639On Tuke, the global short video platform, there is one DTC home brand that must be mentioned—Newme.
Its main products include lighting, small kitchen appliances, small bathroom appliances, and power tools. Most are home furniture products priced between $30-100, targeting users with home needs in the European and American markets.
And its founder, Gu Jun, was once an ordinary e-commerce practitioner.
But now, this e-commerce worker who once bet all his belongings and even sold his house to start a business, has become the industry-recognized "No.1 Live Streamer" through his achievements in Tuke live streaming.
Newme, founded by him, broke 100 million in annual revenue just one year after its establishment, becoming a force to be reckoned with among Tuke cross-border enterprises.
How did he do it?
Gu Jun, founder of Newme
Money earned by luck, lost by strength
Gu Jun started out as a very ordinary worker in the e-commerce industry, having worked at JD.com and Lefeng.com. After working for five years post-graduation, he suddenly didn’t want to work for others anymore, so he started his own business.
His first company was called Need, mainly selling Japanese and Korean beauty and personal care products to China, with a model somewhat similar to Pinduoduo. In its first year, it achieved revenue of 7-8 million yuan, a typical success story.
But when great wealth comes suddenly, it’s easy for people to become arrogant, and Gu Jun was no exception.
At its peak, Need fought Jumei for a year and was defeated miserably. Jumei successfully went public, and Need was sold to Vipshop.
Gu Jun sold the house he bought with his first pot of gold, and every time he encountered a crisis in subsequent ventures, he sold another house, thus surviving the darkest moments of his life.
Some media commented on that period of his life: Money earned by luck, lost by strength.
But fate still favored him. The entrepreneurial experiences of those years gave him a wealth of experience, enabling him to quickly seize the opportunity when Tuke’s traffic swept the globe in 2020, pivot to cross-border e-commerce, and found Newme, using China’s supply chain and Tuke’s live streaming platform to sell various “new, novel, and special” products across borders.
So far,Newme has invested over a million dollars in Tuke short video ads, but the returns are huge, with monthly live streaming revenue reaching $1.5 million.
Additionally, its daily ad order peak exceeds 1,000 orders, and several SKU single product sales exceed 10,000 units. Newme has also set up nearly 20 live streaming studios in China and the US,becoming the first Chinese company to try a full closed-loop cross-border live streaming in the UK and a semi-closed-loop local live streaming in the US.
Currently, Newme’s official Tuke account @newmeofficial has accumulated 100,000 followers, over 1 million likes, monthly GMV close to $1 million, and sales in 2023 exceeded 100 million yuan.
But every step Newme has taken is by no means accidental, but the result of careful planning by Gu Jun’s team. It was precisely their careful selection of home products from many categories as the entry point, focusing on meeting the specific needs of European and American housewives and trendy moms, that allowed Newme to win the market in one fell swoop and become the leader in the cross-border home industry.
Accurate positioning + strategy is the key to success
Gu Jun’s team not only pursues product quality and practicality, but also values design, ensuring that every item can touch the hearts of consumers. This precise grasp of market demand, combined with a reasonable price range ($30 to $100), has laid a solid market foundation for Newme.
After identifying the target audience, Newme clearly realized that Tuke, like China’s Douyin, follows a content marketing approach. So in the early days of joining Tuke, Newme leveraged Tuke’s live streaming and short video features to create a new shopping experience of “watch live, buy good goods.”
In the early days, Tuke in Europe and America had not yet opened its mall feature, so Newme focused on driving traffic to its independent site and was the first to create the influencer concept, attracting customers with content and successfully converting consumer attention into actual purchases.
Moreover, Gu Jun’s team deeply understands thatgood content must be localized, not just mass-produced.
Localization is not just about language and cultural adaptation, but also about a deep understanding of local market trends and user behavior. Only in this way can you resonate with users in the target market, meet their needs and interests, and then use Tuke’s algorithm to accurately push content to relevant user groups.
Gu Jun and streamer
As local influencers in Tuke’s US region gradually emerged, Newme did not ignore them, but actively sought cooperation, using Tuke’s algorithm to achieveperson-product matching, aligning products with influencer styles, thereby more effectively reaching target user groups and achieving higher conversion rates and user engagement.
As for product promotion choices, Newme also has its own methodology.
As mentioned earlier,Newme is a DTC (direct-to-consumer) home brand, with its supply chain mostly coming from OEM manufacturing or third-party sourcing. While this may lack some brand power, it is easier to gain sales in the early stages.
For example,visual ear pickers and car mobile aromatherapy diffusers—products that have already succeeded in the Chinese market and meet local cultural needs overseas. They are both practical and fun, popular on domestic short video platforms like Douyin, and can also be well-received abroad.
Another example isalternative products, such as Laifen’s Dyson vacuum cleaner alternative, Dreame’s robot vacuum alternative to Dyson’s robot vacuum, etc. By offering competitive prices and quality, they attract consumers seeking value for money.
However, this approach is only suitable for early development. To increase GMV share in the later stages, the focus must be on building proprietary brands.
As Gu Jun mentioned when receiving a new round of financing, Newme will focus more than 50% of its efforts on proprietary brand development, building differentiated competitive barriers, and striving to achieve a 30%-40% GMV share.
The strong productivity and cost advantages of China’s supply chain bring abundant product resources to cross-border e-commerce. However, simply relying on supply chain advantages is not enough to ensure long-term product competitiveness; brand building is the key to victory. As many young Chinese people engage in cultural exchange and integration overseas, it provides a rare opportunity for Chinese brands to build global influence. This ability to understand and integrate cultures has become an indispensable factor in shaping brands.
For contemporary Chinese entrepreneurs, brand building is a major historical mission. As times change,we hope every cross-border seller can seize the opportunities brought by the era, bravely face challenges, fully utilize the advantages of China’s supply chain, and combine deep insights into target markets to achieve perfect integration of products and local markets, thereby creating competitive brands.
On the Tuke stage, Newme has already proven its strength and potential. As the e-commerce industry continues to evolve, we have reason to believe that Newme will continue to write more legends in the future with its unique innovation and outstanding execution.
