Author: Yenai | Source: Tuke Overseas | Cover image: Pexels
A quiet shift is happening in consumer markets: people are no longer satisfied with products that are merely "good enough." Take electric toothbrushes — cleaning teeth is just the baseline. Whether it connects via Bluetooth, generates an oral-health report, or corrects brushing habits has become the differentiator younger consumers seriously compare before buying.
Demand has changed, and so have market opportunities.
Soocas, a personal-care appliance brand born in Shenzhen, is one of the names that rode this wave. Three consecutive years of revenue above RMB 1 billion proved that in personal care, consumers no longer recognize only international giants — Chinese brands can deliver standout results too.
Entrepreneurship, more than once
According to public information, Soocas was founded in 2015, focused on oral care, hair care and men's grooming small appliances.
The founder, Mr. Meng, comes from an industrial design background. He spent eight years at Huawei as a senior product design manager, working on flagship devices including the Honor X1.
In 2013, he left Huawei for his first venture, building smart body-scale brand PICOOC. It raised investment from Tencent and JD.com but later fell into low-price competition and stalled growth — the first venture ultimately didn't work out.
That failure taught Mr. Meng that a product with only striking design is not enough. It needs a "core": self-developed hardware, a stable supply chain, and precisely targeted customers.
In 2015, Mr. Meng launched his second venture, targeting the electric toothbrush segment then dominated by Philips and Oral-B, founding Soocas.
Joining the Xiaomi ecosystem to crack the market
Many might ask: wasn't entering a category long held by Philips and Oral-B a gamble?
Actually, as the global personal-care appliance market keeps expanding, younger consumers no longer blindly chase international brands. They're more willing to pay for Chinese products with good design, rich features and friendly prices — which created the opening for Soocas.
To build competitiveness, the team cracked core technical challenges including sonic motors, copper-free tufting and Bluetooth smart connectivity, spending 300 days polishing its first product, the X3 electric toothbrush.
In 2016, the X3 launched on Xiaomi Youpin crowdfunding and sold 10,000 units within 48 hours. That performance quickly won investment from Xiaomi and Shunwei Capital, making Soocas an official Xiaomi ecosystem company.
From then on, the company ran a dual business model: operating its own Soocas brand while taking on Mijia ODM manufacturing. The Mijia channel drove rapid volume and supply-chain maturity, while the in-house brand built brand premium.
But a single smart toothbrush category couldn't sustain long-term growth. The brand needed more categories to open new room.
So in 2018 — the year of category expansion — Soocas launched electric razors, negative-ion hair dryers and water flossers, becoming a full-range personal-care appliance brand.
Per its IPO prospectus, from 2019 to 2021 the company's total revenue reached RMB 1.025 billion, 1.371 billion and 1.871 billion respectively.
Beyond toothbrushes, the new categories also delivered solid growth.
Going global: the second growth curve
If Soocas' overseas presence before 2021 was still experimental, then 2022–2023 is when it truly turned going global into its second growth curve.
Its overseas expansion can be mapped in four phases.
Phase 1: Scaling on Amazon
Amazon is the absolute core battlefield for Soocas entering overseas markets. The brand operates official flagship stores in North America, UK, Germany and Japan, leading with electric toothbrushes, water flossers, razors and hair dryers, continuously optimizing listings and testing bestseller items.
Source: Amazon
Phase 2: Social seeding and traffic on TikTok
Social platforms like TikTok are a key part of Soocas' overseas marketing. On TikTok, it runs an official brand account, @Soocas Official, currently with 14.9K followers.
Source: TikTok
Content falls into three types: product unboxings and feature explainers for spec-conscious users; real-person testing to ease purchase concerns; and AI comedy mini-dramas that fit TikTok's young audience to capture Gen Z attention. This diverse content matrix makes the most of short-video scenarization, steadily harvesting young traffic while driving word-of-mouth and sales.
Source: TikTok
Phase 3: A DTC site to own private traffic
To better capture attention from social platforms and retain its own users, Soocas built a DTC site for global consumers — housing private traffic, subscription consumables and after-sales support. This frees the brand from platform commissions and algorithm rules, making overseas operations more autonomous and stable.
Source: Soocas
Phase 4: Landing in offline retail
Beyond online channels, the brand entered Best Buy, Macy's, JCPenney and Walmart in North America, displayed alongside Philips and Colgate. This completed its branding upgrade, shedding the pure cross-border-seller label while giving online-seeded content an offline trust anchor.
A final word
Soocas' path illustrates a simple truth: overseas markets aren't won by any single channel but by platform, content, private traffic and offline retail layering and interlocking with each other.
For domestic companies, going global isn't hard because of missing channels — it's hard because few are willing to settle in and do every channel thoroughly. The channels are in front of you, the rules aren't mysterious. What truly separates winners is who can polish products until they withstand comparison, make content people will linger on, and deliver service that earns repeat purchases.
Markets never betray those who take products seriously and build channels steadily. The first step outward is often more worthwhile than it seems.
