A sudden change completely changed the development of the global market. Offline consumption continued to weaken, and sales performance declined in a cliff-style manner, but for overseas e-commerce businesses that rely on online platforms, it is a good time to overtake the curve. In particular, overseas consumers are increasingly recognizing Chinese brands, and the personality of Chinese brands is also considered “innovative”

So, how can cross-border e-commerce sellers seize the opportunity to innovate products and expand their business?Jia Wei, founder of the Locke Shared Design Platform and chairman of Rococo Innovative Design Group, analyzed the new opportunities brought by the three major demands of the beginning of 2020, and brought a global product innovation methodology: born from demand and changed according to demand.

The survey found that the post-95 and post-00s (Z era) are the largest users of smart appliances, and more than 50% of this generation own smart kitchen appliances and smart laundry appliances.

And this generation is also the main force in live streaming culture. Nowadays, everyone stays at home and doesn't go out, and there are more and more people drying and cooking. This is true both at home and abroad. At this point, an oven that can broadcast the user's baking process satisfies the dual needs of consumers. It can not only meet basic cooking needs, but also allow everyone to show off their cooking skills online.

One very obvious example is the Switch fitness ring. Due to the rapid rise in global attention to health in 2020, the product suddenly rose from less than 600 yuan to more than 1,600 yuan at launch; in addition, the price of used fitness rings on Amazon in Japan is already between 1000-1200 yuan (about 16620-18500 yen). Other products, including smart scales, smart physiotherapy devices, and even mood regulators, have ushered in new development opportunities.

With the rapid growth of the global population, the transportation system will be under tremendous pressure. Now all of China's high-speed railways have gone overseas, bringing China's speed experience to global rail travel. Under this kind of travel demand, many product innovations will usher in new opportunities. For example, Americans love road trips. One product is a smart HUD, which can avoid traffic risks caused by drivers looking down at their phones or dashboards. They can be intelligently projected to the front, and drivers can follow the navigation by looking directly ahead.

Jia Wei:
As consumption upgrades, users don't care about how great the product itself is, but how great they are after using the product. When we say “born out of need”, we mean redefining products and creating user brands and user products based on user needs, not corporate brands or enterprise products with a global user mindset.

Jia Wei:
From a methodological point of view, the following points are important:

Shifting from a “goods-centered” enterprise perspective to a user perspective, starting from the perspective of “helping users become better”, achieve users first, make users better themselves, and give users a perfect experience.

Users of different ages and genders have different needs. Their values and logical chains are not the same, and the consumer's decision-making process is also different. Therefore, when targeting users, the span must not be very large. First, we must grasp the user's needs, whether they are physiological needs or the requirements for achieving more advanced self-value.

In particular, for TOC consumer products, there are three important points in product design: very good looking (appealing), very easy to use (good product quality), and very easy to sell (sells well on Amazon).

Product innovation is about precision. Amazon sellers all know that consumer needs are different in different seasons and on different sites. Even consumers who are one year behind have different views on consumption and products. Data-driven product innovation can build agile product development. Well, first, based on e-commerce data, we need to build a product positioning dashboard. It includes design staff and operating data:
• Operating data: including traffic data, sales data, category data, competition data, industry data;
• Design Consultant: Some operating data+product image data. But don't underestimate the data that images can generate. E-commerce consumers often buy products without experience because of an image.

For example, in the hair dryers we have made, we observed the styling trends of hair dryers in different time periods and sales volumes, and made a chart to determine what materials, colors, sizes, and styles of hair dryers consumers like to buy. These can all be interpreted twice through image data. Then we found that the hair dryer with a 22 degree tilt angle at the back and an 8 degree tilt handle is more popular with consumers. When we designed it, we knew that this must be a hit, because we already knew based on the data that consumers needed was this product.

When consumer needs are grasped through data, whichever product innovation and efficiency can seize the market, and the coordination of dynamic data can help enterprises improve efficiency, such as online design and development, and the use of intelligent tools.

At the beginning of 2020, the sudden rise of the “cloud economy” was on the cusp of a “rocket”. As the entire world quickly shifts to online transactions, sellers of Amazon's global stores should seize new opportunities, start from the user's perspective, see the business opportunities behind the data, and let product innovation empower your overseas business!