Cheap electric toothbrush factory tour

Some time ago, I attended an industry sharing meeting, and I talked about the story of cooperation with a Chinese dry battery factory, and suddenly felt that these small business fragments were actually worth recording. The cooperation with this factory has been five years without realizing it. Their path is quite interesting - do you think it has any amazing technology? Nope. It's better than that: it's cheap enough.

Because they keep the cost extremely low, a dry battery can be $0.5 or even cheaper. Later, the dry battery electric toothbrush we pushed together was also because of this, and because of this, the price was lower than many ordinary manual toothbrushes. This kind of thing is particularly suitable in the market of developing countries or in street dollar stores.

I sometimes feel that their model is very similar to a fast food restaurant - not to pursue sophistication and complexity, but to serve the largest group of people by "fast" and "cheap". The same is true for factories: without fighting for research and development, without expensive materials, the most basic dry batteries are solid, and they rely on volume to survive.

This process also gave me a more solid understanding of a few words:

Research and development (R&D): This is usually the most expensive thing to burn. But in this factory, R&D is compressed to "just right" - it is enough to be able to use, produce, and control costs.

Dry battery: The most basic electrolyte battery is used, disposable, but stable, cheap and reassuring.

Lithium batteries: High-end electronic products are used everywhere now, but it is still a bit "heavy" for cost-sensitive products.

Exports: Most of their markets are overseas, especially where prices are tighter than anything else.

Procurement: One of our roles is to connect such factories with overseas demand, from production to overseas, the whole road runs through.

This cooperation touched me very deeply: there is no absolute good or bad business model, it just depends on whether it meets the real needs of a certain part of people. When many people are chasing "upgrades" and "high-end", such factories have found their own piece of the sky by achieving the ultimate cost.

You see, the truth of business is sometimes hidden in such a simple battery.