Not all brands can wait for 618.

Recently, news of the collapse of the pet smart technology company "Unipal" (hereinafter referred to as "Unipal") spread on social media. On Xiaohongshu, many accompanying users posted articles to discuss and complain, and posted records of purchases and rights protection on the shopping platform. Currently, Youpai’s official flagship store on Tmall is no longer visible, and all products in the brand’s official self-operated flagship store on JD.com have been removed from the shelves.

I learned from people familiar with the matter that Youpai has entered the liquidation stage. , and all core executives have resigned. Prior to this, the company had tried to save itself and sought acquisitions from listed company buyers, but failed to reach agreement due to some detailed terms.

In the wave of new consumer brands that have exploded in the past two years, Youpai is not outstanding, but their entrepreneurial journey in the past four years is quite representative - rising rapidly in a rising consumer track, But it fell quickly.

Youpai was once well recognized by capital. According to public reports, since its establishment in 2019, it has completed four rounds of financing, averaging one round per year. Six months ago, Youpai just completed its latest round of financing exceeding 100 million yuan.

But unfortunately, this funding is just a drop in the bucket and fails to solve their capital chain problem. According to a picture of a reminder letter from the property management company circulated on the Internet, the door of Youpai's office is closed, and since January 1 this year, the property company has been in arrears for more than five months, with related expenses exceeding 930,000 yuan.

In the field of pet smart products, companionship is a presence that is hard to ignore. Some cat lovers are familiar with this brand. Youpai’s main product, smart cat litter box, once achieved the largest sales volume in China. During the 618 period two years ago, according to official statistics, Youpai also ranked first in the pet cat litter box category on Tmall and the best-selling pet products list on JD.com.

Right now, anxious cat owners are worrying about two things: First, there is no place to buy filters and other consumables, and some buyers are trying to turn to Xianyu for help. Another thing is that no one is doing maintenance on the official APP that connects smart devices such as cat litter boxes and water dispensers. In November last year, Youpei just announced that it would increase the warranty service for its entire line of smart products to two years.

1. It took off based on "cost-effectiveness", but failed in "performance"

Similar to most new brands, there are no big flaws in the entry point for entrepreneurship. They chose a "mainstream" entrepreneurial path and became replacements for international big names.

Youpai mainly enters the pet supplies track, mainlyIt should include traction equipment, cleaning care, clothing, toys and other major categories. Benefiting from the continued craze of "anthropomorphic" pet care and the popularization of smart small appliances, the consumption of pet products in China continues to upgrade.

The smart cat toilet that frees lazy people’s hands and can automatically scoop poop is Youpai’s first product. Before them, the high prices of overseas brands of smart cat toilets discouraged some toilet owners.

Before founding Youpei in 2018, Youpei founder Zhong Jinjun purchased an American Litter-Robot smart cat toilet product, but it was expensive and he spent more than 5,000 yuan on it. The official price of this brand’s latest 4th generation cat toilet product is still US$699 (equivalent to approximately RMB 5,000).

The replacement opportunities for local smart cat toilets come from one of his market observations. In an early interview with 36Kr, Zhong Jinjun said that the average monthly sales volume of this product at that time was only about 50 units, but the number of collectors was close to 400,000, indicating that pet owners need similar products, but most of them stop at the price.

According to Zhong Jinjun’s observation, most of the smart cat toilets with automatic poop shoveling function on the market are priced between 1,000 yuan and 2,000 yuan. Some people hope to bring this price down and make smart cat toilets more popular. The price should be “less than one thousand yuan”.

This product was finally launched in August 2020 - the "Cat Tower" smart cat toilet priced at only 799 yuan was officially released.

At the beginning, the market response was indeed enthusiastic, with the number of reservations reaching 5 days About 14,330 people. However, this product is actually "making money at a loss". At that time, the production cost of each cat tower was about 827 yuan, which also meant that for every cat tower sold, you would lose 28 yuan.

Zhong Jinjun explained to 36 Krypton the logic behind Youpai’s pricing. First, as users continue to educate their minds and scale up, barriers can be established and costs can be reduced. His prediction is that 50,000 Taiwan shipments are a watershed moment. Second, the cat tower is a low-cost way to "acquire customers" for subsequent new products, which can then be converted into repurchases of other hardware and consumables such as smart water dispensers and cat litter.

This strategy is similar to Xiaomi’s supply chain model, which uses explosive products to leverage upstream and downstream industries. Youpai’s core team background does have this ability. Zhong Jinjun has more than ten years of experience in consumer Internet retail, and has participated in the establishment of two companies from scratch with annual sales exceeding 400 million yuan.Taobao brands and vertical e-commerce listed companies.

Judging from its launch performance, Youpai’s product was indeed a hit. In the first Double Eleven event that I attended, I ranked among the top eight smart cat litter boxes on Tmall. According to 36Kr, a total of 95,000 units of this cat toilet have been sold in the 15 months since it was launched.

Following this, peripheral products such as cat litter and litter control mats were also quickly launched in September and November 2020 respectively.

2021 is a year with outstanding performance. During the 618 period of that year, it entered the Top 1 of related categories on Tmall and JD.com, and launched the PLUS version of Mao in August, November and December of that year respectively. tower, pet water dispenser, cat tower customized air purifier and other new products.

