Xu Ruiyao, founder of Ciyu: What is the attraction of “magnetic accessories” favored by young people?
According to iMedia Consulting data, the current domestic jewelry market size is 200 billion, growing at a rate of more than 20% per year. Jewelry has become a must-have for the younger generation of consumers. These new generation consumers have a stronger demand for "self-directed" personalization. They love unique and exclusive products, and they need products that are more in line with their social personality attributes.
Based on such a consumer environment and market trends, can Chinese jewelry brands also stand out from the competition with creative gameplay and novel materials, or unique product designs?
Baochuangjia Media recently came into contact with a jewelry brand "Ci Yu" that is positioned as an innovative application of high-end magnetic jewelry. "Ci Yu" is a magnetic jewelry design brand under Beijing Ci Yu Technology Co., Ltd., which innovates magnetic component design and redefines women's fashion accessories. Unlocking thousands of jewelry combinations with "magnetic jewelry" and "jointable" gameplay, it is committed to sharing the wonderful characteristics and fun of magnetism with users.
Fashion accessories pictures
As the name suggests, behind the name "Magnet and" is not only a creative application of using magnets as a connecting medium to change the underlying connection between objects, but also a symbol of fashion collision, innovation and integration.
Ms. Xu Ruiyao, founder and CEO of the "Magnet and" brand, has been deeply involved in the Xitu permanent magnet manufacturing industry for 18 years. As one of the few women in the industry, she is nicknamed the omnipotent "Magnet Sister" by her partners. She has led two of the top five patented magnet manufacturers in China to promote them to the international and domestic high-end markets. In 2021, she established Magnet and Technology, which will continue to explore product boundaries in the fields of life consumption and fashion accessories, and open up a new blue ocean for "Made in China" products.
Magnetism and brand concept: Let users create their own accessories
In terms of positioning, "Ci Yu" mainly breaks through the market with "magnetic concept products", which are more interesting and fun than traditional jewelry. According to the introduction, the product uses "magnetic suction" to replace the mechanical positioning process of jewelry welding, modularizes various jewelry parts like Lego, and switches and combines them at will according to the wearer's creativity.
"The application of magnetic jewelry allows consumers to no longer worry about popularity and obsolescence, no longer worry about the same style, and no longer buy jewelry repeatedly to match new clothes, so that every user can become their own exclusive designer. "Ci Yu" is willing to give free wings to the beauty in the hearts of consumers." said founder Xu Ruiyao.
Talking about the current situation of the domestic magnetic material application market and the original intention of the brand, Xu Ruiyao said that she has been in the field of magnetic industry for nearly 20 years and has witnessed China's rare earth permanent magnets step by step to the international stage. With the continuous development of smart electronic products, "new energy vehicles" and wind power generation intelligent manufacturing. my country's rare earth permanent magnets support nearly 90% of the global demand, becoming the world's "magnetic power".
However, among the 90% of global consumption supported by China, only 25% of the output belongs to high-performance magnets, of which 75% of the magnetic output is low-end performance. In the low-end and medium-end magnetic application market, product competition is fierce, the industry concentration is low, and small and medium-sized enterprises have poor profitability and lack brand thinking and product design capabilities.
Take my country's rare earth permanent magnet material neodymium iron boron magnet as an example. It is known as the "magnet king" because of its high magnetic energy product. In the industrial field, it is a "star material in the manufacturing industry" that everyone knows, nourishing countless global multinational technology giants and brands.
In the consumer sector, due to the lack of understanding of magnetic technology by many consumer brands, a large part of the applications are very elementary. They do not understand the design of magnetic circuits, how to safely use magnets to control magnetic leakage, and the appearance anti-corrosion treatment of magnetic products, which leads to product demagnetization, corrosion, rust and other disadvantages. Magnets have dozens of performances and multiple types according to different application scenarios, such as sintered magnets, injection molded magnets, bonded magnets, etc., and most developers have no consideration for this. Although many magnetic products have good ideas, they have quality problems due to design defects and finally cannot escape the fate of being short-lived.
As a major country of permanent magnets, China does not have its own "magnetic brand". Therefore, Xu Ruiyao boldly conceived whether it is possible to embed the cutting-edge application technology of industrial magnets into life application scenarios across borders?
For her, the birth of the "Magnetic and" brand also means empowering more accessories to reconstruct and regenerate. Xu Ruiyao said that in terms of conveying ideas, the company mainly uses its previous technical capabilities in the field of science and technology to help more brands and companies in the homogeneous and inward-looking market competition, and use the convenient and freely combinable splicing characteristics of magnets to innovate products, so that more consumers can experience the beauty and fun of magnetic accessories.
Seize the desire of young female consumers to express themselves
Make "jointable" magnetic products
The main user group of "Ci Yu" is young women who like to show their uniqueness and advocate self-esteem. In Xu Ruiyao's view, the brand is doing business for the next ten years. Therefore, the premise for doing a good job in long-term business is to understand the characteristics of such a group of young, highly educated and sophisticated consumer groups.
△Magnetic silk scarf, can achieve a second style
In terms of product consumption, in addition to the high appearance and fashion characteristics of the products themselves, young female consumers prefer the constant change of accessories. After purchasing the products, they hope to get multifunctional jewelry that can adapt to the fashionable accessories worn in different occasions. In addition, the products must also be entertaining and interesting. Compared with traditional IP or gameplay, creative and new things can gain higher acceptance and expectations.
This is a clear difference shown by the entire young consumer group. In the category of fashion accessories, we can see that the changes in each generation of mainstream consumers will cause a huge change in the direction of the entire industry. The styles that people born in the 70s, 80s, and even earlier may like are jade bracelets and gold necklaces. By the time of the generation born in the 85s, the style of jewelry has become exquisite and design-oriented, and the "wealthy" type has been benched.
