On the track of going out to sea across borders, many small teams will get stuck in the inner circle of “blindly chasing explosives and fighting for prices”, making “small but beautiful” “small but difficult.” However, Wenlong, founder of Ga Ga Education, found a new solution along this path.

As a new dad, he saw the child's real interests and ways to interact from the “temporary toys” he demos for his daughter. He regarded “making educational toys that understand children better” as a “brand Polaris”. In the end, he brought a team of 10 people to make children's educational toys a hit in the same category on Amazon North America, achieving a steady increase of 50% in the annual GMV.

Today, let's talk to Wenlong, founder of Ga Ga Education, and listen to him tell the story of going out to sea from scratch to breaking through the racetrack.

seller business card
Wenlong: Founder of Gaga Education
Company name: Ga Ga Education
Interviewee: Wenlong
Main categories: children's educational toys
Main sites: North America Station, European Station
Outstanding results:
● The core product “Nursery Rhyme Storage Card” was a hit when launched in 2021. It has spawned 100+ nursery rhymes & stories series so far, and the category conversion rate is at the top
● Annual GMV growth rate reaches 50%

After graduating from the design major, Wenlong has been deeply involved in overseas design companies and leading domestic furniture companies for many years, and has been involved in cross-border business very early on. Coupled with his deep love for making products, he has planted a product dream in his heart very early: if there is an opportunity, he must sell the products he designs to the world through Amazon.

Starting a business is not about passion alone, let alone following the trend; it is about grasping the entry point of real demand.

He suffered huge losses at the beginning of his business. While he was desperate to find a new direction, his daughter's birth accident opened “another door” for him.

Becoming a new father, he turned more attention to his daughter's daily interactions, from cognitive enlightenment to parent-child interaction. For the first time, he observed children's growth needs from the perspective of a “parent” and came into contact with various early education products.

Just when his daughter was four months old, one day he had a whim and cut the courier folder into small cards and put nursery rhyme elements on it. He didn't expect this simple little demo to become his daughter's favorite toy. This made him suddenly realize that small real-life inspirations are often needs that are easily overlooked.

He immediately began research and discovered that although there are similar products on the market, they have a single function and style, and lack practical details such as storage and display. As a result, he designed two products for trial sale in the US based on the demo idea. The results were not only stable, but the conversion was also very impressive. This made him more convinced: educational toys for children are a direction worth deepening.

As a result, in 2021, he completely switched his focus to this field and officially founded his original brand.

After suffering the loss of “blindly following the trend,” Wenlong realized that chasing explosives was not a one-size-fits-all solution; to actually run out, they had to make up for their professionalism. He took two steps — making up his knowledge and digging for pain points.

Entering the new track, Wenlong knows that “understanding design ≠ understanding children”. To this end, the first step is to supplement the majors:
● Read and learn, and establish a firm theoretical foundation: He went through children's developmental psychology books, ascertained the thinking characteristics of children of different ages, understood what children at what stage should be exposed to, and then developed products around one of these points in a targeted manner.
● He went to the US to further his studies and learn professional knowledge: He specifically went to the US to study child psychology and pedagogy in depth, and used the four dimensions of children's growth: cognition, movement, emotion, and social networking as the foundation for each subsequent product.
● Offline+online, explore real needs: He will also go to offline bookstores, educational supply stores, related exhibitions, etc., to learn how to classify local products. At the same time, he will also study mature local education brands online to find differentiated opportunities to “not follow suit and match needs” in terms of materials, functions, and presentation methods.

These efforts were quickly transformed into product power, directly affecting the way he developed subsequent products, and became today's series of products such as nursery rhymes, stories, religion, and special education.

Our product inspiration comes partly from life scenarios and half from user reviews.

What he does most every day is “review reviews,” turning feedback and suggestions into inspiration for product optimization. This is how their popular felt storage clip product came about

Initially, they launched a set of 12 story cards, but the storage included was only 4 pockets. Some users complained: “I bought 12 sets of cards but couldn't fit them. If I wanted to buy an additional storage bag, I couldn't find a suitable one. It was so troublesome. ” So he immediately set to optimize:
● Upgraded capacity: He directly doubled the number of compartments in the storage folder to ensure that all 12 sets of story cards can be placed.
● Improved experience: Considering that hard edges can scratch children, I chose soft felt as the material, and the felt also has slight absorbency, so it fits cards and accessories, so you don't have to worry about losing anything when you carry it around.
● New features: Considering that teachers need to flip cards and interact with children in class, it is specially designed as a “storage+display 2 in 1”. The drawstring is fixed to the display stand, and can be operated separately, making it easy to display.

After this “felt storage display clip” went online, it soon became an “online specialty”. Many users can't buy it offline and specifically search and buy it on Amazon, and others actively share and recommend it because it really accurately solves many inconveniences.

A good design doesn't have to have a complicated structure; it saves users as much trouble as possible in one product.

Among Gaga Education's many product lines, there is also a more special branch, the special education series, and the emergence of this series also stemmed from an “unexpected review.”

After the nursery rhyme product went viral, Wenlong noticed a message: “This product is very friendly to children with autism. My kids don't usually talk much, but they are willing to interact with me with this product. Abbottt, Premiere Creative’s creative director.

