727As Chinese brands continue to venture overseas in search of growth opportunities, Southeast Asia has become the hottest "new blue ocean" for going global in recent years.
Unlike the traditional "blockbuster + mass distribution" model, a new generation of brands is beginning to cultivate niche markets, attempting to break through the entire chain from product to brand, from localized operations to long-term user relationships. In the Philippines, there is such a case quietly gaining popularity.
A Chinese pet brand called Petsup, without financing or large-scale media coverage, relied solely on precise control of product quality and local demand to sell pet food in the Philippines, at one point achieving monthly sales of 4 million RMB, and forming a phenomenal influence in the local TikTok pet community.
Why can a seemingly niche category become a "hit" overseas? Petsup's success may provide some inspiration for more brands going global.
Image source: Petsup
Starting from "pet food that people want to eat", breaking through a niche into a big market
In 2019, Petsup's founder Kinder stepped into the Philippine market for the first time. At that time, e-commerce in the Philippines was just beginning, TikTok Shop had not yet emerged, and Shopee and Lazada were the main online channels.
Kinder's earliest attempt was a more diverse direction—covering multiple categories such as pets, home, and beauty. His judgment was: although cross-border logistics and operational costs are high, the richness of online SKUs in the Philippines is not as good as in China, and as long as the product quality is good and cost-effective, there is a chance to stand out.
The real turning point happened in 2022.
Kinder noticed that although the pet ownership rate in the Philippines is not low (about one-third of households have pets), local pet brands are scarce and mostly low-priced and crudely made. Especially for products like pet food, which have high repurchase rates and require certain standards for ingredients and taste, the choices are extremely limited.
Image source: Internet
"At that time, almost all pet cans on the market were jelly-like, looking rather cheap, and consumers didn't have many choices. So we tried to develop a 'pet soup can' with visible whole food ingredients—the kind of meat soup that even humans would want to eat."
This soup can was a big hit as soon as it was launched.
With its focus on "visible real ingredients", natural appearance, solid raw materials, and special emphasis on "hydration", it precisely addressed the pain point of cats not liking to drink water and owners worrying about feline urinary stones.
Data shows that this soup can, priced between 4-5 RMB, sold over 200,000 cans in just five months after launch, with a repurchase rate as high as 30%. Some consumers even "stock up dozens of cans" every time during live streaming.
Image source: Petsup
TikTok + influencers, driving content-driven explosive growth
Starting from March 2023, with the official launch of TikTok Shop in the Philippines, Petsup began to invest heavily in live streaming and short video sales, and sales started to grow exponentially, with peak monthly revenue exceeding 4 million RMB.
If product strength solves "why users buy", then live streaming and influencer distribution greatly reduce the cost of "how users buy".
In the Philippines, TikTok Shop is still emerging, and many brands are still in the "exploration period". Petsup quickly established a high-intensity, large-scale content and live streaming system—maintaining more than ten hours of continuous live streaming every day, with the entire team focused on content.
"We are now almost in a 'content + product' dual middle-office model, where the most core positions in the team are not operations, but live stream hosts, content editors, and influencer coordinators," Kinder once revealed in a private conversation.
As of May 2025, Petsup's TikTok account @petsup_ph has accumulated 345,000 followers, with total video likes exceeding 1.4 million, making it one of the top local pet category accounts.
Image source: TikTok
Meanwhile, Petsup has also built a "influencer sales network".
According to TikTok e-commerce data tool Echotik, Petsup has established partnerships with over 10,000 influencers, with 339 new sales influencers added in the past 30 days, and a total of 1,300+ sales videos. Among them, influencer @elpidioherviassr, with 188,000 followers, sold 100,000 products just through live streaming Petsup products, while another influencer @princessthekikaydog generated a GMV of 5.55 million pesos (about 714,000 RMB).
In other words, Petsup is no longer just a "pet food manufacturer", but more like a "content-driven DTC brand".
This is also highly consistent with Kinder's vision: "Not to be a cross-border merchant, but to truly become a brand that can survive locally in the long run."
Image source: Echotik
Riding the wave of the times, turning small trends into long-term business
It is worth noting that Petsup's success is not accidental; it has seized several key "dividends of the times".
First, the pet economy in the Philippines is growing rapidly. According to Euromonitor data, the Philippine pet food market reached $635 million in 2023, with a compound annual growth rate of over 10%. Cat and dog food dominate, and consumers' requirements for nutrition, functionality, and taste are constantly increasing, shifting towards mid-to-high-end products.
Second, TikTok Shop's penetration in Southeast Asia is accelerating. In 2023, TikTok announced an investment of $1.2 billion in the Philippines to build a local e-commerce ecosystem, covering warehousing, payments, influencer incentives, and more. This provides broad space for local content-driven brands.
In addition, thanks to RCEP policy benefits, Chinese sellers in some Southeast Asian countries can enjoy origin accumulation, tariff reductions, and other policies, making cross-border channels even smoother.
More importantly, the "youthful consumption" trend in the Philippine market is obvious—social platform penetration is extremely high, and young people's recognition of brands is often built on content, interaction, and emotional value, rather than simple functional comparison.
Petsup has leveraged this trend, making pet consumption more of a "lifestyle".
Currently, Petsup's product line has expanded from the original soup cans to dry food, snacks, pet nutrition products, and other SKUs, forming a complete product matrix, and has established localized teams in logistics, customer service, and local warehousing. Kinder revealed that the brand will also expand into offline pet markets and pet cafes to further enhance brand "presence".
A Chinese brand can stand out in overseas markets not by simply lowering prices, but by differentiation; not by taking "wild paths", but by cultivating content; not by relying solely on advertising, but by building a user relationship network.
Perhaps it is not yet the most famous pet brand, but in the Philippine market, it has already become synonymous with "buying soup cans means buying Petsup". And this may be the most valuable brand asset.
Petsup account live streaming Image source: TikTok
Not just a "Southeast Asian hit", but a microcosm of Chinese brands going global
Petsup's rise reflects a bigger trend: Chinese brands are accelerating their occupation of Southeast Asia.
On one hand, the channels in Europe and America are mature, competition is fierce, and compliance costs are rising; while Southeast Asia is a huge emerging market with "traffic depression + consumption dividend + policy benefits" all combined.
Countries like the Philippines, Vietnam, and Thailand not only enjoy lower trade barriers with China under the RCEP framework, but also have weak local manufacturing and high dependence on imported goods, creating a natural demand for Chinese products.
On the other hand, content e-commerce platforms represented by TikTok are reshaping the "overseas sales logic" in a brand-new way—from the distribution era's "find products-list-wait for orders", to content-driven "planting grass-transaction-repurchase", Chinese brands are no longer just "selling cheaply", but are building trust relationships with local consumers through good content, truly achieving the leap from selling products to "selling brands".
Petsup is not the only one, nor will it be the last.
Pets, home, beauty, outdoor... a large number of brands that have gained experience in China are now expanding into various niche tracks in Southeast Asia with the combination of "content + supply chain".
Perhaps, the next "big overseas brand" is hidden in the next TikTok video with millions of likes.
