在国内做到第一后，出海这道题，徕芬怎么答？

This article focuses on Laifen, the market share leader in China’s high-speed hair dryer sector, and outlines its accelerated globalization strategy and operational tactics six years after its founding. Key takeaways are as follows:

1. Laifen’s global expansion timeline and core goals: The brand followed a "domestic validation first, overseas expansion second" path. It began testing the Southeast Asian market in 2022, then gradually expanded to North America and Europe, and will enter an official accelerated globalization phase in 2026. From January to May this year, its North American revenue grew nearly 400%, while growth in Europe and through Amazon channels neared 200%. Laifen targets overseas revenue to account for more than half of its total revenue by 2028.

2. Core lessons from Laifen’s expansion: Laifen argues that building a global brand has no shortcuts. The key is long-term adherence to proven, effective practices, summarized as "full-market penetration, localized deep cultivation, and category benchmark repositioning." It prioritizes long-term brand building over chasing short-term sales conversion.

This article shares the globalization strategy and brand building experience of Laifen, China’s leading personal care brand, offering valuable insights for brands planning to expand overseas. Key takeaways are as follows:

1. Strategic positioning: Laifen validated its product strength and business model in the domestic market before going global. It has capitalized on the structural gap in the global hair dryer market, positioning itself as a brand driving the mass-market upgrade of the high-speed hair dryer category by replicating its proven domestic mass-market development path globally.

2. Channel development: Laifen abandoned the traditional online-first cross-border model and transformed into an integrated online-offline omni-channel system, with a focus on breaking into mainstream offline retail channels in Europe and North America. It has repositioned its independent site as a brand awareness hub rather than a purely sales channel.

3. Brand building: Laifen has developed a three-step implementation framework: first secure core placement at key channels, then expand the brand awareness funnel, and finally build a local team for in-depth operation. It emphasizes long-termism and warns against misaligned execution caused by overeagerness for quick results.

This article breaks down Laifen’s full end-to-end cross-border expansion path, organizing actionable experience, market opportunities, and risk warnings for cross-border sellers. Key takeaways are as follows:

1. Market opportunities: The global personal care appliance sector is currently undergoing a category upgrade wave, with clear market gaps for products such as high-speed hair dryers. Competition in European and North American markets is far less intense than in China, and leading incumbents have slow iteration speeds, leaving ample room for Chinese brands to grow. North America is currently the core market with the largest growth potential.

2. Actionable lessons to adopt: In the early expansion stage, avoid overextending across multiple categories; instead, prioritize building brand recognition around a proven core category. Don’t only focus on short-term sales conversion—access to local mainstream offline channels is critical to building consumer trust. Don’t directly copy fast-paced domestic operating models; adapt to the slower feedback cycle of overseas markets.

3. Risk warnings: Overseas channel chains are long and require extended investment cycles. Sellers need sufficient patience for long-term layout. Overeagerness for quick results often leads to strategic misalignment, making it impossible to build long-term brand barriers.

This article outlines Laifen’s global expansion path and core competitiveness, offering multiple insights for factories in the personal care appliance sector. Key takeaways are as follows:

1. Product design and manufacturing demand: The global market is seeing a mass-market upgrade of high-performance personal care appliances, with consumers demanding higher performance and user experience for products including high-speed hair dryers, electric shavers, and electric toothbrushes. Factories that master core technology and deliver consistent product performance have substantial market opportunities.

2. Insights for digital and e-commerce transformation: Laifen’s global competitiveness stems from in-house R&D of core components and full-stack core manufacturing capabilities. This demonstrates that only by mastering core technology and improving end-to-end production efficiency can factories build competitive moats in global competition. Pure OEM factories without core core technology struggle to secure long-term growth.

3. Business cooperation opportunities: Laifen is accelerating its overseas expansion and domestic omni-channel layout, and will gradually expand into more consumer goods categories. Factories with technical and production capacity advantages can pursue cooperation opportunities with Laifen to unlock new growth.

This article sorts out the latest trends of leading Chinese personal care brands going global, and summarizes the core pain points and demands of current cross-border brands, offering valuable insights for service providers supporting globalization. Key takeaways are as follows:

1. Industry development trend: A growing number of Chinese brands that have already achieved leading positions in the domestic market are now elevating globalization to a core corporate strategy. The goal of brand globalization has shifted from early-stage cross-border arbitrage sales to building authentic global brands, with more focus on long-term brand building rather than short-term sales growth.

2. Core pain points for cross-border brands: Most globalizing Chinese brands lack localized operational capabilities, and struggle to adapt to longer overseas channel chains and slower market feedback cycles. Many brands commit to long-term brand building strategically, but end up chasing short-term conversion due to insufficient localization capacity, leading to strategic misalignment.

3. Opportunity directions for service providers: Service providers can develop targeted offerings centered on the localization demands of globalizing brands, including offline channel connection, local marketing execution, and local team building. These services help brands complete core steps such as accessing mainstream channels and running full-funnel brand marketing, addressing the core pain points of long-term brand building.

This article introduces Laifen’s channel demand and layout strategy during its global expansion, offering valuable reference for platform operators active in the cross-border space. Key takeaways are as follows:

1. Core demands of expansion-stage brands: Leading globalizing Chinese brands in the expansion phase are no longer satisfied with only transaction functions from platforms. They also require platforms to support overseas brand building, and connect them with mainstream offline retail resources to help brands enter the daily consumption scenarios of local consumers.

2. Optimizable operational directions for platforms: Online cross-border e-commerce platforms can provide more full-funnel brand marketing tools and resources for leading Chinese brands to help them expand reach and build consumer trust. Offline overseas retail platforms can open dedicated access channels for high-quality Chinese brands, introducing product-strong brands to enrich their own category portfolios.

3. Risk mitigation guidance: Platforms need to adjust their operational services to accommodate the long-cycle, slow-feedback characteristics of overseas markets, lower barriers to entry for brands, and help them adapt to localized operating rhythms. This prevents misoperation caused by brands’ overeagerness for quick results, which would harm the overall platform ecosystem.

This article documents the latest practice of indigenous Chinese brands going global, summarizes new characteristics and emerging problems of current Chinese brand globalization, and offers valuable source material for industrial research. Key takeaways are as follows:

1. New industrial trends: A new globalization path has emerged for Chinese brands: a growing number are following the "domestic product and business validation first, global brand building second" route, different from the earlier OEM-first or born-global models. These brands have mature supply chains and proven product strength, and their globalization goal is to drive global category upgrades and build globally recognized brands.

2. New industry problems: Many current globalizing Chinese brands face a common issue of strategic execution disconnect. They position themselves as global brand builders strategically, but end up replicating fast-growth domestic experience and chasing short-term conversion operationally, making it hard to adapt to the long-cycle, slow-growth nature of overseas markets and ultimately build long-term brand moats.

3. A new business model case study: Laifen’s globalization approach of "full-market penetration, localized deep cultivation, and category benchmark repositioning" provides a new research sample for latecomer Chinese brands going global. It confirms the core value of long-term infrastructure building for global brand development, and enriches the research case library of Chinese brand globalization.