Quitting his iron rice bowl at a central state-owned enterprise, a Ningbo boss sells small home appliances overseas and pulls in 1.4 billion a year!

While Chinese people are still accustomed to drinking more hot water, more than half of Americans are frequent ice lovers, with per capita annual ice consumption reaching as high as 181 kilograms.

Image source: EUHOMY

This huge difference in consumption habits directly fueled the boom in the overseas ice-making equipment sector and also enabled many local brands expanding overseas to rise rapidly.

Among them, one brand name that cannot be avoided is from Ningbo, Zhejiang.EUHOMY。

What exactly is the reason that allowed this Chinese brand to successfully penetrate millions of American households,and become a top player in the category with explosive annual sales of 1.4 billion?

Its growth path is far more compelling than one might imagine.

Image source: EUHOMY

Early development: From a state-owned enterprise, entering cross-border e-commerce

In 2016, Mr. Shen, founder of EUHOMY, left a state-owned enterprise and formally entered the cross-border e-commerce sector. He listed lighting, pet supplies, outdoor miscellaneous goods, and other categories on Amazon, starting his entrepreneurial journey.

His early product selection logic was very straightforward: whatever category had strong growth momentum, he would do that.

At first, leveraging industry dividends and relying on a model of massive SKU distribution, the business scale was quite impressive; sales in 2020 even reached 1 billion yuan.

But the distribution model has inherent shortcomings. SKUs are numerous and complex, homogenization is severe, and combined with a large influx of Chinese sellers, competition intensified, as did the Amazon account suspension wave, causing logistics costs to soar and business risks to keep rising.

Based on a clear judgment of the market situation, Mr. Shen decided to bid farewell to the distribution route and shift to a development model of proprietary brands + vertical categories.

In 2020, the EUHOMY brand was incubated within the original company's system.

At this point, EUHOMY was merely a brand within the company that had no clear category direction and was still in the exploratory stage.

Image source: EUHOMY

Establishing the track: The team spun off independently, betting fully on ice makers

In 2022, because some people wanted to continue distribution, route disagreements began to emerge within the company, so Mr. Shen led a 20-person core team to spin off independently.

At the time, the only thing he could take with him was the not-yet-defined brand EUHOMY. Yet this seemingly passive choice instead helped the team find its own growth track.

The team found in research that ice is a rigid demand in American households, but most households still rely on their refrigerators' built-in ice-making function, which produces ice slowly and offers a poor user experience; the market penetration rate of standalone household ice makers is still less than 5%. This niche track also has considerable profit potential, repurchase potential, and a huge market gap.

At this point, Mr. Shen chose to lock the brand's focus onto the segmented track of household portable ice makers.

Image source: EUHOMY

Enriching the product matrix: Deepening ice-making and expanding the product line

EUHOMY's ice maker optimized the compressor shock absorption and air duct structure, enabling the first batch of ice cubes to be produced in just 6-8 minutes; it also innovatively launched a crescent ice style, which, compared with traditional bullet ice, can take half an hour longer to melt, quickly winning the favor of American consumers.

Image source: EUHOMY

The team also captured more usage scenarios from real reviews by overseas users: many people take the ice maker to RVs, camping sites, home bars, or use it in the office.

Following user feedback, the brand quickly iterated its products, adding a portable handle and a vehicle power-compatible version, freeing home appliances from scenario restrictions and truly making them ready to use on the go.

After establishing a foothold in the ice maker category, EUHOMY also extended its categories around the core direction of refrigeration, successively launching products such as portable car refrigerators and home cold drink stations, continuously expanding its product matrix.

Image source: EUHOMY

By 2025, according to the brand founder in an exclusive interview with an official media outlet under Xinhua News Agency:

EUHOMY has grown from just over 20 people at the beginning to more than 270 employees, and annual sales have jumped from more than 70 million yuan to 1.4 billion yuan. It has become a benchmark category top seller with North America as its core market and gradually expanding into Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, Japan, and other regions.

Channel layout: Two-way synergy between third-party platforms + independent websites

In addition to product strength, achieving such results also benefited from two key strategic layouts, and channel building is one of them.

EUHOMY entered Amazon very early, with monthly sales steadily maintaining a scale of 10,000 units, making it the brand's most core and most stable source of revenue.

Image source: Amazon

To break free from the constraints of a single platform, it further entered mainstream U.S. local online channels such as Walmart, HomeDepot, and Target, reaching consumers in different segments.

At the same time, it built an independent website as the brand's private domain hub, taking on functions such as new product launches, after-sales maintenance, and email marketing operations.

Image source: EUHOMY

In 2023, EUHOMY was also among the first merchants to join TikTok Shop in the U.S., which also became an important driver for the brand to achieve breakout growth.

Social media seeding: leveraging TikTok short videos to amplify category awareness

Ice makers are products with extremely strong visual attributes. Moments of ice cubes forming, colored ice cube making, cocktail mixing, and camping use are very suitable for presentation through short videos, carrying viral potential.

Users can intuitively feel the product value through videos, thereby generating consumer demand; demand in turn feeds marketing communication, and marketing further drives purchase intention, forming a positive growth loop.

Therefore, short video content marketing is another key strategic layout for EUHOMY.

On TikTok, it built the main account @Euhomy_global, posting a large amount of real-scene content of ice making and ice dispensing, fitting the viewing preferences of overseas users.

On this basis, the brand also built a differentiated sub-account matrix along two routes.

Image source: TikTok

First, it created localized regional accounts for different target markets such as the United States, Mexico, and Thailand, adapting to local users' lifestyle habits.

The most prominent is the U.S. local account @Euhomy_US, which currently has 152.4k followers.

The account's content mainly features real people on camera explaining product specifications and demonstrating usage methods, leaning toward practical, no-fluff tips, and focuses on seeding interest in product features.

Image source: TikTok

In contrast, the Thailand account @Euhomy Thailand, aimed at Southeast Asia, takes a completely different content route.

Combining the local climate's year-round high temperatures, the content focuses on lifestyle scenes of homemade iced drinks in summer, starting from daily essential needs and strengthening user seeding.

Image source: TikTok

In addition to regional accounts, EUHOMY has also launched a dedicated vertical account @Euhomy Outdoor, focusing on the outdoor niche.

Centering on camping, short trips, and vacation scenarios, it focuses on content about portable, large-capacity car refrigerators, reaching precise audiences and driving interested users to convert quickly.

Image source: TikTok

While meticulously operating its account matrix, the brand also actively collaborates with iced drink influencers on TikTok.

For example, the creator @Ali Iceberg, who has 174.6k followers, once produced a collaborative short video for the brand, fully demonstrating the entire process from adding water to ice cube formation, using simple, intuitive operation demonstrations to dispel potential users' purchasing concerns.

This type of ice-making content also highly fits the ASMR trend on the platform. After the video is tagged with #ASMR, it also achieves secondary spread through the auditory experience.

Since its release, it has gained 4.7 million views and 243.6k likes, achieving a very impressive marketing effect.

Image source: TikTok

Conclusion

Looking back at the process of EUHOMY gaining a firm foothold in overseas markets, three playbooks are indispensable.

Playbook One:Do not rely on a single product to compete in the market; only by continuously enriching a product matrix that meets market demand can you hold your ground.

Playbook Two:Channels are not substitutes for each other but synergistic; each platform performs a different function, and using them all well will ultimately form a net that can catch traffic.

Playbook Three:Social media content should not be cookie-cutter; telling different stories to different groups is the only way to truly speak to consumers' hearts.