"Dominating" Douyin and Video Account, this track finally has a "number one"

Starting from OEM, Xiahushijia quickly rose to prominence on Douyin through the "price war" strategy of the source factory, the personal IP created by founder Guo Changqi, and the establishment of hundreds of live broadcast matrix accounts. This article will deeply analyze how Xiahushijia found a breakthrough point in the male consumer market and became a benchmark case in the men's clothing track.

A men's clothing brand from Zhongshan, Guangdong, has become the new "number one" in the men's clothing market on Douyin.

For most Douyin users, the brand "Xia Hu Shi Jia" is somewhat unfamiliar. This men's clothing brand, which started out as an OEM, entered Douyin in 2020. It first gained a foothold by relying on the "price war" strategy of the source factory, and then built hundreds of live broadcast matrix accounts, achieving rapid growth.

In 2023, Xiahu Shijia's cumulative GMV reached 700 million yuan, and by 2024, this figure became 1.2 billion yuan, which shows the expansion of its influence. Just last year, Xiahu Shijia also cooperated with Dong Mingzhu to complete the "promotion of the star", and "Dong Mingzhu visited Xiahu Shijia four times" has become a publicity gimmick for the brand several times.

Image source: Xiahu Family

According to Chanmama data, Xiahushijia's cumulative transaction volume exceeded 100 million in the past 90 days. Among them, the official flagship store's monthly sales reached 25 million to 50 million, and live broadcasts contributed more than 98%. After switching to video accounts in 2024, Xiahushijia's GMV exceeded 100 million in just half a year, and now its cumulative transaction volume has exceeded 200 million.

As we all know, despite the iterations of online e-commerce, male consumption power is still a problem repeatedly mentioned by the industry. Starting from an OEM factory, to "grasping" the most difficult male users, to becoming the top men's clothing brand on Douyin, to expanding on multiple platforms, and having a GMV of over 100 million, how did Xiahu Shijia become a benchmark case in the men's clothing track?

01 Starting from "price war" and "good personality"

In the early days, Xiahushijia started out as an OEM, and had worked as an OEM for brands such as Septwolves and Septwolves for many years. In May 2020, due to the sluggish business of offline specialty stores, founder Guo Changqi turned his attention to online e-commerce and opened an account "Xiahushijia" on Douyin.

After reviewing Xiahushijia's e-commerce strategy, Kas summarized it into two points:

1. Taking advantage of the source factory, they entered the game with a "price war" to emphasize their own strength;
2. The boss started to create IP and repeatedly deepened people’s minds through popular content.

The supply chain advantage brought by the source factory has given Xiahu Shijia, which was originally an OEM, the confidence to "squeeze prices" on Douyin. At that time, Xiahu Shijia's stock was mainly men's short-sleeved shirts, shoes and socks, underwear, and casual pants, with an average price of about 45 yuan. There were not many products with a customer unit price of more than 100 yuan. A simple cotton white T-shirt cost about 29.9 yuan. This stock undoubtedly caters to the needs of the sinking market.

While emphasizing cost-effectiveness, Xia Hu Shi Jia also uses its years of processing experience as endorsement, and sets the direction of its publicity as "higher quality-price ratio for the same product". Through short videos and live broadcasts, it repeatedly emphasizes its own fabrics and workmanship, and achieves "higher quality than its peers", making it the first to break out among the white-label products in the same track.

Image source: Xiahu Family

Emphasis on content is another key point for Xiahushijia. It is worth noting that the Xiahushijia account is completely based on the personal IP of its founder Guo Changqi.

In the early days of joining Douyin, Guo Changqi created a persona for himself that was a "successful person", talking about life and work in front of the camera and sharing his personal experience, but this persona did not gain recognition from users. After that, Guo Changqi "apprenticed" to Zhang Dapao, the boss of Goya Lighting at the time, and his persona was transformed into a down-to-earth and conscientious entrepreneur who cared about his employees.

In the video released by Xiahu Family, Guo Changqi ate with employees in the cafeteria, visited the factory in person to ask about employees' well-being, and held an annual meeting to distribute red envelopes to employees. These down-to-earth interactions have brought his personality as an amiable and practical entrepreneur who cares about employees to the extreme, which has resonated with many users and also attracted a large number of potential consumers.

In one year, Xia Hu Shi Jia’s Douyin account gained nearly 3 million followers.

