Everyone knows Tesla, but have you seen Tesla’s ads?

Even outside of the auto industry, Tesla’s approach of not advertising is very “alternative.” Tesla founder Elon Musk has made it clear on many occasions that Tesla will not advertise or pay for the spokesperson. The company\’s money should be better used to create great products that people love. Musk did say a lot of controversial things, but the phrase “no beautiful PPT can be as convincing as the actual product” is really true.

The “product speaks for itself” marketing strategy has made Tesla a success. Behind this is actually a topic that has always been discussed in the industry: Does the brand define the product or the product define the brand? The former style requires a lot of money to be invested in marketing and promotion. The advantage is that it is short and stable, but the challenge is the lack of stamina; if the latter style is adopted, the company will face obscurity in the initial stage, but if the “product power” is strong enough , The follow-up may gain greater explosive power, Tesla is a typical.

In reality, the two styles of play are not an all-or-nothing relationship. Short-term competition requires companies to move flexibly, but if you look at the long-term, you will find that the ones that can really leave traces in history are always “good products”. “Instead of “good marketing.”

In March of this year, “Fortune” magazine selected the 100 greatest modern design products. This is the first time it has updated the list since 1959. The products on the list include technology products such as iPhone and Model S, as well as peeling. Daily necessities such as furniture, armchairs and so on. These products have passed through time, and their commonalities also provide a model of “product power” for future generations.

The three elements of “product power”

When it comes to good products, many people may think of Tesla and Apple’s celebrities. But most of the time, good products are not necessarily shocking, but in a way of “moisturizing things silently” to unassumingly improve the consumer experience.

In the “Fortune” list, Oxo Good Grips peeler and Poäng chair designed by IKEA are typical examples.

Oxo Good Grips peeler was born in 1990. The original intention of designer Farber was to design a better peeler for wives suffering from arthritis. He specially made a rubber grip with threads on the left and right, so that the product can be full of human care while completing the peeling function.

According to the “Fortune” list, this peeler is “the best example of inclusive design.” Its innovative series with Good Grips shows that making design more accessible to everyone is also better for everyone. Good design. This latter point is also fully reflected in IKEA\’s Poäng chair.

Although it has been 46 years since its birth, the Poäng chair does not look outdated. The Poäng chair allows good design to enter ordinary people\’s homes at a price close to the people, so much so that “Fortune” commented that it “democratizes home design in the world.”

To this day, the Oxo Good Grips peeler is still popular on Amazon and domestic e-commerce platforms, and IKEA still sells millions of Poäng chairs every year. In other words, a good product is not the lonely reward of the industry, but in exchange for considerable and longer-term commercial returns.

The above cases have common characteristics: comfortable and elegant, and affordable. If a standard should be added to the current good products, it should be “technological innovation.” After all, technological progress needs to be universal, and consumer products are the best carriers.

In the past, excellent products seemed to come from developed countries, and domestic products were labeled “low-end”. However, as the domestic consumer market and supply chain mature, the emphasis on the product itself has become the “main theme” of many brands. Even Luo Yonghao, who has always been demanding on products, has publicly expressed praise for this.

In a live broadcast, Luo Yonghao commented on Xiaomi Youpin\’s 79 yuan wireless charging night light kit: “This kind of tonality and this practicality, if it weren\’t made by a Chinese company, it would be a small Nordic one. It is reasonable to multiply the price by 15 times.”

Wireless charging night light kit praised by Luo Yonghao

This is an interesting change. In the past, domestic consumers had “filters” on foreign products and were willing to pay high premiums for them, but now more and more domestic products are favored. While they have both quality and benefits, they also have many creative solutions to the experience.

Take footbaths and fascia guns as examples. The traditional footbaths are inconvenient to add and pour water. The fascia guns on the market also have cumbersome problems. These are pain points that can be solved with technology. Xiaomi Youpin reduced the weight of the footbath to 3-4 kg by using micro-pressurized thermal steam technology. The Nano fascia gun it sells weighs only 360 grams.

The key to solving the pain points is the participation of innovative technologies. The value of technological innovation is not only embodied in the product itself, but also runs through the process of the product from 0 to 1, from 1 to N.

Take Tuoniu\’s smart trash can as an example. Although founder Matthew was aware of the pain points of traditional trash cans in the early days (trouble changing bags, easy to get hands when packing, etc.), problems such as insufficient funds, marketing difficulties, and weak supply chain capabilities were troubled Matthew’s entrepreneurship. Based on the platform\’s big data, Xiaomi Youpin has insights into user needs and helped Tuoniu finalize product styling, color matching, and detailed experience. The platform\’s traffic resources and crowdfunding capabilities have also helped Tuoniu solve marketing and funding problems. Today, Tuoniu smart trash cans are sold overseas, and they have also become the target of capital pursuit.

Similar situations are widespread in products on the Xiaomi Youpin platform. Even for “traditional” daily necessities such as mattresses and underwear, Xiaomi Youpin will consider the use of innovative technologies such as new materials, new art, and antibacterial transparency. In other words, from the incubation of product ideas to the final launch, Xiaomi Youpin applies Internet thinking throughout the entire process of product polishing. New technologies are the core element of its empowering traditional manufacturing manufacturers.

In the past, the quality of products was judged more from industrial design, but nowadays, technological innovation has become a new variable in the field of consumer goods, and the “product power” of domestic products can “change lanes and overtake”. Judging from third-party reports, the emergence of good products has significantly matured the consumer market, and domestic products have become increasingly sought after by a new generation of consumers.

