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On June 18, what gives these 127 new brands the edge to compete head-to-head with industry giants?

Bambu Lab accomplished in just five years what DJI took nine years to achieve.

Two weeks ago, veteran giant Creality went public, becoming the 'first 3D printing stock.' Yet capital markets have kept their eyes firmly on Bambu Lab, the young unicorn. After all, whether by market share or revenue scale, Bambu Lab leads the industry.

Bambu Lab’s rise—from obscurity to industry leadership—has been accompanied by the departure of key personnel from DJI and intense commercial rivalries. Stripping away this dramatic veneer of corporate warfare, however, reveals an undeniable truth: Bambu Lab is emerging as the brightest symbol of this year’s collective 'identity leap' among new brands.

During this year’s June 18 shopping festival, Bambu Lab not only retained its No. 1 position in the 3D printer subcategory on Tmall but also surged to become the overall top brand in the office supplies category.

Similar comebacks are evolving from isolated cases into a broader industry trend. Zimu Bang has observed that this year, 127 new brands across multiple sectors—including apparel, home appliances, furniture, and beauty—have climbed from niche-market champions to rank among the top 10 in their respective industries on Tmall.

Against the backdrop of the entire industry, this trend appears especially unusual. Although we are now in 2026, many still associate new brands with the consumer boom around 2019, when venture capitalists waved checkbooks to secure deals and 'new consumption myths' abounded.

In recent years, however, consumer investment has cooled, and traffic红利 has plateaued, making life increasingly difficult for new brands. On one side, once-popular names like Zihao Guo and Zhong Xue Gao have stumbled; on the other, newer entrants struggle to escape the fate of 'brief fame followed by silence'—as soon as paid promotion stops, sales drop to zero.

So why is it that precisely this cohort of brands—born at what seems an inopportune time—not only survived but thrived?

After reviewing the data, Zimu Bang found that most of these brands were founded three to five years ago. Precisely because they couldn’t rely on external funding, they were forced to abandon the illusion of growth through heavy spending. Instead of competing on low prices, they focused on product quality and operational efficiency.

And that, in fact, became the key to navigating their growth cycles successfully.

From this perspective, the new consumption movement isn’t dead—it has simply evolved from a capital-fueled bubble into a self-sustaining entity.

Rewind to 2019, when the consumer market was captivated by the aesthetics of rapid growth. Founders and investors spun dreams of 'burning cash for scale'—as long as the story was compelling, hot money poured in. Brands aggressively scaled up ad spending to chase volume, betting that economies of scale would lower costs. Few asked whether the product truly solved a real pain point, and even fewer scrutinized customer acquisition costs.

But as capital retreated and traffic growth plateaued, an unexpected shift reshaped the DNA of new brands after 2021: they missed the golden era of capital markets but turned this setback into a blessing, confronting the fundamentals of business early on—they had to generate their own cash flow and build strong brand equity to survive.

Instead of chasing explosive short-term growth, they opted for a more solid upward trajectory: deeply addressing a specific pain point, thoroughly serving a well-defined user segment, and trading product strength and operational efficiency for steady growth. They aim to establish strong brand equity over three to five years and challenge established market leaders.

UWANT, which started with anti-mite devices, initially entered a market segment so overlooked it was virtually invisible to most.

Small manufacturers seized profits through imitation and rapid scaling, leading consumers to一度 regard anti-mite devices as a 'scam targeting gullible buyers.'

"White-label players extract profits by killing entire product categories, switching to a new one every two or three years. This kind of short-sighted, extractive approach isn’t suitable for teams truly committed to building a Chinese brand," said Ni Huiting, head of UWANT’s brand department. In UWANT’s view, turning this category into a sustainable, century-long business hinges on offering products with strong value-for-money propositions to consumers with genuine purchasing power.

Ni Huiting revealed that UWANT launched its flagship store on Tmall in 2021, treating it as the brand’s core foundation. "When a category experiences sustained high growth and expands in scale over multiple years, it inevitably moves toward differentiated, niche positioning. Home cleaning appliances have evolved from a single vacuum cleaner dominating the market to today’s diverse landscape—including robot vacuums, floor washers, anti-mite devices, and upholstery cleaners. The core consumer base is also shifting younger, and their purchasing decisions start online."

UWANT avoided the shortcut of using low prices to gain scale, instead leveraging high value-for-money products to penetrate precisely targeted user groups.