Because of the curiosity, freshness, individuality and exploration spirit of the young women born in the 90s and 95s mentioned above, the jewelry category needs a stronger sense of self-expression, which also paves the way for the growth of the "Magnetic" brand.
From the trend point of view, magnetic accessories are gradually growing from functional needs to spiritual needs, and the future growth space of the industry is imaginative. Taking jewelry as an example, the market demand in the past was that jewelry should be comfortable to wear, of good quality, light in summer and warm in winter. When quality is no longer the main pain point, users pay more attention to fashion, that is, extending from function to beauty. From this, we can see that on the basis of accessories, the splicing gameplay of original components is more popular among young consumers.
△Magnetic silk scarf, can achieve a second style
Xu Ruiyao introduced that there are currently two types of original components for "Magnetic and" jewelry, namely, the customized magnetic circuit component and the standard small gold bean strong magnetic buckle. Users can choose different chain segments according to their preferences and creativity, and then freely assemble them into a new main body through magnetic attraction. Since it can be freely combined, the necklace can also be turned into a bracelet or sweater chain and other forms of products.
In terms of design concept, "Magnetic and" also has a variety of style themes of fashion and innovation, which can give the initiative to users and allow users to freely mix and match through magnetic connection. For example, the brand's three most popular style products - Fashion and Simple Series Metal Jewelry, National Trend Handmade Series Jewelry and Magic Sweetheart Girl Series Jewelry.
Fashion and Simple Series - Metal Jewelry
Simple and elegant, it can be worn in the workplace and at leisure, and two can be combined together to create more usage scenarios.
National trend handmade series - semi-precious stone magnetic jewelry
The current popular national trend element design, heavy handmade, with magnetic suction design, so that the product can be used as a brooch or a hat ornament, without damaging the fabric to create more possibilities for jewelry wear.
△The combination of gemstone porcelain and magnetic iron tree
Magic Sweetheart Girl Series - Creative Replacement Accessories
Satisfy the interests and aesthetics of little girls, combine food with accessories, and turn fun, interesting and beautiful into one.
For "Ci Yu", splicing as the core means more possibilities for extension, making the design itself younger, more varied and more interesting. On the one hand, it breaks the concept of popular and outdated, allowing repeat purchases of new products to be recombined with existing products, making them more varied. In terms of materials, there is also a lot of room for choice, breaking the limitations of materials that restrict styles. Consumers can break the rules and mix and match to show their personality.
On the other hand, it is a combination of different colors and shapes. To make the product present a different state from traditional accessories.
Products come from technical research and development strength
In addition, the founding design team of the "Magnetic and" brand not only has rich experience in jewelry, but also has rich experience in clothing accessories design, including jewelry artists, Western classical culture research experts and cutting-edge fashion brand designers.
According to reports, in terms of magnetic technology research results, the company has a number of core patents for magnetic life applications, not only the exclusive "flexible magnetic" application technology used in the clothing industry - breaking through the traditional hard metal magnetism; but also has a number of magnetic jewelry application patents - allowing accessories to be connected through magnetism, breaking through the bondage of connection, breaking through the free use of cross-species categories, and achieving consumers' different needs without being bound by definitions.
From the perspective of quality, "Magnetic and" is also committed to giving users a better experience. Xu Ruiyao said that the company has gathered a group of industrial magnetic experts who understand magnetic materials best in China, leading the magnetic circuit simulation design and product application research and development, so as to do a good job in the magnetic supply chain ecology with 18 years of quality accumulation, and ensure that every magnetic particle and magnetic energy can play the greatest mission. The latest international and domestic industrial magnetic application technology is scientifically integrated into the application scenarios of life.
This is also the advantage of the "Magnetic and" brand. Although being copied is inevitable in the long run, these can allow "Magnetic" to be symbolized earlier in the industry and become an original jewelry brand.
Looking to the future and persisting in innovation
As a solution provider for magnetic technology product applications, Magnetics and Technology not only pioneered the customization of "strong magnetic components" for the jewelry field, but also designed and customized a series of magnetic circuit application solutions, created a product patent network, and developed more scientific and safe magnetic use scenarios.
When asked about the brand's development plan and key directions for the next year, Xu Ruiyao said that the company will focus on new product research and development, channel expansion and brand promotion in the next three aspects. The company is committed to using its previous technical capabilities in the field of science and technology to help more brands and companies innovate products in the market competition of homogeneous involution, using the convenient and freely combined splicing characteristics of magnets, so that more consumers can experience the beauty and fun of magnetic accessories.
In terms of new product development, the two major categories are scarves and accessories, ensuring 100 SKUs per popular season, and developing new magnetic storage products and magnetic home products at the same time.
In terms of channel expansion, "Magnetics and Technology" will expand the market through industry alliances and cross-industry alliances, provide partners with product customization and patent support networks, and expand the development model of B and C linkage. Online, we will work with the top platforms for communication, and offline, we will work with the strong, provide a good product experience, continue to innovate, and deeply occupy the minds of consumers with fashionable and high-quality products.
"2022 is a challenging year, and every challenge contains opportunities. When the original survival mode is squeezed to the limit and cannot develop, it may be the time for the brand to innovate and break through. "Magnetism" is a magical existence, invisible and intangible, but it can give people an excellent experience. I firmly believe that everything has a magnetic field, and magnetism coexists with everything. "Magnetism and" is always willing to maintain a development mentality. Everything you meet is attracted to you. We are willing to explore new application boundaries of magnetic products with more partners. Strive to occupy an advantageous position in the new round of industry reshuffle. "Xu Ruiyao said.