In addition to these contents that serve the "personality", Xiahu Family has also worked hard on content seeding, releasing more than 4,300 videos in 5 years. Guo Changqi personally tries on and explains clothes, announces new products, and endorses his products, deepening his personality while selling goods. Almost every time a new product is released, he will take his employees to appear on camera and shoot dozens of short videos, repeatedly seeding the product from multiple dimensions such as price, craftsmanship, fabrics, and materials.

Image source: Xiahu Family

In order to obtain more public domain traffic, Xiahu Family also actively takes advantage of hot spots to promote its brand or products. For example, when Nezha 2 was a hit, Guo Changqi expressed his support for the box office and decided to invite 1,000 employees from the factory to watch Nezha. One day later, a banner and poster with the words "Xiahu Family helps Nezha 2 break the world record" appeared in another video. The number of likes for the two videos tagged with "Nezha" was higher than that of other works.

Image source: Xiahu Family

However, with Guo Changqi as the core, it also means that Guo Changqi is the absolute main force in both short videos and live broadcasts. In order to reduce this dependence, after becoming quite proficient in building his personal IP, Guo Changqi gradually gave the IP effect to his son "Little Guo", led his family and employees to appear on the screen together, and built hundreds of matrix accounts on Douyin. These accounts share the popular sliced ​​videos of the official account to help the brand receive more traffic.

Matrix accounts are also an important source of transactions for Xia Hu Shi Jia. Among them, the best sales performance are from Mr. Xiao Guo’s light luxury account and @夏湖世家 flagship store (Xiao He), with monthly GMV of 1 million to 2.5 million.

In 2024, Xiahushijia's cumulative transaction volume on Douyin reached 1.2 billion yuan, of which nearly 60% was from live broadcasts, 7% from videos, and 33% from product cards. Although the brand has also entered the live broadcasts of top influencers such as @交个朋友 and @与辉同行, the sales share of this part is not high.

It was also in this year that the brand entered the battlefield of video accounts. In the video accounts with more human touch and county attributes, Xiahushijia's content advantage is more obvious. Up to now, the cumulative transaction of Xiahushijia video account has exceeded 200 million, making it the leading men's clothing brand on the platform.

02 Xia Hu Family, how to "plant grass" for men?

One of the questions that the menswear circuit often faces is what we might call “choose a man or a woman?”

As male spending power has been criticized, for some men's clothing brands, the audience of their live broadcast rooms is still mainly female, that is, selling men's clothing by attracting female customers. For example, @冯美好宝藏号, which is also a leader in the men's clothing market, has a monthly GMV of 25 million to 50 million, but female consumers account for more than 50% of the account, and most of the products selected for live broadcasts are the same for couples.

In comparison, Xiahushijia's audience is mainly middle-aged men. According to Chanmama data, men account for 80% of its live broadcast room, and the age range is 35-41 years old, accounting for more than 53%. How does Xiahushijia solve the "male" problem? Kas believes that perhaps we can get a glimpse of it from Xiahushijia's content strategy.

As we all know, when it comes to consumer choices, men's brand loyalty is not high. They pay more attention to cost-effectiveness and prefer practicality and "all-in-one", that is, one product meets multiple needs. This tendency is often reflected in consumer decisions, that is, the core selling point needs to be highlighted in a short period of time.

In response to this, Xia Hu Shi Jia has a set of concise sales pitches to promote transaction efficiency with concrete selling points.

For example, the description of a pineapple flower cool T-shirt is "pineapple texture, very high quality", "highly breathable, very comfortable", "big brand"; for a water-repellent down jacket, Xia Hu Shi Jia's description is "one piece of clothing with three wears, a detachable Hungarian water-repellent down jacket, which can be worn from 20 degrees Celsius to minus 15 degrees Celsius", "The Hungarian water-repellent goose down jacket is machine washable, easy to care for, and not afraid of humid weather"; the description of a waterproof soft-shell jacket is "not even the water pressure from a fire hose can penetrate it."

In the brand’s promotional videos, these selling points are generally clearly expressed within 10 seconds, accurately grasping the male consumer psychology.

On the other hand, Xia Hu Shi Jia seized on the male desire to "spend little money to achieve big things" and the "success study" tendency to raise its own status.

