He used a cardboard box to shake a trillion industry

A carton is common to many people, but it affects our lives every day. Today, the number of cartons consumed by major e-commerce companies is an astronomical number. In 2017, tens of billions of corrugated boxes were used.

 

Traditional cartons are cumbersome to package. And a seemingly simple zipper design allows the temperature and convenience of the tens of billions of logistics cartons, while greatly reducing the work intensity of the packaging process.

 

 

 

The person who made such innovation is Xing Kai. And his unusual innovation company called a tear.

 

 

 

Traditional industry

 

Xing Kai is a very thoughtful person with a strained appearance and a high degree of social infection.

 

He is a science student born in medicine and has worked as a product manager at Acorn International. He has a strong sense of logical thinking and hands-on ability, and he likes the feeling that he seems to be doing it in play. In his own words, "playing and playing has become the youngest executive of the company."

 

Colleagues feel that he is "very god", and he is quick to do anything, and what projects can be produced. Although Xing Kai holds a million annual salary in Acorn International, but after a long time, I still feel that there is no challenge in the work, and some "played boring."

 

Later, Taobao rose, Xing Kai and a few friends to think about it, simply resigned and started to play Taobao.

 

This play, play a net red cosmetics store with annual sales of tens of millions.

 

Dry shop should be shipped every day, Xing Kai has long been impatient to pack tape, and think about adding a zipper to the carton, which can save a lot of things. Later, he discovered that many people asked him not to buy cosmetics, but to name the name of the small box with a zipper.

 

Xing Kai feels interesting and realizes that this may be an opportunity to enter the big market for packaging. After all, the carton has not been changed for more than a hundred years since its invention. He feels that with his "playing heart", he may succeed in this traditional field.

 

So, from the Taobao shop to get out, Xing Kai created a tear.

 

 

Defeat Vipshop

 

“At the beginning of the tearing, there were only ‘seven or eight people, a dozen guns’.” Xing Kai had his own understanding of entrepreneurship in the traditional packaging field four years ago. "At that time, I was a little ‘I don’t know how to be serious.’”

 

But he felt that zipper cartons should be promising.

 

Each year, about 30 billion express parcels are issued in China. The opening of each carton is wrapped with tape for two turns, and the dosage is nearly 2 meters. In this way, the length of the sealing tape can be used around the earth for 500 laps per year. Scotch tape is not only non-degradable, but also makes it difficult to separate the carton from the plastic, increasing the cost of recycling. With zipper cartons, these problems can be solved.

 

Xing Kai feels that this is the "pain point" of the packaging industry.

 

Of course, he is still confident in entering this industry. After all, at the beginning, several home appliance giants were interested in his zipper cartons. The most positive of these is the Vipshop.

 

When the relevant person in charge of Vipshop found Xing Kai, they said that they liked a torn carton. Because: "This carton is very sexy, and the user has a three-second pleasure when opening it."

 

 

 

Xing Kai is very grateful to Vipshop, and their carton will be used in Vipshop for half a year. "In the past six months, we have been constantly optimizing our products, trying to standardize them as much as possible, and we must maintain our quality in line with the supply chain of Vipshop." Xing Kai believes that it is worthwhile to mention the hardships of the past six months.

 

But in the end it was a problem. One day in 2014, Xing Kai received a phone call from the purchasing department of Vipshop, and the other party requested to terminate the cooperation. "Your box is too expensive. If I use up the 100,000, I will stop using it." A blue sky is so stunned that it will fall into disarray.

 

"At the time, I really felt that the sky was falling." When I mentioned that experience, Xing Kai was a bit reluctant to recall, but he eventually chose to get up.

 

At this time, he discovered that the traditional industry has its own rules, and it can not be subverted casually. With a cost, Xing Kai will be hit by blood. "Vipshop will think that this carton is good, it is expensive, a box is expensive 0.1 yuan. For Vipshop, this kind of enterprise that may use hundreds of millions of boxes in the whole year, it is a tens of millions of cost increments."

 

How to do? Xing Kai chose the most difficult road and calmed down to study the industry.

 

He found that there is no product model in this industry, and the cost of each is not transparent. Every carton manufacturer can't cure the cost of the carton. He felt that this might be the direction to solve the problem, so the product manager's "axis" came up. He found the carton manufacturers that he could find, and the family researched.

 

Then, digitally model and analyze the carton to find a model that digitizes and tears the carton. In the end, Xing Kai will tear up and become the first company in China to digitize packaging.