The ultimate function is another product selling point that Youpai tries to create in addition to the ultimate cost-effectiveness, such as the rapid automatic cleaning of the cat tower, deodorization and antibacterial functions, and health monitoring. According to previous official introductions, the water dispenser product has also achieved a silent circulating water pump of less than 40 decibels and created an intelligent water purification system.

However, the success of the cat tower has not been replicated in the new water dispenser. This extreme function did not live up to the hype. Instead, only one month after it was launched, the equipment made abnormal noises and no water came out. and other product issues, which ended in embarrassment with official apology, compensation, and upgraded after-sales service.

The failure of new products is not uncommon in the industry, but for some To say the least, it was surprising. An industry insider was quite puzzled by this "flaw", "Compared with cat toilets, smart water dispensers are a more mature category of pet smart products, and the industry chain itself is relatively developed. It is true that this low-level problem has occurred. It shouldn’t be.”

This issue was quickly overturned at the time, but the product problems exposed by the water dispenser at that time may also have paved the way for today’s failure.

2. Profitability problems and the need for “authenticity”

For Youpai, a question worth pondering is that scale seems to have failed to bring about cost optimization.

According to 36Kr, Youpai’s cat litter box has shipped approximately 100,000 units. However, during this process, the retail price actually increased instead of falling. From the initial price of 799 yuan, it first increased to 899 yuan, and then rose to 999 yuan in January 2022.

This price increase does not prevent them from continuing to maintain price competitiveness. Even today, catlink, Xiaopei and other similar pet product brands on the market, mainstream smart catsThe price range of sand basin products is concentrated between 1,000-1,500 yuan. In addition, the Xiaomi Xiaonian smart cat litter box newly released by Xiaomi Ecological Chain in February this year is also priced at 1,499 yuan.

However, internally, this kind of price increase has not only failed to improve the loss problem of Youbi, but also faced considerable differences.

36Kr learned from people close to the company that Zhong Jinjun is somewhat resistant to price increases, especially when the price rises from 3 digits to 4 digits. He is concerned about the urgency of whether to increase prices. It’s not too high either. It’s more about hoping to solve the problem of losses and shortage of funds by continuing to expand on a large scale and raising capital.

But the pressure on funds continues to spread. According to 36Kr, Youpai achieved sales of 70 million yuan in 2021. For a start-up company whose product has just been launched for more than a year, this is already a good achievement. But compared with R&D investment, it still seems to be stretched thin. In addition, according to official statements, the supply price of semiconductor IC wafers, core components of Youmaota, has increased by more than 20% in 2021, and R&D investment costs have also increased by 12%.

According to the official introduction, 15 million yuan was invested in research and development expenses in the early stage of the smart cat litter box, of which 4 million yuan was spent on the complete machine mold alone. In Youpai’s product planning, there were also plans to launch smart steam combs, smart fresh grain machines and other products.

Another reason for the current failure may be that they were too optimistic in estimating the actual repurchase conversion scale that the traffic obtained through the ultimate price-performance ratio could bring.

According to 36Kr, among Youpai’s sales of 70 million yuan in 2021, sales from consumables and other ancillary products are only about 14 million yuan, and cost-effectiveness is still a major selling point of these products. The main sales are still contributed by revenue from smart devices. Obviously, the money earned from consumables such as cat litter and filters is not enough to make up for the losses incurred at the equipment level.

In addition, compared to the cat litter category, which is more mature and has transparent brand competition, smart cat toilets are still a relatively small market segment, and the category still requires long-term user education. It seems that Youpai has not verified how to cut into the more popular pet supplies track from a smaller traffic entrance.

However, in the view of some industry insiders, there is nothing wrong with the cost-effectiveness route itself, but it is just not applicable to all categories and products.

Lu Shengbo, founder of pet product and service brand uah Youha, told 36 Krypton that the ultimate cost-effective approach has a special requirement for the industry chain, which is a large enough scale to dilute all aspects. The cost, and another key point is that the initial investment is often one-time, but the cash flow gradually returns, and the occupation and consumption of funds are large. "It is important to have a good balance."

With company The past glory is directly related to the track. Pet owners’ willingness to consume pets is increasing year by year, and from the perspective of penetration rate, there is still a lot of room for improvement before the mature market. According to the 2022 pet market white paper,According to the report, China's pet penetration rate in 2021 will be approximately 18%, while the related penetration rates in the United States and Japan will reach 70% and 57% respectively during the same period.

Pet products are also a key investment area for capital. According to incomplete statistics, there will be 35 financing events in China’s pet industry in 2022, including 8 financing events in the pet supplies track. In addition, according to Paidu statistics, a total of 8 financings were completed in the pet industry in the first quarter of this year. Against the backdrop of cooling consumer investment and financing, the primary pet market still maintains upward growth momentum.

However, to free the hands of lazy people, different pet product categories and the user needs behind them still need to be viewed separately.

In Lu Shengbo’s view, pet product product demands and application scenarios are complex and scattered. The reason why they are collectively called "pet products" is essentially because the industry is still in a relatively early stage and has not been further differentiated. In addition, another difficulty is that buyers and users are separated, which requires higher professionalism and trust. For entrepreneurs, it is necessary to determine whose needs are fully explored, and whether commercial product solutions can be made.

Youpai’s failed exploration will not affect the continued development of pet products. The rise of local brands is continuing to happen, but they still leave some warnings for entrepreneurs, not just the choice of entrepreneurial direction. , how to prove profitability is also an unavoidable problem.