Beefurni: Success Story of Transforming into an Int’l Wooden Furniture Brand on Amazon

How to expand the markets for Vietnam’s furniture industry? How can a furniture-manufacturer and supplier build their own brands and step out to the world? These are the questions that many businesses in the wood or furniture industry are encountering. This is also the journey of Beefurni - from manufacturing and exporting furniture products to building brand identity, embracing business opportunities through cross-border e-commerce, and bringing Made-in-Vietnam furniture to international consumers.

Beefurni brings Made-in-Vietnam furniture to international consumers through Amazon

Indoor and outdoor wooden furniture - Vietnam's strong manufacturing and exporting industry

Each year, Vietnam's wood industry exports an average of over 10 billion USD, making Vietnam the fifth country in the world in terms of wood manufacturing and exporting. Imprinted from crude materials to high-quality products, Vietnam is now one of the leading wood exporters to the US. The Vietnamese export market of wooden furniture has been expanded to over 120 countries and territories as of 2022, of which the United States continues to be Vietnam's largest wooden export market.

Through numerous exciting annual events, such as fairs and international trade exhibitions, domestic manufacturers of indoor and outdoor furniture have actively sought opportunities to connect with foreign partners, thereby creating a good foundation for the robust development of the industry. However, the majority of Vietnam’s wooden businesses only concentrate on sourcing for other brands or B2B exporting, as opposed to exploiting the potential of B2C exports to foreign consumers. As a consequence, Vietnam’s wooden furniture industry faces the challenge of a sluggish transformation due to the lack of experience and resources to digitize their production, business, and export, especially during the pandemic when the traditional supply chain is impacted.

Realizing and wanting to overcome these challenges, Beefurni - a Vietnamese furniture manufacturing company, entered the cross-border e-commerce evolution, built their own brand, approached customers directly, and grew a long-term sustainable business, thereby speeding up digital transformation and keeping up with the current technology era.

The factory's stable production also creates more jobs for their employees

Beefurni: the journey from outsourcing, manufacturing to exporting and owning a brand

Formerly a manufacturer, Beefurni has extensive experience in indoor and outdoor wood processing for international clients. However, Beefurni is always concerned with the fact that, despite their goods being sold promptly, their products neither have brand value, nor directly receive feedback and understand market demand since they have to go through wholesale intermediaries. Beefurni brand was founded with the mission of building an own brand for their products, reaching international customers, and opening a new business direction via cross-border e-commerce during the pandemic. Beefurni represents the image of diligent, disciplined, methodical, and highly united bees. Beefurni is also perceived as a well-kept, refined, high-quality furniture brand that concentrates on the customer in minor details.

Beefurni brand was founded with the mission of building an own brand for their products, reaching international customers

According to Mr. Nguyen Phu Vuong, Head of Marketing of Beefurni on Amazon, there are three success factors of their business selling on Amazon. The first factor is investing in brand building. The second is continuously improving products based on customer feedback thanks to managing all processes of manufacturing. The third is offering the best customer experience in order to collect positive feedback and increase the number of returning customers.

In terms of products, by researching customer purchasing preferences on Amazon and learning about the business operation of cross-border e-commerce, Beefurni decides to choose compact-sized home wooden products that can optimize its size when packing and shipping, including wooden cutting boards, wooden shelves, folding tables and chairs, and outdoor wooden decking tiles to start selling on Amazon. Additionally, Beefurni commits to "Bringing the true values" to customers as Ms. Le Thi Tu Uyen, Beefurni's Brand Manager shared, "The true value includes both the product’s advantages and after-sales services. With the advantage of being a manufacturer, we assure that we can provide consumers many benefits that not many sellers could be able to offer."

Beefurni aims to develop long-term cross-border e-commerce business goals by registering and developing its own brand when bringing Made-in-Vietnam indoor and outdoor wooden products to the international market on Amazon. Taking advantage of Amazon’s great customer base, professional services and high conversion rate, Beefurni has also joined Amazon’s Brand Registry program to protect their brand intellectual property, build customer trust and loyalty. They also put a lot of effort into produce branding images, videos that highlight the features, advantages, and benefits of products. They apply advertising tools to boost brand visibility and draw consumers' attention when they search for products online. These efforts have helped Beefurni to gradually increase the conversion rate of visitors to customers on their Amazon store.

As a category that has to deal with many logistics challenges, especially international shipping, Beefurni has chosen FBA - Fulfillment by Amazon to optimize operations and ensure the best delivery time for customers. However, despite having chosen products to sell carefully and having effective support from the FBA program, Beefurni still had numerous challenges during the beginning time due to the impact of Covid-19. In addition to the delayed shipping time, the number of orders was not as expected, which faced Beefurni with the challenge of managing storage limits. Beefurni team has come up with several solutions to adapt to the changing business environment such as sorting and prioritizing small and best-selling products to place at Amazon warehouses. At the same time, they outsourced warehouses to increase the amount of inventory, overcoming the difficult time and gradually stabilizing operations with this new business model.

Beefurni team has come up with several solutions to adapt to the changing business environment on Amazon

In order to determine how well current products satisfy customer expectations, Beefurni spends a lot of time listening to customers and gathering market feedback. This information is used to modify the product's design, size, and other features. Beefurni may improve products quickly by reading direct customer feedback through Amazon, cutting the delay from six months if selling through intermediaries to one month as a direct manufacturer selling their own products. Beefurni especially offers a minimum 365-day warranty for goods with manufacturing flaws. These become very strong competitive advantages of Beefurni compared to other sellers in the same product’s category.

Many customers expressed their satisfaction after purchasing Beefurni’s products, "This cutting board was my kitchen decorative item before I officially used it for cooking purposes since it was so beautiful. The manufacturer offers a one-year warranty, but it will not be necessary because of the high quality of the product.”

In the first 10 months of 2022, Beefurni's business results increased by nearly 300% over the same period last year. Not entirely dependent on wholesale purchases, orders from Amazon have greatly increased the factory's capacity. The factory's production plan is also more stable thus creating more jobs for their employees. In comparison to the new phase of joining cross-border e-commerce, Beefurni optimized the cost of warehousing, transportation, time, and resources by leveraging efficient services and programs for sellers on Amazon. As a result, Beefurni's business and brand growth are progressing well, motivating the company to keep growing and bringing good values to more customers in more marketplaces.

Photo of Beefurni’s factory

"Beefurni's goal is to bring our brand throughout the US, then expand selling on Amazon in UK, Singapore, or Japan regions in the near future," said Mr. Nguyen Phu Vuong, the representative of Beefurni. In an era of digital transformation, Beefurni's story presents a portrait of traditional Vietnamese manufacturers who are proactively seeking out new approaches to adapt to the global economic environment. Vietnam’s wooden furniture has the potential to create new values with international brands, and nimble businesses taking advantage of cross-border e-commerce can have a greater global reach, thus supporting the blooming of Made-in-Vietnam products in the near future.

Beefurni will keep growing and bringing good values to more customers in more marketplaces.

T.H (Vietnam Business Forum)