 

Since then, the carton market, for Xing Kai, is a flat horse. Because a torn carton is no longer paper, but data!

 

At that time, Xing Kai did not realize that his model of digital carton would have a revolutionary impact on the entire packaging industry. Xing Kai brought the digital thinking and product operation into this industry, not only to get a chance to leapfrog development, but also to make the packaging industry's supply chain and production structure have undergone earth-shaking changes.

 

Using the model, he found a just-best boundary that would ensure the firmness of the carton and the “pleasure” of the consumer unboxing. The most important thing is to solve the problem of high cost. Everything looks simple.

 

This box, which was not taped and peeled open for three seconds, quickly became a "net red."

 

Therefore, Vipshop will come back. Ali, Xiaomi, Durex, L'Oreal, three squirrels and other e-commerce brands have become his customers.

 

A tear has finally stabilized in the packaging industry.

 

 

 

Innovation is the catcher

 

Cross-border development, innovation is fundamental. Starting from the zipper carton, Xing Kai’s innovation is unstoppable.

 

He found that the person who made the package wasted a lot of time in the tape bonding process and invented the wave double-sided tape. “We made the best tear tape in the world and it can be torn in just one second. The standard we designed is that we want to have an untrained employee in a warehouse at minus 10 degrees. After getting the carton, you can Start using instinct."

 

Xing Kai even gave the carton an anti-theft function. For different levels, a torn carton has a variety of anti-theft methods. As a result, I got the order from China's largest luxury e-commerce company. The reason is simple, because a tear can bring them a sense of security.

 

But then, Xing Kai was the second directional product that she had chosen to tear, so that many people in the packaging industry couldn't understand it.

 

Xing Kai wants to make a plastic bag that can reduce plastic pollution.

 

“Why can't we make a plastic bag that can be completely degraded? This is environmentally friendly and can reduce toxicity. We have overlooked a problem: China has no composting conditions for garbage recycling, 97% still use landfill incineration treatment, and fully degradable plastic bags. The same as ordinary plastic bags; secondly, the price is 3-4 times more expensive than ordinary plastic bags, the high cost makes the company deterred." In Xing Kai's view, breaking the routine, thinking that others can not think, is a cross-border robbery The key to success in traditional industries.

 

He chose to add different raw materials to the plastic - starch. “The industry is a plastic bag with starch, but it’s too expensive. I wonder why.”

 

Xing Kai led the team to digitally model the plastic bags and calculate them around various factors, eventually finding an interesting phenomenon. “When you add starch to 10%, the cost of this bag is much higher than that of ordinary plastic bags. However, if you continue to add, wait until it exceeds 25%, the cost will fall off the cliff.”

 

What needs to be solved is how to add such a large proportion of starch, then experiment.

 

"We are a very open team. I have been willing to invest in technology research and development." Nbag degradable plastic bags, the technical team has done thousands of experiments before and after. "I will not interfere with the research and development of the team, and will not set a time limit for them." In Xing Kai's eyes, these technicians are the most valuable property torn. For a plastic bag, Xing Kai invested tens of millions into it, failed over and over again, then threw it away and continued.

 

Now, this environmentally-friendly degradable plastic bag with popcorn flavor and soft touch on baby's skin is Xing Kai's favorite.

 

 

 

In Xing Kai's view, Nbag is just a starting point. "In the future, one day, we can increase the proportion of starch added to 50%. It can't be called a plastic bag. It should be called a 'face bag'."

 

Xing Kai looked forward to that moment. Whenever he talks about this, he will laugh like a playful child and get the most hearty toy.

 

 

 

Cultivate soil for innovation

 

Xing Kai has always said that he is a product manager, not a technician. He feels that innovation cannot depend on one person alone. This point he insisted on since the day he was torn.

 

Xing Kai established a technical team that no one can compare in the packaging industry, and invested human and material resources for every possible innovation. “The optical zipper carton has more than 70 patents and has developed a double-headed zipper for left-handed users. This is the idea put forward by the technical team.”

 

 

 

Xing Kai believes that the advancement of science and technology can bring the deepest development to the industry. In his view, the past conclusions, even if they are authoritative, must try to break it. His choice is to try to solve the problem through continuous research and development.

 

"This industry is too traditional. Most companies have problems with R&D. It is like this: I want to innovate, but I don't want to take the risk of failure." Xing Kai said: "But R&D must mean failure. R&D is a success in 100 failures, otherwise it is cost."

