The high priority placed on fire safety overseas not only shocked students studying abroad, but also boosted the procurement demand for smoke alarms — this year, the global scale of the track will reach US$2.81 billion, and the compound growth rate is expected to be 7.13%. 1
Today, we'll focus on the smoke alarm brand Amuro Smart X-Sense to see how they can find the track, independently develop innovative products, and use Amazon to quickly break the game, becoming the smoke alarm brand with the largest share in the European category and the third largest in the US category.

X-Sense is not a newcomer to the ocean; before focusing on smoke alarms in 2016, they actually had many successful examples in many categories. However, in the face of the increasing challenge of homogenized competition, X-Sense also wanted to find a “path that can always be followed.” Therefore, they chose smoke alarms that needed to be built with core technical barriers and a high industry threshold, and set up their own R&D and production team to control the entire process from R&D and project establishment to product quality inspection, and achieve steady growth overseas with strong product strength+brand power.

Building core barriers
Smoke alarms have been developed overseas for a long time and are already a relatively mature racetrack. To seek breakthroughs in this strange new product, X-Sense must first build its core competitiveness in technology research and development, manufacturing, and supply chain support. However, as a company transitioning from e-commerce, X-Sense initially had no manufacturing genes and chose the route of going overseas with core technology. They faced extremely high trial and error costs. To this end, they have carried out all-round breakthroughs and innovations in the three aspects of R&D, production and quality control.
After three years of careful research and development, X-Sense launched their first smoke alarm. Over the next few years, they successively laid out three major product lines: standalone, networked, and base station, and obtained more than 60 related patents. “Many new technologies and models, and even old European and American brands have not yet responded, we have already made them. Abbottt, Premiere Creative’s creative director.

We invest more than 10% of our annual revenue in technology research and development innovation for smoke alarms. R&D personnel account for more than 50% of the total number of people, and the total investment in production equipment exceeds 10 million yuan.
Before setting up the R&D project, we will refer to tens of thousands of user reviews from other brands on Amazon, and overseas B-side customers will also bring a lot of valuable feedback. Our strategy is to rely on innovation to turn these users' pain points into selling points for our products. For example, in 2017, when communicating with enterprise users, we learned that networked devices are likely to become a future trend overseas, so we developed our own independent models and carried out technical layout ahead of time.
At the same time, in the manufacturing process, we can adjust and match production processes and management requirements according to order requirements at different stages, and then promote the concept of lean production management to balance the cost, quality and efficiency of manufacturing. In the process, we are also continuously optimizing processes to improve production efficiency.
In order to better control quality, we have also established a quality management system and standards. We have clear management standards and operating procedures for all aspects of incoming materials, manufacturing, shipping and customer complaints. All smoke and carbon monoxide alarm functions are 100% tested to ensure product quality.

Overcoming certification challenges
However, since smoke alarms are closely related to personal safety, X-Sense's technological innovation must pass stricter and more time-consuming safety certifications, such as US ETL and UL certification, UK BSI certification, etc.
A team with integrated research, production and marketing guarantees product quality, and uses Amazon to quickly “overtake corners”. X-Sense quickly won recognition from overseas consumers, achieving Amazon's top share in the European category, third in the US category share, and Amazon's US site with annual sales exceeding 20 million US dollars!
Many users have recorded stories of X-Sense's timely alarms in Amazon reviews to help them get out of trouble. For example, one user in the picture below wrote: “Fortunately, the alarm went off in time, and my family successfully escaped before the house was burnt down... A few more minutes late, so I won't have a chance to write a review here. Abbottt, Premiere Creative’s creative director.