For example, men's T-shirts are an important product that Xiahu Shijia relies on to start its business, and it is also a category of advantage that the brand intends to build. In order to show its high quality, founder Guo Changqi will repeatedly emphasize his own craftsmanship and technology in various content fields, as well as "warning to peers" - "There is no reason why T-shirts cannot be made by you", "General factories cannot make them", "I will say one last thing, T-shirt makers, don't fight with me, I will roll up T-shirts."

In order to strengthen consumer trust, Xia Hu Shi Jia also consciously compares its products with other first-line brands, bringing the two to the same level, "compared with the offline products of seven or eight hundred yuan, which are made just like first-line brands", creating an illusion of identity recognition for consumers.

Image source: Xiahu Family

In 2024, Dong Mingzhu visited Xiahu Family three times and entered the live broadcast room to promote the brand. At Xiahu Family's Double 11 special event, Dong Mingzhu personally demonstrated the effect of wearing clothes, and certified that a down jacket "is no worse than the 10,000 yuan one abroad" and "If you buy it in the market outside, I believe that domestic products will cost 1,000 yuan, and it can't be lower than this price."

During this period, video clips of Guo Changqi chatting and live streaming with Dong Mingzhu were all over Xiahu Family's homepage. During this period, Dong Mingzhu joked that she would give Yu Minhong a goose down jacket, and then "The same style as the billionaire president, you can also easily own it" became the most powerful slogan of Xiahu Family.

Image source: Xiahu Family

What’s interesting is that just recently, Gree’s offline stores have changed their signs to “Dong Mingzhu Healthy Home”. Combined with Dong Mingzhu’s activities on Douyin, it seems to indicate her determination to sink into the Douyin ecosystem and create a personal IP.

However, from another perspective, the cooperation with Dong Mingzhu may be a part of Xiahushijia's high-end and branding. Xiahushijia, which started with low prices, seems unwilling to sink into the market and is exploring the road to high-end development.

Judging from the goods on the pallet, Xia Hu Shijia's average customer spending has generally increased compared with previous years, partly due to seasonal reasons. However, in addition to the original popular products, Xia Hu Shijia has also carefully created some products with higher average customer spending as new main products.

For example, the "one piece of clothing, three wears" goose down jacket with a unit price of 798 yuan, which was also the main down jacket promoted during Dong Mingzhu's visit, has been sold 41,000 units in the Douyin store. Similarly, there are the "200-count round-neck T-shirts" known as the "Three Treasures of Xia Lake", with a unit price of 299 yuan, and the store shows that 20,000 units have been sold.

At present, Xiahushijia's best-selling product is a 200-count 7A polylactic acid underwear with a "Prestige Series" label, with a customer unit price of 299 yuan. This is also one of the brand's recent main models, showing that 194,000 pieces have been sold. This shows that the brand's influence is stable.

03 Summary

Although the purchasing power is relatively weak, the scale of the domestic men's clothing market is also continuing to increase slowly, from 308.1 billion yuan in 2009 to 566.1 billion yuan in 2023. Young and middle-aged consumers aged 15 to 35 have gradually become the main force in the market.

In fact, if we look back at the male consumption cases that have gone viral since last year, we will find that the live broadcast rooms that try to pry open men's wallets have more or less a "success study" atmosphere. In the past, there was Gaoduanjie selling men's trousers, recommending "high-end trousers worn by powerful men" to users in a spacious and bright business-style model room. Later, there was Macao Cocojie, who sold low-priced goods in the posture of a female boss. While being extremely entertaining, she also gave male users the imagination of their identity. Even Xiahushijia, which won with its supply chain, has positioned itself as "bosses who want to be rich must wear CEO pants."

However, Macau Coco Sister and High-end Sister mainly sell low-priced white-label products, with the average customer price ranging from a dozen to several dozen yuan. As long as the return rate is not higher than the industry average, this type of entertainment form will be profitable for e-commerce live broadcasts. Once you can establish your own unique style and attract core fans to watch and interact for a long time, you can get more natural traffic recommendations, thus starting the road to increasing fans and breaking the circle.

But the problem is that the entertainment IP formed with anchors as the core may not have enough user favorability to transfer to the brand, and the overall loyalty is not enough, and the failure caused by product quality may be even more dangerous. From this perspective, Xiahu Shijia, which has grown into a sufficiently influential brand, may provide a way for white-label products with the same origin to make the transition.

Author: Chao Guan