According to the “Post-00 Research Report” released by Tencent Social, young people believe that domestic brands are no worse than foreign brands, and that “easy to use” is the last word. It can be seen that with the emergence of real products one by one, “Made in China” has been injected with more powerful product power, and the process is more worthy of attention than the emotion of the result.

How to build a good product?

In terms of how to build product power, the “Fortune” list mentioned above can provide some clues. However, in the list dominated by products from developed countries such as Europe and the United States, the background of many products is difficult to replicate in the Chinese market nowadays. The research on “product power” needs to return to the local market.

Xiaomi Youpin, which caused Luo Yonghao\’s appreciation, is an object worth studying.

Xiaomi Youpin is an e-commerce platform owned by Xiaomi. Consumers can buy Xiaomi\’s own and ecological chain products on the platform, as well as other brands of products. In other words, Xiaomi Youpin is both a channel and an upper reaches of the industry chain, and the latter is the foundation for Xiaomi Youpin to gain a foothold in the present.

In the past, when talking about e-commerce and retail, the industry logic of “channel is king” was always mentioned. However, with the increase in online traffic and offline rental costs, platforms and stores need to create more value, and it is imperative to extend to the upstream of the industrial chain. Nowadays, Alibaba, JD, and Pinduoduo continue to increase C2M, in fact, they are trying to get rid of simple and crude traffic competition and achieve differentiated breakthroughs.

Compared with online e-commerce players, Xiaomi Youpin’s advantage is that it has a large number of manufacturing partners. Its way of intervening in the supply chain is to efficiently pass on the C-side cognition to the upstream of the industrial chain and deeply participate in product development. To ensure its high level of function, design and price balance. This is the reuse of the “Xiaomi Model” in the consumer goods field, and Xiaomi Youpin is equivalent to the “remote advisory group” of manufacturers.

Specifically, the selection process of Xiaomi Youpin is much more complicated than the common OEM/ODM model in the industry. The OEM/ODM model is directly connected to the manufacturer. The cost-effectiveness of the product directly comes from the elimination of the premium of the intermediate link. Xiaomi Youpin has put more effort into product polishing:

• In the “product definition” stage, Xiaomi Youpin will communicate with the supply chain merchants the function points of the product definition based on the actual needs of platform users. In this process, Xiaomi Youpin will make suggestions to suppliers, such as subtracting some functions that are in the industry but are not practical for users, thereby reducing the cost of the supply chain;
• In the “internal review” stage, Xiaomi Youpin will review the completion of product samples, the use experience, and product sophistication, and ensure reasonable pricing;
• In the “product project” stage, Xiaomi Youpin will pass qualification review, manual review, test report review, and merchant service capability evaluation to ensure product delivery.

In-depth involvement in the supply chain is a time-consuming and laborious task. Xiaomi Youpin has to keep on-site inspections during the selection process. If you encounter pain points that are not easy to solve, you need to take the initiative to introduce new technologies. This seems to be not as “really earning” like channel commissions, and not as convenient as the OEM/ODM model, but if you take a long-term perspective, the “product power” gained by Xiaomi Youpin’s in-depth participation in product development will be more important than traffic Of the moat.

In this regard, 7-Eleven in Japan provides an example.

Unlike other chain convenience stores, 7-Eleven, as a retail channel, is also a sales terminal for its own brands (rice balls, rice, etc.). According to the book “The Philosophy of Retailing”, when 7-Eleven\’s own-brand foods are launched, they need not only the approval of the person in charge of product research and development, but also the senior directors to try them, and everyone can be satisfied before they can go on the market.

R&D is a “hard work”, but it is also the only way for 7-Eleven\’s products to gain reputation. The gross profit of its own-brand products is as high as 40%, and the proportion of sales has increased year by year, which has become a key growth point for 7-Eleven.

Take the time to polish the product for a longer-term return. According to Xiaomi Youpin, only the more sophisticated the front-end work is done, the stronger the competition will be for the product. This is also the way for the platform to make friends with users and give back to users.

In general, Xiaomi Youpin has formed a set of solutions for the creation of “product power”: first fully understand the needs of the consumer side, and then define the product in line with the supply chain capabilities and technological innovation, and then implement it with strict standards, and finally do It is a product that can achieve high scores in terms of quality, appearance and cost performance.

This is actually a typical “both and need” thinking. The reason why both “fish and bear\’s paw” can be included in the bag is related to the market-oriented thinking of Xiaomi Youpin.

After the actual operation, the final success of the product needs to be combined with the trend of the times. The consumer\’s pursuit of “easy to use and affordable” actually fits the current trend of “consumption upgrade”. Economic development is accompanied by the improvement of living standards, but “upgrading” does not mean that people can use more expensive things, but can get better things than before at affordable prices. This is already in the mobile phone field. Highlighted.

After years of foundry, the domestic supply chain has accumulated strong flexibility and manufacturing capabilities. The supply chain integration capabilities represented by the “millet model” have changed the pattern of smart phones. Today, the upstream of the industrial chain is upgrading and innovating business models. New sparks are still being collided, and the “product power” of domestic products has been continuously upgraded, which is also continuing to spawn a new consumption boom.

The era of “channel is king” has passed, and the use of supply chain capabilities has become a new platform for the platform, and platform competition will also help the “product power” of domestic products to continue to improve. In the field of daily consumer goods that is broader than mobile phones, Xiaomi Youpin continues to explore.