 

Xing Kai believes that innovation is not a matter of his own. “We have a brainstorming session almost every week, and everyone speaks freely about a problem. I especially hope to provide the entire team with a valuable innovation environment.”

 

This brainstorming will have a nice name called "Workshop Workshop." Now, almost all the innovations that have been torn apart are derived from here. "May be 100 ideas and 99 worthless, but the remaining one is a very important opportunity to promote innovation in the industry." Xing Kai defined the "Workshop Workshop".

 

In his view, a company that does not dare to innovate and cannot tolerate mistakes has no chance of a turnaround.

 

 

 

Do something, do not

 

Although it has been in the packaging industry for four years, Xing Kai’s heart has always insisted on it - doing something and doing something wrong.

 

“There are some bad habits in this industry, or ‘hidden rules’, which have already been established.” Xing Kai still remembers that the first customer to come to the door was a carton factory. "They have customers who want to use zipper cartons and find them, but the manager has proposed to kick back." Xing Kai did not agree. In his view, this is an embarrassment to the industry, he would rather let people make money in the clear.

 

In addition, carton factories have almost no paper stealing, and even many manufacturers have written the indicators of paper loss in the contract. "In the beginning, we also suffered a loss. The contract fixed how many grams of a carton, and we got a lot of light in the hands of the goods." Xing Kai found in the development process that stealing paper is the most difficult to deal with in the industry.

 

"If you want to cooperate with me, if you can't steal paper, we will do a 'flight check', and we will not give a kickback. The contract is written on the open side." Xing Kai set the rules for the supplier.

 

"No one will cooperate with you." At the beginning, Xing Kai met many suppliers and slammed the door, but he insisted on sticking his teeth. “I always feel that changing an industry requires starting with the most basic principles.”

 

Do business first. In Xing Kai’s heart, this is the core of the Confucian business culture that has been passed down for thousands of years.

 

Now, Xing Kai has thousands of suppliers, and his persistence has gradually become the consensus of the entire industry. "We have now put a quality assurance stamp on all products. All the things about this product will be printed on this quality assurance chapter. It is impossible to steal any paper in a carton." In Xing Kai’s eyes, earned Money really didn't make the carton, a traditional industry norm, more meaningful.

 

 

 

Lead the industry to innovate

 

Through the establishment of a tear, Xing Kai found that packaging is a huge market.

 

In China, the output value of the entire packaging industry exceeds 1 trillion, which is one of the best growth segments. In the paper packaging market, there are 300,000 practitioners. The largest annual output value is only 6 billion yuan, and the market share is less than 1%. Most carton plants have 50% capacity redundancy and are limited by a 200-kilometer transport radius, unable to win national e-commerce customers.

 

Xing Kai suddenly realized that he had the ability and channels to drive the entire packaging industry to the Internet.

 

So, there was a new upgrade.

 

Nowadays, it has been an Internet platform company. Its business core has shifted from consumable products such as cartons and bags to providing customers with the whole process from packaging design to delivery.

 

Xing Kai is doing the packaging of the SaaS platform in this industry, using the Internet to operate, linking manufacturers and customers, not only to make products, but also to deliver products to customers.

 

 

 

With such an Internet platform operation method, Xing Kai can give full play to the advantages of tearing up and enhance the ability of the packaging industry to serve customers through technology, design and promotion services. At the same time, through the aggregation effect of the Internet platform, it has brought stable customer income to more than 1,500 cooperative packaging manufacturers.

 

Of course, in this process, Xing Kai is also reshaping the development advantages of the packaging industry by using a torn digital model system and quality management system. Although the cost of cooperation with a tear has been high, the number of cooperative manufacturers has grown from 300 to more than 1,500 in less than a year, which is enough to illustrate the advantages of a torn model.

 

The data shows that a platform similar to a “design-production-logistics” packaging service that can provide customers with a variety of products is the future development direction of the packaging industry. At present, 30% of the products in the global packaging industry are in line with this integrated and digital model, while China has only a poor 3%.

 

In Xing Kai's view, this is an opportunity to lead the entire Chinese packaging industry by leaps and bounds.

 

If you don't want to lie on the road to success in the past, you must continue to improve and improve the technical threshold of the industry. The core of continuous innovation is to clearly understand yourself and the industry.

 

To be a cross-border looter, to succeed, one must thoroughly understand the industry, and the other is to use cross-border thinking to do things. But the most fundamental thing is to have feelings for this industry.