Behind the $200 million sales of a curling iron: The new route for Chinese-made products to go global

In late April, the Information Office of the Shenzhen Municipal Government published an article stating that Wavytalk, a Shenzhen-based hair styling tool brand, expanded overseas through TikTok Shop and accumulated revenues of over $200 million in the United States in three years. The related topic ranked third on the Shenzhen local list on Weibo.

Once the news broke, it was like a stone thrown into the cross - border e - commerce circle, creating ripples in the public eye and making people realize again the vast overseas market and potential wealth opportunities.

In the highly competitive overseas beauty and personal care market, as a rising brand, Wavytalk has achieved its current revenue scale. Besides its supply - chain foundation, it has more importantly capitalized on the dividends of the era when interest - based e - commerce is booming.

Wavytalk's success is not an isolated case. The growth of the TikTok Shop platform has provided more room for similar merchants.

Earlier, some media reported that the year - on - year growth rate of TikTok Shop's GMV (Gross Merchandise Volume) in 2025 was close to 70%, which was the main driving force for the increase in ByteDance's overseas revenue share. In the current global environment where shelf e - commerce is generally facing a ceiling in traffic and a bottleneck in growth, this nearly 70% reverse growth is particularly remarkable.

This traffic revolution driven by TikTok Shop is not just an expansion of the platform's own business territory. It is subtly rewriting the overseas expansion gene of China's manufacturing industry and providing a highly certain new channel for the domestic real economy to move towards the high - value - added end of the global value chain.

01 Changing Identities, Reshaping the Value Chain of Chinese Brands

Like the numerous factories in the Pearl River Delta and the Yangtze River Delta, many enterprises in the overseas expansion wave used to be at the bottom of the "smile curve" in international trade before their transformation. They had extremely mature manufacturing processes and unparalleled supply - chain efficiency but could only earn meager processing profits in endless involution. The brand premium, channel profits, and most importantly, the pricing power of products were firmly in the hands of overseas brand owners. For a long time, "Made in China" has been "making wedding dresses for others".

With the rise of early cross - border e - commerce, many factories tried to transform. However, in the context of traditional shelf e - commerce, they quickly hit an invisible ceiling that was difficult to break through.

Hugh, the founder and CEO of Wavytalk, told 36Kr: "On traditional e - commerce platforms, we found that the biggest growth ceiling was that although we could sell products, it was difficult to simultaneously build brand awareness and user awareness."

This means that in the traditional overseas expansion model, products can only rely on price advantages and are difficult to be transformed into long - term brand assets.

It was at such an industrial turning point that the emergence of TikTok Shop reshaped the imagination space for overseas expansion.

In Hugh's view, TikTok is no longer just a social media platform, and TikTok Shop is not a traditional shelf e - commerce platform. It is more like an ecosystem that drives consumption through content. When users enter TikTok, they often do not have a clear purchase purpose. Instead, they are inspired by the content, develop emotions, and finally make a consumption decision.

"In content e - commerce, content is the shelf, and creators are the shopping guides." In the process where content creation and consumption decision - making are deeply intertwined, the brand value that was originally difficult to establish is subtly precipitated.

With the new model of interest - based e - commerce such as short videos and live - streaming, countless Chinese enterprises trapped in homogeneous competition have the opportunity to break through traditional path limitations, successfully step out from the large and silent supply - chain network behind the scenes, bypass multiple distributors, and directly face hundreds of millions of consumers.

This leap not only means a substantial increase in profit margins but also is the core process for enterprises to regain pricing power and build brand moats.

The rapid growth of TikTok Shop in the overseas market is turning into a channel dividend that drives the transformation and upgrading of China's industrial chain, empowering more real - economy enterprises to climb to the high - value - added end of the global value chain.

02 Interest - Based E - Commerce Rewrites the Underlying Logic of Overseas Expansion

While being amazed by the $200 million revenue of emerging merchants, we need to think more deeply: Why can new brands that have difficulty breaking through on traditional e - commerce platforms achieve rapid growth in the short - video ecosystem?

This is not accidental. Interest - based e - commerce has reconstructed the traditional overseas expansion model at the underlying business mechanism level.

First, it is the change brought about by the "product finding customers" model.

The underlying logic of traditional shelf e - commerce (such as Amazon and eBay) is "customers finding products".

In the view of Jeremy, the person - in - charge of Wavytalk's TikTok Shop and the social media operation director, in this model, "consumers usually enter the platform with a clear purpose, and the conversion efficiency is very high, but it is difficult for brands to accumulate long - term assets."

If a new brand lacks popularity or its product concept is too novel, consumers don't know where to start searching, and the product naturally faces a very high cold - start threshold.

However, TikTok Shop initiates an information - flow recommendation mechanism of "product finding customers".

For example, hair styling tools naturally have strong content attributes. Selling points such as "straightening hair in one second" and "reducing hair frizz", which were difficult to describe vividly in the graphic era, can be more intuitively presented in short videos. The visual effect of before - and - after comparisons can instantly hit consumers' pain points and greatly shorten the decision - making process from "cognition" to "purchase".

TikTok influencers share their experiences of using Chinese hair styling tools

Second, it is the marketing leap from "selling products" to "creating trends". TikTok has over one billion active users globally, most of whom are young people aged 18 - 35, with strong consumption ability and a passion for following trends. It is also a global trendsetter. There are various topics on the platform, where a large number of users share and discuss. Chinese merchants can expand their influence and attract more users' attention by initiating appropriate topic challenges.

In this ecosystem, brands no longer engage in one - way "promotion" but establish brand awareness through co - creation with users.

Wavytalk keenly captured the pain point of "difficult - to - manage fine, soft, and flat hair" among European and American women and actively launched the "#passyourwavytalk" drifting - bottle relay check - in topic, which perfectly fit the current global social trend of "girls help girls".