After five years of development, UWANT now commands a 50% market share in the anti-mite device segment and has expanded its leadership from a single product category into a full-scenario home cleaning appliance portfolio, securing the number-one position across multiple subcategories on Tmall. During this year’s June 18 shopping festival, UWANT doubled its year-over-year sales growth on Tmall.

Bambu Lab similarly targeted a market gap overlooked by industry giants: consumer-grade 3D printing. For years, 3D printers were labeled as 'geek toys,' often priced in the thousands of dollars and burdened with complex operation—barriers that deterred many ordinary users.

Bambu Lab, through continuous technological iteration, has delivered a ready-to-use experience at the sub-$150 price point, effectively transforming a niche product category into a mainstream consumer offering.

Recognizing the common pain points of traditional mattresses—prone to deformation and difficult to clean—Qizuo launched a glue-free, fully disassemblable mattress. Within five years, it achieved a 'triple jump' on Tmall: from newcomer to category leader in washable mattresses, and then to No. 7 in bedroom furniture, now racing toward an annual sales target exceeding RMB 2 billion. Co-founder Li Jing noted that as a fast-growing brand lacking strong institutional backing, Qizuo rapidly built customer trust through Tmall’s review system and fulfillment services.

Fabrique, a new designer-collaboration women's apparel brand, has validated a business model combining 'Chinese supply chains' with 'global designers,' consistently focusing on differentiated, scarce items. In a market squeezed between fast fashion and luxury, Fabrique carved out a path of 'aesthetic-driven value,' ranking among Tmall’s top 5 women's apparel brands during the 618 shopping festival.

With the old growth playbook of burning cash no longer effective, new brands must precisely identify genuine user pain points that create a 'must-buy' imperative and win口碑 through product excellence. The fundamental principle for these brands remains unchanged: solving real needs with exceptional product capabilities, supported by a healthy operating model for sustainable growth.

Avoiding hype-chasing and quick wins, these brands have found their own rhythm amid the retreat of speculative capital.

With strategy set, how do they execute? These emerging brands share a key trait: they don’t treat platforms merely as 'traffic faucets' but rather as foundational infrastructure for product validation, user retention, and brand mindshare amplification.

Given that 3D printers involve long decision cycles and users tend to actively research and compare options, Bambu Lab avoided blind ad spending. Instead, it leveraged content ecosystems to foster organic UGC and word-of-mouth breakthroughs while anchoring its core operations on Tmall. Focusing on sustained daily sales, it converted high-intent users into high-retention, high-repeat-purchase brand assets, securing its position as the industry leader through disciplined operations.

"Our first flagship store launched on Tmall—customers from other channels always benchmark against Tmall’s pricing and product offerings," Qizuo co-founder Li Jing told Zibideh. Starting from private-domain traffic, Qizuo initially built a highly convertible core user base through online content and community operations. But as the brand scaled, it needed broader audience exposure.

"We had many high-conversion users but lacked sufficient exposure and potential customers," Li Jing explained. This year, Qizuo optimized its audience asset structure—from a narrow focus on A3 (awareness-ready) users to a full A1–A4 funnel—by leveraging backend keyword targeting, audience segmentation tools, Super Live Streaming, and the 'Treasure New Brands' IP program.

For low-repeat-purchase, big-ticket durable goods like mattresses, Qizuo is also exploring a healthier profit structure.

‘Through detachable and replaceable product design, mattresses can also become higher-frequency fast-moving consumer goods. Leveraging Tmall’s audience insights and repurchase data, we’ve reverse-engineered our product development strategy and identified new category opportunities such as pet mattresses and ultra-thin tri-fold mattresses for high-platform beds,’ said Li Jing.

The incremental growth driven by category expansion essentially enables existing customers to upgrade within the brand, rather than repeatedly spending heavily to acquire new ones.

Off-platform, Qizuo has launched its U-Discovery ads and brand campaigns on Xiaohongshu and Douyin, precisely directing traffic to Tmall and converting potential customers through second and third touchpoints on the platform. ‘We avoid aggressive moves; relatively steady growth and investment keep the brand safer,’ Li Jing said.

Today, Qizuo has fully integrated its nationwide offline stores with its online operations. Tmall not only serves a sales function but also acts as the anchor for pricing and the hub for building trust. This new retail model—acquiring customers online, offering offline experiences, and driving them back online to place orders—has firmly established Qizuo in the mattress industry.