This made him suddenly realize that the needs of a special group also needed attention and satisfaction, so he immediately did two things:
● Research needs: Search for keywords such as “cards for children with autism” and “special education toys” on Amazon and find that such needs do exist.
It turns out that in the US, many children with hearing impairment or autism still study in regular classes. In order to help them better integrate into the classroom, teachers, parents, and even community organizations take the initiative to find tools to learn how to communicate with them and how to get along better with other students, so there is a wide demand for relevant teaching aids.
● Trial and error development: He discovered that related products on the market have a single function and are quite expensive. As a result, he followed the idea of “soft touch+visual design” and tried to develop 2 special education communication cards. After receiving a certain response, it was gradually extended to more than 10 special education series products, such as “American Sign Language (ASL) cards,” giving his products a special differentiated label.

In dealing with these products, Wenlong himself learned a lot. While attending a community event, he successfully communicated with a hearing-impaired child using simple sign language. It was also a moment that made him realize that it would be very meaningful if we could use simple teaching aids to help more people.

We can't do everything, but if we take one requirement to the extreme, we can run out of our own space.

And as product strength slowly accumulated, a new problem also emerged: how to let more local users see these good products, and “operational shortcomings” became the key that he urgently needed to make up for in the future.

Ga Ga Education's product characteristics have always focused on non-standard product innovation. Most of the core products are new educational education products for children with no clear search requirements. This characteristic made operation and promotion face special challenges: the team still followed traditional operating ideas in the early stages, not only ignoring that non-standard products required multi-dimensional traffic entry support, but also underutilized Amazon's various operating tools, causing the promotion effect to be mediocre, and traffic and conversion bottlenecks in growth.

At the end of 2023, Wenlong learned about and joined the Amazon Seller Growth Service at the Amazon Seller Summit. It was this step that got them out of the “dark operation” dilemma.

What we are good at is turning needs into products, but how to make more people see it, we need someone to guide us, and the Amazon Seller Growth Service is like a “light” that lights up the map.

In the past, Wenlong's team relied more on feelings to adjust the listing, and it's unclear what actually affects the conversion. After joining the Amazon Seller Growth Service, for the first time, they used official tools such as Listing Diagnosis and IDQ Link Rating to intuitively see the differences in traffic, conversion, and ports of different ASINs.

What impressed Wenlong the most was the optimization effect of one of their core products: According to the Listing diagnostic report, the number of mobile visits to this product far exceeded that of the PC side, but the content of their A+ page was designed exactly according to the PC side. Originally, the reason for the poor conversion was the poor browsing experience. So I immediately optimized the A+ page suitable for mobile phones. Sure enough, the conversion effect of this product was obvious, increasing to 16.53%. Since then, they have extended this practice to other core products, and the results have also been remarkable.

In the past, every peak season, I didn't know how to prepare goods or how to advertise. Now, through bimonthly reviews and annual rhythm planning, we can clearly see the demand curve for the whole year, predict in advance which nodes demand will increase, step on time to prepare goods reasonably, and at the same time match the pace of advertising, so that inventory and budget can be used effectively.

It's like when you're playing a game, a map that was originally dark is suddenly lit up, so you don't have to touch the dark to move forward.

3 New products run with you: reset the rhythm of new products to improve success rate

In terms of new product development, the Wenlong team's biggest problem in the past was “heavy quantity”. They were able to sell dozens of models a year, but less than 20% actually ran. After joining the Seller Growth Service, the exclusive manager helped him restructure his logic: focus on core categories and use “data direction+risk preemption+planning rhythm” to improve the success rate. In 2024, a new special education product came out with this kind of company.

● Before development: The exclusive manager helped them accurately locate the entry point through sub-category data, so that the product direction stepped on the right place from the beginning.
● In the development phase: By analyzing reviews of leading products in the category, the frequent pain points and expectations of buyers are refined, the direction of product development is optimized, and existing problems are prevented from appearing in new products and affecting the order effect.
● Before the launch: The exclusive manager also disassembled the monthly “battle map” for them, progressed step by step, from sales plans and advertising goals to reach the set goals step by step.

In the end, the new product achieved impressive results as soon as it was launched (Top 3 in the New Product List), and the special education series contributed about 15% of the store's sales. More importantly, through this approach, the Wenlong team increased the success rate of new products to 50% in 2024.

In terms of brand strength, the Wenlong team also had many shortcomings in the early days. After the full review, the exclusive manager gave two suggestions: first, unify the “visible brand image”, and then solidify the “traffic that can be found.”

● Under the guidance of the exclusive manager, the team began to optimize and adjust the flagship store and brand content system, unify the visual image, and restructure the A+ page so that users can recognize it at a glance.
● At the same time, use brand tools such as ABA and BTP to conduct keyword insight and testing to obtain more potential users and expand traffic.
● Finally, with the help of a dedicated manager, we built a complete internal and external traffic system to effectively enhance brand awareness.

After making these adjustments, their brand level increased significantly, leading to a 4% increase in store turnover. At the same time, combined with product and operational improvements, overall sales increased by nearly 50% year-on-year.

Amazon Seller Growth Service, like an external “think tank,” has made up for our weakest link.

Having experienced growth from zero to “small but beautiful”, Wenlong also has a few experiences that he would like to share with more new sellers who are about to “set sail”: