL. We are optimistic about the future development of ZIEL.