There is such a next-generation personal care technology brand that went to Li Jiaqi's live broadcast and was called back by fans; it was sought after by many influencers on overseas social media; it became an instant hit through the “hair straightener” and achieved a 300% sales growth rate from the beginning; since it went overseas in 2019, the sales volume of hair straighteners has ranked No. 1 in the Amazon US segment. It discovered the hairdressing needs of Middle Eastern women under headscarves. One month after entering Amazon's Middle East site in June 2022, it became TOP1 in the hair straightener category; it was the first Chinese personal care technology brand TyMo (TaiMo) to enter Target in the US to go overseas

As a young overseas brand, how did TYMO quickly conquer the minds of consumers with Amazon's popularity and achieve such outstanding overseas results?And why did Amazon successfully expand its business to the Middle East (Saudi Arabia and UAE) after the success of Amazon's US site?Next, take a look below. Xiaobian takes you to the story of TYMO bringing “beauty” to the world.

Seller Profile: TYMO
TIARA LIN TYMO Overseas Business General Manager
Joined Amazon in 2019
Main categories: personal care
Open stations: US station, Middle East station (UAE station, Saudi station), Canada station, European station, Japan station

Track selection: target personal care categories and gain insight into hairdressing business opportunities
Tiara shared that from a general perspective, TYMO's insight into the “personal care” category is relatively stable no matter how the economic environment fluctuates, the overall consumer demand for personal care is relatively stable. TYMO has targeted the “hair straightening comb” product category, mainly considering: First, the entire TYMO team knows the overseas situation very well and discovered that people of color who are naturally curly have strong hair straightening needs, and this group is very large. Second, TYMO also found that hair straightening products on the market either require too much operation or require a combination of tools, and the process is quite complicated. Meanwhile, TYMO's hair straightening brush innovatively combines the functions of a hair straightener and a comb, greatly improving the consumer's daily hair care experience. “Everyone only saw that we made Amazon's explosions one by one. In fact, before making products, we thoroughly analyzed and thought about demand in target regions. Abbottt, Premiere Creative’s creative director.

Define regions: Target Europe and America, and play middle and high-end cards
Once the track was decided, TYMO immediately began planning to go out to sea. Tiara was responsible for setting up TYMO's Shenzhen branch in 2019, which is specifically responsible for TYMO's overseas business. The reason for deciding to establish the Shenzhen branch was due to TYMO's own considerations: on the one hand, because Shenzhen has a strong cross-border e-commerce atmosphere and the comprehensive environment is very conducive to enterprises going overseas; on the other hand, establishing the company closest to the supply chain can achieve closer cooperation and enhance innovation capabilities and product quality. After everything was ready, since the “hair straightening brush” category was much more mature abroad than at home, TYMO first chose North America, which had the greatest business opportunity, as the first stop for the brand to go overseas. Traditional hair straightening products in the US are relatively low-end. Most brands in the US are more of a supermarket type, and TYMO, as a brand positioned as a middle to high-end consumer group, believes that there is still much to be done in the US in the future.

Channel selection: Amazon starts in North America, and debut is the pinnacle
Tiara said that in the process of going overseas, choosing an appropriate and reliable channel is critical for brands. “We initially chose Amazon because Amazon is the most popular e-commerce site in the US, followed by its higher customer base maturity and better overall customer base, which is also very much in line with our mid-range and high-end product positioning. ” Thanks to this, TYMO's products have had a good reputation and sales volume since their launch in the US in 2019. On Amazon's US site, TYMO, the top 8 in the 2022 single category sales rankings, occupied 2 places, ranking first in total sales. Indeed, the myriad subtle insights and analysis behind the success of explosives are critical. Tymo is now basically a top seller in the hair straightener category.

