Chinese producer sells 300m yuan of lubes online in just three days
Lopal's Sonic 9000 Image: Tmall |
Lopal recently ended a hugely-successful three day promotional campaign for its SONIC 9000 fully synthetic motor oil from 10am on May 20th to 10pm on May 22nd 2015.
During the period, the company sold more than 30,000 units and generated more than 3m yuan ($480,000 propelling it to the top of the rankings on Tmall, Alibaba Group's B2C website.
SONIC 9000 5W-40 has been dubbed a "crown product" on the website, beating many other imported brands that had typically dominated the fully-synthetic, high-end lubricants market.
Longpan placed quality and reputation at the forefront of its campaign.
The company priced its lubricant at just 99 yuan ($16) for a four litre bottle, well below many of its international competitors. This may also have contributed to is popularity amongst China's online shoppers. The price then returned to 219 yuan ($35) - still way below the regular 599 yuan price tag - at the end of the promotion.
Aggressive pricing and deep discounts are clearly a good way to raise visibility online. Thanks to its link with C2C giant Taobao.com, Tmall has more than half a billion users, so taking the top spot for the most sold product in any given week is extremely impressive.
Clearly, selling as a loss leader is not a long-term strategy for any single product, however the cost of acquiring that level of visibility through paid-for media placement could easily match a single promotional campaign.