Unlike the previous cycle, when financial statements were prepared primarily for investors, now they are calculated for ourselves.

The definition of a ‘good business’ is being redefined: it’s no longer about high valuations and quick exits, but about healthy gross margins, controllable customer acquisition costs, and positive operating cash flow.

However, GMV generated purely from traffic doesn’t necessarily translate into profit. As competition intensifies, traffic costs will only rise, continuously eroding margins until profitability is undermined. A brand’s true source of profit comes first from consumer recognition and pricing power, and second from whether the market leaves room for brands to survive without resorting to cutthroat price wars.

Category definition rights, consumer trust, accumulation of audience assets, and improved repurchase rates all fundamentally help brands build a healthier and more sustainable profit structure.

Liu Bao, co-founder of Caoben Chuse, admitted frankly: ‘Early on, I was fixated on GMV, but what gives me peace of mind now is our repurchase rate and positive review rate. GMV is more of an outcome metric—if we get those fundamentals right, GMV will naturally follow.’

This lingerie brand, which originated on traffic-driven platforms and joined Tmall in 2022, holds a clear internal conviction: traffic platforms can drive growth from 0 to 1, but ‘long-term success’ requires a more sustainable platform foundation. ‘Use content platforms for breadth, and marketplace platforms for depth.’

On Tmall, they are no longer chasing explosive single-session livestream sales but pursuing sustained compound growth. In 2025, scented lingerie broke into the mainstream, while mulberry silk underwear established a solid foothold. During this year’s 618 shopping festival, Tmall’s AI tools doubled marketing conversion rates.

After traffic红利 has peaked, the survival rule becomes simple: acquiring new customers is too expensive—retaining existing ones is key. Repurchase rate is the lifeline; positive review rate is the moat.

Youwang drills down even deeper into these calculations. At the core of e-commerce fundamentals lie four basic variables: traffic, conversion rate, average order value, and return rate.

‘As traffic costs rise and average order value declines due to discounts, whether conversion rates can improve becomes the focal point of marketing decisions,’ said Ni Huiting. ‘Brand building and performance marketing aren’t about focusing on just one side—they must be combined into the optimal mix for the current stage of development. Fast-growing categories need high-impact traffic to quickly build category awareness, so it gets higher priority; mature categories already have ample traffic but lack precise audience targeting and efficient conversion.’

‘The platform must deliver specific value for emerging brands: Can it help new products expand market reach? Can it precisely identify niche audiences? Can it lower transaction costs? And ultimately, does it help brands accumulate long-term assets—or merely extract traffic from them?’

‘This requires a platform that offers timely and accurate information, is willing to share data openly, integrates across platforms, and maintains controllable costs—enabling strategic collaboration. Not every platform meets these criteria. We’ve partnered with Tmall for years, and our conversations rarely focus on grabbing a bigger slice of the existing pie. More often, we discuss how we can jointly expand the entire category market,’ said Ni Huiting.

In Youwang’s view, Tmall’s value goes beyond just selling products—it serves as an MVP system for validating business models.‘This is a model that enables scalable customer reach at low cost and allows us to validate behavioral decision pathways, letting us iterate products within three to six months. New brands must leverage agility to overcome the brand halo advantage held by giants.’

ZiMuBang observed that while many industry players remain fixated on price wars and bidding for traffic, Tmall has shifted its strategy toward ‘supporting high-quality original brands,’ steering competition back toward a healthy path that encourages brand innovation—and redirecting traffic support toward quality merchants and genuine sales growth.

This signals the platform’s evolution from a ‘traffic distribution arena’ into a ‘long-term brand operations base’—not only helping brands acquire their first users but also retaining loyal customers and launching new categories successfully.

In an era of competition over existing market share, e-commerce platforms are fundamentally about the allocation of trust: they provide brands that are willing to go deep and specialize in niche segments with a plot of land where they can weather storms and grow sustainably over the long term. $Alibaba (BABA.US)$$BABA-W (09988.HK)$$BABA-WR (89988.HK)$$China Concept Stocks (LIST2517.US)$$E-commerce Concept (LIST0593.SH)$$E-Commerce (LIST0942.SH)$$Consumer Staples Select Sector SPDR Fund (XLP.US)$$HK Consumer Goods (LIST1263.HK)$

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