The home fitness market faces new opportunities.
The sudden epidemic has enriched the issue of being at home. In addition to games and entertainment, e-commerce, fresh home, etc., home fitness is also one of the industries that has seen a significant increase in recent years.
Fitness experiments on home scenes, from traditional treadmills to content platforms to fitness hardware with interactive content, now there are free live courses and even online personal education services.
No matter what kind of experiment, the core is inseparable: 1. Convenience. Reducing the psychological burden of going out to fitness, all say that the hardest part of fitness is not when you exercise, but when you change clothes and go out. 2. Fun. It can also be understood as entertainment, whether it is game setting, sharing, punch card mechanism, or live broadcast to increase interaction, are increasing the fun of fitness.
Peloton in the United States is a good example. Although the market value fluctuates, after all, it has won a large number of middle-class fitness users through the method of content + streaming media subscription + hardware. At the same time, it became a label because of its high-priced identity attributes. Products with social attributes. But there are also places in the United States where fitness is not accepted in China, such as fitness willingness, willingness to pay, exercise habits, and so on.
The domestic fitness market is still in its early days, and China’s home fitness scene may require more “transitional” products. Goldsmith just provides a compromise exercise program for home fitness-WalkingPad walking machine, changing from running to walking.
Why a walking machine?
The treadmill has all the functions of a treadmill. Why should I step out? King Smith, the chairman of King Smith, told the company that when it produced and sold smart treadmills in 2014, it was unexpectedly discovered that 70-80% of tens of thousands of users were walking on treadmills. With this data feedback, the team had the idea of developing a walking machine , and King Smith became the first company to produce walking machines.
In April 2018, Goldsmith’s first product A1 was launched on the Xiaomi Youpin crowdfunding platform, priced at 1699 yuan, and the crowdfunding sales reached 6,000 units. By the end of 2018, the product sales reached 100,000 units. During the foundation of A1A number of product models such as C1, P1, A1Pro have been developed successively. In September 2019, King Smith released two new products, S1 and R1, from the first walking machine, and sold more than 300,000 units.
Compared to treadmills, walking machines solve many of the pain points of the original treadmills: occupying space (the balcony space is often occupied the most, so treadmills are also nicknamed drying racks), and the idle rate is high ,loud noise. And Ai Media Report released a research and development of China’s fitness equipment industry in 2019 The trend forecast report shows that , Tmall and JD.com ’s fitness equipment sales have ushered in a high increase in 2018 and 2019. At the same time, mute, folding, multi-function, shock absorption, etc. have become users’ purchase of fitness equipment on e-commerce channels. The main demand is that the lightweight treadmill is welcomed by the e-commerce market.
During the product development, King Smith also made some improved designs:
Three models of walking machines (A1Pro, R1 and S1) use brushless motors, which can bring better mute effect; In addition, the new R1 supports the folding function of the treadmill (the patented technology of the folding platform) After the exercise, you can fold the platform 180 degrees in half to reduce the floor area, which is convenient for placing at home.
At the same time, the team is also constantly trying new manufacturing processes and materials, such as the IML process commonly used in the mobile phone field; such as the one-time die-casting SMC material (commonly used in automotive, train, and aircraft composite materials) ; Considering safety, users in need can also purchase armrests.
In addition, in order to adapt to the living conditions of contemporary people, WalkingPad also pays great attention to the appearance, the entire product can not see a screw, the first generation product A1 won the German if design award and the German red dot design award.
During the product iteration, King Smith also replenished the production side. The upstream acquired the production plant, and now it can achieve higher production.Efficiency, one device can be offline in 30 seconds.
This year, the company’s households have made more investments outside the station, and their products have also been displayed in more than 1,000 Xiaomi Home’s offline stores. In Jing Zhifeng’s view, the product is mainly aimed at the lightweight sports market, which reduces the psychological threshold of sports by not putting a psychological burden on users. Based on this, there are still many incremental markets in the future. The company will focus on content movement in 2020, and achieve sales goals through better content and improved supporting courses.
Goldsmith has previously received investments from Shunwei Capital, Walden Capital, JD.com and PCCW.