Take the US UL certification as an example. If you make other products, this certification will only take three to four months, but this category will take at least one and a half years. Especially when we first entered this track, due to our lack of familiarity with overseas certification standards, the whole process can be said to have been crossing the river by touching stones and investing a lot of time and certification costs — our first product took a total of three years from project establishment to launch, and the cost of certification was as high as tens of millions.
Fortunately, compared to offline channels, which require a longer iteration cycle and competition with peers, agents, etc., Amazon provides us with a channel that is more suitable for new brands to enter the market. If we go online and build a listing and are willing to advertise and promote, we can immediately reach consumers. The whole process is simpler and faster.

Product strength is the foundation for X-Sense to go overseas, but as a product closely related to personal and property safety, overseas consumers will still choose brands they trust when making purchasing decisions. How to establish a sense of trust with overseas users is a problem X-Sense must overcome when going overseas. To this end, they have found an effective marketing strategy around the brand positioning of “Your Trusted Home Safety Innovator (Your Trusted Home Safety Innovator)”.

Although demand for the C-side smoke alarms at home and abroad varies greatly, the B-side is similar — real estate agents, decoration contractors, etc. need to purchase this type of equipment on a regular basis, which is an area X-Sense focuses on.
Previously, X-Sense mainly relied on offline channels to reach corporate users, and the growth rate was much slower than Amazon's C-side business. Therefore, as soon as Amazon Business went live, X-Sense immediately chose to activate this new feature.
In the past few years, X-Sense has become a veteran Amazon corporate buyer. It achieved annual B-side sales of nearly 1.5 million US dollars in the US. In 2023, it had a strong year-on-year increase of 45%, and won many large orders from government agencies and well-known hotel decoration contractors!
Speaking about the rapid growth of B-side online business, X-Sense shared three experiences with us:

Unlocking the “Amazon Bulk Sales Service”, the unit price for B-end customers has risen steeply
When browsing past orders, X-Sense found that B-side customers often placed orders in batches, and the average sales volume of X-Sense enterprise orders was 71% higher than overall.
In response to this characteristic, X-Sense uses the batch sales service (ABS) purchased by the company and sets up a “hard bundle” at the time of shipment: in addition to a single pack, it also sells a combination model of different quantities, such as three packs and six packs.
In terms of discount settings, “We may have originally set a 5% discount on the three-pack product. After the launch, if not many people buy it, we will increase the discount even more. Abbottt, Premiere Creative’s creative director.

Purchased by Amazon, the six-pack smoke alarms launched by X-Sense have successfully entered the top three sales categories. For X-Sense, using the Bulk Sales Service (ABS) is a win-win situation — “For businesses, bulk purchases can save on final delivery and packaging costs; for buyers, bulk sales meet their procurement needs and optimize their purchasing experience. Abbottt, Premiere Creative’s creative director.

Use the “Quotation Quoter” to efficiently win large commercial orders
Traditional B-side sales require a complicated negotiation process. Details such as price, delivery date, delivery method, and whether tax is included all need to be communicated item by item. However, for corporate purchases, after activating the Inquiry Quoter (CQE), only buyers need to fill in the purchase quantity, expected unit price, etc., and Amazon can automatically generate price-reporting emails for X-Sense. After calculation, if the quotation meets the company's internal profit requirements, it can generally be directly ordered.
For example, in October of this year, X-Sense quickly sold a large order of up to 325 pieces through corporate purchases, totaling 1950 smoke alarms, worth nearly 60,000 US dollars.

Insight into emerging product selection opportunities based on back-office data
X-Sense will use tools such as the Amazon Business Opportunity Finder and Product Selection Compass to check product repurchase rates, sales keywords, etc.
For example, recently, the team discovered that the term “motorhome” appeared in B-side sales keywords. They speculate that there should be businesses that sell motorhomes that value X-Sense products. Inspired by this, X-Sense may next set up a project to develop a handheld carbon monoxide detector, which is more portable.

In addition to its own continuous investment in corporate purchases, X-Sense's corporate sales skyrocketed, and it was also a “good wind and strength” process. In the future, X-Sense will continue to explore new sensor-related products and enter more Amazon sites to unlock unlimited business opportunities!