In this relay, the product became an emotional medium for transmitting confidence and mutual assistance, successfully converting traffic into deep user resonance.

Another advantage of TikTok Shop is the DTC (Direct - to - Consumer) data feedback that eliminates cross - border information gaps.

A major pain point for Chinese enterprises going overseas is that the design and production are in China, making it difficult to accurately grasp the real needs of overseas consumers. The interaction mechanism of TikTok Shop has made up for this information gap to a certain extent. Comments under short videos and interactions in live - streaming rooms have become the "data brain" for factories' micro - innovations.

Wavytalk's best - selling "curling comb" was developed based on comments. Hugh said that initially, this curling comb was just an accessory in a set, but the team found that influencers often focused on it during the demonstration. "We judged that users had a strong demand for this single product, so we quickly developed an independent product." Subsequently, based on the real feedback in the comment section, they added multi - level temperature settings and negative - ion technology to reduce frizz.

TikTok influencers post videos to promote Chinese hair styling tool products

Good content is not only a sales tool but also a feedback channel for product selection. Gan Chuanwei and Zhang Chao, the founders of the marker pen merchant "Szhuanpu" in Dongguan, noticed the daily feedback in the comment section that "left - handed people tend to smear ink when writing". They worked with factory technicians to adjust the ink formula. After two months of repeated testing, they launched a "quick - drying pen" that addressed this pain point.

The success of this quick - drying product made Gan Chuanwei exclaim: "In the past, when it came to high - end marker pens, people only recognized Japanese and German brands. But now, Chinese merchants are leading in innovation."

03 The Collective Breakthrough of the New Global Array

For overseas sellers, the brand awareness accumulated on TikTok Shop is not limited to the platform. It also has a "spill - over effect" offline and on other platforms.

In the past, Chinese overseas - sold products were often labeled as "low - cost alternatives". Now, relying on the display dimension of content e - commerce, Chinese merchants have gradually established a brand image that combines innovation and quality after the initial incubation. The natural spill - over of traffic has enabled many merchants to achieve growth on Amazon, independent websites, and even overseas offline supermarkets, expanding their global sales network.

In Yiwu, Zhejiang, Chen Kehan, the founder of Youmei Technology Co., Ltd., targeted the personal care market and sold Hatteker hair removal devices. After trying various platforms, the team finally focused on TikTok Shop.

Chen Kehan calculated that most traditional platforms have a "step - by - step" slow growth, while TikTok Shop brings a "pulse - like" sharp increase. The daily sales of one of his women's hair removal devices increased tenfold after a popular influencer's video went viral. Li Chunlian, the business person - in - charge, summarized: "Traditional platforms use a store - to - customer approach, while TikTok enables person - to - person communication, which is very sincere and has stronger user stickiness."

For Chen Kehan, behind the sales volume is the reshaping of brand dignity. He doesn't want Chinese factories to be pressured on price without a bottom line and lose their voice. "Through the efforts of our generation of merchants, foreign companies also respect us when purchasing. Now, when I go abroad to participate in small household appliance exhibitions, I am very confident because I know that TikTok Shop provides a stable online channel for us to sell products."

In Shenzhen, the innovation capital, PetPivot, an automatic cat litter box merchant, also shines brightly.

Facing the unfamiliar overseas market, the person - in - charge, Lena and Poppy, did not blindly place advertisements. Instead, they entrusted the autonomy of brand concept to creative influencers on TikTok. The art creator kapgallery painted a starry - sky pattern on the back of the cat litter box and a spaceship on the front, turning a practical tool into a home art piece. In just seven months, this team earned 200 million yuan, deeply implanting the warmth of Chinese design in the hearts of overseas pet owners.

In Dongguan, known as the "world factory", the plus - size women's clothing brand Finjani accurately identified the pain points in the European and American markets.

Guo Hua and Li Hongsen, the founders of Finjani, regarded short videos as "invisible salespersons". There were more than 1,500 video materials for just one best - selling plus - size dress. Driven by live - streaming, the annual revenue exceeded 23 million yuan last year.

Facing the severe challenges of overseas trade disputes and the sky - rocketing cross - border logistics costs, the "overseas warehouse" model launched by TikTok Shop came as a timely help. By shipping products in bulk to overseas warehouses for distribution, the freight cost was significantly reduced, successfully maintaining the profit margin.

Now, every piece of women's clothing sent from China to Europe and the United States by Ruimin bears its own brand logo, and is seen and truly remembered by more overseas people.

These business cases across different categories and regions jointly confirm a trend: As long as China's large and high - quality industrial belts find the right channels to communicate with global consumers, they can unleash amazing energy.

The nearly 70% year - on - year growth rate of TikTok Shop's GMV means that there is still a vast blue ocean for interest - based e - commerce. In this ecosystem, traffic is no longer an expensive consumable but a lever that can be leveraged through creativity and content. This large - scale platform potential not only greatly reduces the trial - and - error cost and cold - start threshold for new brands but also provides indispensable business infrastructure for the domestic industrial chain to move from simply "selling products" to "building brands".

Going back to the beginning of the story, Wavytalk's ability to earn $200 million in three years with a curling iron is not an accidental big order. It is an epitome of the era when "Made in China" crosses the cycle through a new channel.

With the expansion of overseas channels and the iteration of models, more and more Chinese real - economy enterprises like Wavytalk are completely saying goodbye to the era of meager profits of "making wedding dresses for others". With the strong impetus of interest - based e - commerce models such as TikTok Shop, driven by product innovation and content marketing, they are firmly moving towards high - value - added global brands. This is not only an expansion of the business territory but also a true portrayal of "Made in China" redefining its own value to the world and comprehensively climbing up the industrial chain.