Exploring New Opportunities: Expanding the Middle East Station and Exploring Opportunities Under Women's Headscarves
After successfully launching its first overseas launch in North America, TYMO began actively exploring other potential sites. Among them, the Middle East Station can be described as one of the most treasured sites in the scope of consideration. Although women in the Middle East may follow traditional or religious customs and wear headscarves, that doesn't mean they don't have a need or interest in hairdressing. TYMO found that although local women may not often show their hair in front of the public, they also value their own hairstyle when dealing with family and friends. When it comes to TYMO's reason for choosing to enter Amazon's Middle East site, like most sellers who haven't been in touch with the Middle East before, Tiara was also quite unfamiliar with the Middle East at first. “At the time, an Amazon Middle East account manager came to me and said they wanted to introduce me to the Middle East site. We met the next day. After she gave me a detailed introduction to the potential of the Middle East Station and various support policies, I realized that the Middle East Station still had such great opportunities. “Tiara said that the reason why it was initially decided to enter Amazon's Middle East site so quickly is that the customer base of the Middle East site is similar to the US site, and the needs and interests of local women in hairdressing are as diverse as in the US, which allows the brand to do business more efficiently; the other reason is that TYMO discovered that the Middle East site has a younger population, strong purchasing power, and high profit margins and profit margins, which is also in line with TYMO's global layout strategy.

Advantages of Amazon's Middle East site (UAE site and Saudi site)
✔ Directly radiating the five Gulf countries, with a young population, high GDP per capita, and strong purchasing power
✔ The average e-commerce volume growth rate in the Middle East reached 42.8% [1], far exceeding that of China, the United States, Japan and Europe
✔ The e-commerce penetration rate in the Middle East rose to 59% [2], and the growth rate of online consumers reached the highest in the world
✔ The Middle East site not only has high profit margins, but also high profit amounts
✔ By the end of 2025, the volume of e-commerce in the Middle East is expected to reach 50 billion US dollars [3]
Today, in an environment where overseas brands are actively expanding global business, TYMO focuses on exploring new opportunities in existing channels by accurately identifying the core needs of overseas consumers, and then replicating mature operating concepts in emerging sites such as the Middle East Station, so as to quickly and effectively establish competitive barriers for brands at new sites and achieve the goal of regional expansion. In 2022, TYMO entered Amazon's Saudi website and UAE site. After only 1 month of launch, it became the top 1 in the hair straightening brush category.

When we asked if TYMO had experienced any difficulties or challenges in the process of going out to sea, Tiara said that since the team members had very clear ideas and followed a steady and steady route since going out to sea, the journey to sea was relatively smooth, and everything was basically to be expected. However, TYMO's journey to the sea has been so smooth, and one key point that cannot be overlooked is that TYMO actively treats regional research and consumer insights, and fully understands the cultural needs and purchasing behavior of consumers in different regions. When it comes to Middle Eastern women, your first impression is that women wear headscarves when traveling. Sounds like this, this doesn't seem like a favorable region for TYMO's hair brand. In fact, what TYMO values is the business opportunity underneath this headscarf — even women who wear headscarves hide their love for beauty under the headscarf, and they also have this demand for hair care products. TYMO had the courage to break through and discover, and launched a resounding blow to its Middle East expansion. Furthermore, since you are in the Middle East, you must do thorough research and insight into the consumer groups here, and have a thorough understanding of users' needs and pain points. When considering entering the Amazon Middle East site, TYMO considered that due to religious culture, it was not possible to use the “bristle hair” commonly used in traditional combs, so it was replaced with nylon, and achieved the same hair-catching effect. These minor changes are the key to differentiating TYMO from other American volumizing hair brands.

In addition to this, TYMO also learned that people in different countries have different hair types, and the temperature ranges for using hair straighteners are not the same, so they specially improved the design of hair straighteners. Compared with Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and the US, the temperature will be higher, and there will be more ranges. In addition to understanding consumers, another thing TYMO is concerned about is compliance. Tiara said that from the first day of operation, the TYMO team required strict compliance with Amazon requirements, and that all product certifications must be complete. After all, this is a solid backing to ensure the success of the product and a driving force for the brand to grow more sustainably.

