Chippi&Co: How “Little Bunny” from Vietnam Hopped into Global Toy Market with Safety and Innovation

“Despite facing the challenges of CVOVID-19 and operational difficulties, we persevered and nurtured our start-up. Today, Chippi, our “bunny”, has grown into a global brand that embraces the cross-border e-commerce trend, generates steady revenue, and creates employment opportunities for craft villages and knitting cooperatives in Vietnam.”

This is the story of Chippi&Co, founded by Ms. Ha Thuc Dieu Linh - Managing Director of Chippi&Co, Ms. Chu Kim Dieu Huong - Director of Product Development Chippi&Co and Ms. Nguyen Hong Ngoc - Operating Director of Chippi&Co. They are three young businesswomen who dreamed of safe, innovative and educational toys that would provide children around the world with a secure, joyful and laughter-filled childhood.

Three Vietnamese female entrepreneurs - co-founders of Chippi&Co, a brand of safe and innovative toys for children

Success from “trivet” philosophy

Ms. Huong, Ms. Linh, and Ms. Ngoc, three young and vivacious women, formed the company Chippi&Co, which specializes in offering products and toys for the first stage of a baby's growth. As mothers and child lovers, they treasure and eagerly anticipate discovering and creating distinctive, high-quality, safe, and highly instructive toys for the kids in their families. The name "Chippi&Co" conjures up images of mischievous, active and smart bunny, much like those of young "clients" enjoying Vietnamese knitted and crocheted toys.

Handcrafted crochet doll toys from Vietnam conquering the international market

After two years of participation in Amazon's cross-border e-commerce business, Chippi&Co has experienced a tenfold increase in the number of orders compared to its inception. By the end of 2022, Chippi&Co's growth rate was twelve times compared to the previous years. This rhythm comes from 3 "legs": products, people & technology.

"From the beginning, we agreed to build a business that is stable, sustainable and s value to customers and the community, starting with quality products," Ms. Linh shared. The products of stuffed animals, handmade crocheted woolen dolls with soft materials meeting ASTM international safety standards of the American Association for Testing and Materials, are the life’s first best friend who accompanies the child everyday even when sleeping. More than just a toy, Chippi&Co stuffed animals provide parents with peace of mind by passing tests for durability, the absence of dangerous components, and the absence of heavy metals and other potentially toxic compounds in the materials. Also, other products like rattling teether toys, wooden educational toys, etc. are created from premium materials imported from Vietnam and rigorously tested for quality before delivery to kids. Products from the “bunny” brand are carefully and adorably made with bright colors to encourage the growth of children's imagination and thinking.

Educational wooden toys, safe and nurturing for babies from Chippi&Co

Chippi&Co is also run by three founders, each of whom has a focus on one of the company's three operating divisions. Ms. Huong is in charge of growth, Ms. Ngoc is in charge of goods and partners, and Ms. Linh is in charge of finance and legal affairs. To secure the supply of items for the year's major shopping seasons, Chippi&Co also extends its factories and collaborates with skilled knitting cooperatives and craft villages throughout the nation, including those in Da Lat, Dak Lak, Nha Trang, Khanh Hoa, Thanh Hoa, and Quang Ninh.

In terms of technology, Chippi&Co chooses e-commerce as a "wave" to propel its boats into the commercial sea. This was a bold and timely decision as the business was born right in the challenging Covid-19. Embracing cross-border e-commerce, Chippi&Co can sell directly to clients around the world while also establishing their global brand. This eliminates the need for offline retail outlets abroad, middlemen, or export-import channels.

Global-sighted, challenges overcome, Made-in-Vietnam to the world

In contrast to the domestic to international journey of the majority of Vietnamese small enterprises, Chippi&Co started with the US market as its primary target. The US is regarded as a sizable and promising market that is open to novel and distinctive items at all times. Furthermore, in industrialized nations in Europe and America, where parents have had a lengthy process of learning and applying how to raise and take care of their children at an essential initial stage of life, there is a worry about high-quality, safe children's items and instructive toys. Chippi&Co almost "dropped off" in the first year despite extensive planning and research.

After 6 months of operation, in the period of Christmas 2020, orders from Amazon to Chippi&Co suddenly skyrocketed. When manufacturers, raw supplies, and personnel could not keep up with the volume of orders placed during year-end shopping, the company experienced initial excitement but quickly descended into chaos. In addition, in the first stage, Chippi&Co completed the order by itself, leading to many stages from order processing, logistics management, delivery, answering customer's return request or customer's late delivery complaint. It took a few months to handle the crisis, and that was also the time for the 3 founders Huong, Linh, Ngoc to sit down & decide to make 3 big changes for Chippi&Co.

The first change is to thoroughly take advantage of the tools and data provided by Amazon to better understand customer tastes, shopping trends, and selling times for better planning on product manufacturing & processing. “Thanks to efficient adoption of Amazon's tools to gauge customer needs, we have timely replenished products in stock during holidays such as Prime Day, Black Friday, Easter, making revenue more stable and the peak season revenue increasing 3 times as usual," shared Ms. Huong.

Second, because of "traumatic experiences" during the Christmas season of 2020, Chippi&Co switched to FBA (Fulfilment by Amazon) to optimize the shipping process and fulfill the order. By signing up for FBA, Chippi&Co has been able to concentrate on developing and exploring more innovative goods while letting Amazon to handle the order fulfilment including logistics-related duties and customer support. This relieves them of the need to hire US-based people on call to handle orders, totally depend on the carrier or worry about the return and exchange process when a customer request arises.

Another turning point of Chippi is the serious brand’s building and protection for sustainable development in the international market. Chippi&Co subscribes to Amazon's Brand Registry program to safeguard trademarks and prevent product duplication. In addition, Chippi makes use of Amazon's branding tools to to market the brand and draw attention to the store, such as making appealing product pages and producing advertising content.

Following the success in the US market, Chippi&Co is now expanding its brand in its native Vietnam. This is expected to have a positive impact in the community of contemporary young parents and make more high-quality, secure, and instructive toys and items available to Vietnamese kids.

Cross-Border E-commerce connecting Vietnamese handicrafts to the world

Sharing about the ups and downs of the “bunny” Chippi brand, the founder of Chippi&Co proudly said: “We believe that Chippi&Co embodies the pioneering spirit of three Vietnamese women who are steadfast in their pursuit of their objectives: pioneering to spread a higher consciousness to create a happy and peaceful childhood for children build a happy and peaceful childhood for children, pioneering the trend of cross-border e-commerce, and pioneering in connecting Vietnamese handicraft products to global market”.

T.H (Vietnam Business Forum)