pertwk Chapter 146: Co-branded Phone Cases Launched
Chapter 146: Co-branded Phone Cases Launched
Chapter 146: Co-branded Phone Cases Launched
Inside a factory in Yiwu, Wang Zaixing approved a qualified mobile phone case manufacturer, Boss Jin, and subsequently Boss Jin signed a cooperation agreement with Pinduoduo.
The contract clearly stipulates that the cost of purchasing the copyright will be borne by Mr. Jin, Pinduoduo will provide him with traffic support, and Pinduoduo will also charge a 5% service fee.
After everything was agreed upon and the contract was signed, Lin Mu introduced the copyright resources from Hong Kong and Taiwan to Boss Jin, and also brought along the pre-designed phone case blueprints.
Among them, the most important are the F4 from "Meteor Garden" plus a female lead. Lin Mu designed a total of 6 designs, 5 of which are individual cartoon images of the F4 and the female lead, and the last one is a group photo of the five of them.
There are three key points to this collaboration: the first is the official co-branding license.
Secondly, there's the issue of cartoon character design. The phone case market is still in its infancy, and manufacturers are still using the old approach of printing real-life images directly onto protective cases. This not only makes the phone cases look cheap but also gives off a strange vibe.
After replacing them with cartoon characters of the same proportions, the visual effect became much more pleasing.
The last important point is the material of the phone case. The transparent phone cases that are now common on the market were considered a major innovation in 2010.
The hottest phone case of 2010 looks ugly by today's standards, like a slipper, but it sold like hotcakes back then.
(Like this)
Lin Mu instructed Boss Jin to directly develop a transparent PC hard shell. This material is not difficult to master. Originally, it was supposed to be available in another year, but now that there is a relevant research foundation, it is not difficult to develop it a year ahead of schedule.
If this material can be successfully developed, and combined with official collaborations, it could completely disrupt the existing phone case market.
After some time, Mr. Jin successfully developed a PC hard case using existing technology. Since it was newly produced, the cost of manufacturing this phone case was still high, at 5 yuan per case. Adding the cost of printing the cartoon image using laser printing technology further increased the cost. Moreover, there were co-branding copyright fees and service fees charged by Pinduoduo. All these miscellaneous costs brought the production cost of this small phone case to a staggering 15 yuan.
Of course, as production volume increases, manufacturing processes mature, and yield rates improve, production costs will gradually decrease. At that point, even including IP licensing fees and Pinduoduo service fees, the cost of a phone case will only increase by six or seven yuan.
By mid-September, Mr. Jin had rushed to produce 1000 phone cases.
Wang Zaixing listed all 1000 phone cases on the Pinduoduo platform.
In terms of pricing, they came up with a clever idea: after discussing it with Wang Zaixing, Lin Mu decided not to price it according to the general industrial product approach, but rather to follow the IP licensing product model to precisely target users.
Therefore, they priced the items according to the popularity of the F4 members: the female lead version was the basic version, priced at 19.9 yuan each; the F4 member versions were priced one or two yuan more than the basic version, depending on their popularity; the group photo version was the most expensive, priced at 29.9 yuan.
In addition, they also offer a basic model with a pure PC hard shell without any paint or printing. This model is the cheapest, priced at 9.9 yuan with free shipping.
At Lin Mu's suggestion, they also launched blind box items, priced at 9.9 yuan each, with the possibility of getting a plain white hard case or a rare family portrait edition.
After the product was launched, Lin Mu remembered his past network of contacts.
He took out a batch of phone cases, approached Factory Director Mao, and asked him to give them away for free to long-time users of "Spring Diary" through his own channels.
Firstly, it can increase the stickiness of fans of "Spring Diary".
Secondly, those who can buy the "Spring Diary" stockings are mostly fashionable urban white-collar women, who are very likely to become the target users of the phone case and can also encourage those around them to buy it.
Zhang Xiaohua, who works at GG Company, had just returned to her rented apartment when she saw a package at her door.
She picked it up and saw that the recipient of the package was herself. Zhang Xiaohua usually shops online, but she didn't remember ordering anything recently.
She opened the package, and inside was a phone case. It was an exceptionally beautiful phone case, entirely transparent, with an exquisitely designed Q-version cartoon character printed on it. The cartoon character looked strangely familiar.
"Huh? Isn't that Hua Ze Lei from 'Meteor Shower'?" Zhang Xiaohua was overjoyed.
"Meteor Shower" was a TV series she watched in junior high school. It was incredibly popular when she was a child, and the TV station kept replaying it. She even bought the DVDs to collect, but she lost them somewhere when she moved. Looking at this phone case now, she's filled with nostalgia.
Coincidentally, her favorite character when she was a child was Hanazawa Rui, who was her childhood ideal. "Did a friend buy this for me?" Zhang Xiaohua, an urban white-collar worker at GG Company, had a good salary of 4000 yuan a month and bought an iPhone 4.
Right now, her iPhone is wearing a pink panda phone case, which she bought on Taobao for 24 yuan. Now, compared to the transparent phone case with Hanazawa Rui printed on it, this pink panda phone case is instantly utterly shattered.
Zhang Xiaohua removed her old phone case and put on a new one.
Just then, she noticed a missing note in the package. Was it a message from her friend?
She picked up the note and read: "Dear customer, we are the owners of Chunri Shop in Zashi. A friend of ours makes phone cases, and we thought his cases were especially beautiful, so we got a batch from him to give back to our loyal customers. This beautiful phone case is free for you. We hope to have you by our side throughout our lives. If your friend wants to buy a phone case, you can ask them to check it out on Pinduoduo~"
"Huh? It wasn't a gift from a friend, it's from the stocking shop I always buy from!" Zhang Xiaohua was taken aback. This was the first time she had ever heard of a shop giving away small gifts to its regular customers for free. A warm feeling welled up inside her, and she was extremely pleased with this unexpected surprise.
The next day, Zhang Xiaohua went to work with her new phone case. While waiting for the elevator, she happened to run into her boss. Zhang Xiaohua wasn't nervous; companies like this one practice flat management, and everyone in the company knows each other and can call each other by name.
Mr. Lü was browsing celebrity gossip on Sina Weibo with his iPhone. He glanced at Zhang Xiaohua out of the corner of his eye and nodded in greeting. Then his gaze fell on Zhang Xiaohua's phone case; the cartoon character on it looked somewhat familiar.
Boss Lü greeted her, "Xiao Hua, you changed your phone case?"
Zhang Xiaohua said with a hint of pride, "Yeah, boss, what do you think? Isn't it especially beautiful?"
Boss Lü frowned slightly and asked, "Who is this cartoon character? He looks familiar."
Zhang Xiaohua replied with a smile, "Boss, you must have seen it too! It's Hua Ze Lei from 'Meteor Garden'."
Mr. Lü suddenly realized and said, "Looking at it now, it really does look like it! Where did you buy your phone case? It's really nice, much prettier than mine."
Zhang Xiaohua glanced at Boss Lü's phone case and noticed it was exactly the same as the one she had replaced—a pink panda. A slight smile played on her lips, a small sense of superiority rising within her. She said with a touch of smugness, "I didn't buy this; the store gave it to me for free."
"Didn't I often buy stockings from a shop on Taobao before?" Zhang Xiaohua said, briefly explaining the whole story.