Currently, TYMO's product categories are mainly hairdressing tools, including straightening, curling, and volumizing products. The target regions and people are mainly people of color. For example, many black people have curly hair, and they will have a lot of demand for hair straightening combs. As we all know, overseas brand building often places higher demands on the product itself. TYMO has always paid great attention to creating excellent products, so it is necessary to constantly polish its products. In terms of product R&D investment, TYMO is also laying out applied research and development of core technologies and materials. It includes motors, batteries, new heating elements, intelligent temperature control and hair care coatings, etc., and always pays attention to consumer feedback on product use, thus providing a reference for product development and optimization. It is because of this that TYMO has 15K+ customer interactive reviews for each item, and all products have achieved an excellent score of 4.5 stars. As Tiara said, although doing these detailed things well can be more tiring and complicated, it is important to stick to the 'difficult and correct' things.

It is worth mentioning that TYMO is indeed an enterprise that knows brand marketing very well. TYMO has done an outstanding job in overseas KOL cooperative marketing and has established a reputation in quality-first content marketing. This is also a successful attempt by TYMO to successfully apply Chinese-style Internet business experience overseas. Tiara mentioned that due to TYMO's product attributes, the content is highly expandable, making it ideal for social media influencers to develop their creative abilities. After accumulating rich experience in KOL cooperation, the TYMO team has also sorted out its own methodology. From how to select cooperative accounts, to determining content based on KOL style, run-in communication, and how to evaluate results after the final content is online, the team will also repeatedly refine and continuously optimize the process. Over the years, the TYMO brand team has collaborated with a large number of overseas Pan-American KOLs and professional hairdressing bloggers to share products, regularly cooperate with European and American professional hairstylists, evaluate new products, establish cooperative relationships with beauty editors from overseas fashion media groups, and carry out dozens of top magazine reports every month, and have received a lot of exposure and endorsement overseas. Tiara also said that in the future, TYMO will also continue to strengthen brand building through the introduction of new technology+offline marketing. In addition to KOL influencers, it will also use some large-scale events to explore the possibility of marketing cooperation with top stars.

Based on TYMO's experience of collaborating with more than 3,000 bloggers, they have summed up what kind of groups and content are suitable for different overseas social media channels. Xiaobian is here to publicly share this summary with everyone. If you see it, you can earn money.
Instagram: The audience is generally young, focusing on interaction and social types, and mainly interesting content.
Facebook: The crowd will be relatively older to become dominant.
YouTube: In the past, it was mainly long videos, suitable for product reviews, tutorials, etc., but now it mainly focuses on substantive content.

Tiara said that at present, TYMO still has a long way to go in terms of brand building, and is still a certain distance from world-renowned brands. She said, “Our goal is not just for consumers to hear about TYMO, but for everyone to have a TYMO hair straightener. ” TYMO has this kind of brand vision. Even after successful sites in the US and Europe, it never stopped, but instead continued to explore opportunities at emerging sites and accelerate the global brand layout process. “The reason for our success can be summed up in one sentence: we work hard on our products, and we are a down to earth company. “In the future, TYMO will also strengthen its brand building strategy, introduce two paths of new technology+offline marketing, and go deeper with leading stars at major events.

TYMO's path to success
“TYMO's success depends on our careful cultivation of products and being down-to-earth in business.” During the year, Amazon has had a wealth of promotions for various sites around the world, such as Prime Day membership day or Black 5 promotions. TYMO also has its own exclusive experience in preparing for this big promotion. In addition to starting warm-up and reporting very early, we will also focus on pre-stocking and storage arrangements.

Amazon has always encouraged more sellers to do business overseas through cross-border e-commerce to find new opportunities. As a very experienced pioneer and participant in this industry, do you have any experience and advice for new sellers entering the emerging Middle East site now?

1. You must fully understand the channels and local policies before entering. This is the most critical!
2. We need to understand the degree of completeness of the industrial chain. For example, we learned in advance that the logistics cycle at the Middle East Station is very long and that logistics providers are less selective. We need to prepare and think ahead of time when it comes to preparing goods, and sometimes we even need to customize some transportation methods.
3. Only by fully investigating the preferences of local people and clarifying user needs can we better provide help and services to users.