Posts

The 3 A.M. Leak Test: What Heavy-Flow Sleepers Are Telling Us About Period Pants

Image
 A note crossed my feed this week. A woman writing, half-joking, half-pleading: stock up on period pants before your next cycle. She described the classic profile — heavy flow, restless sleeper, front leaks, back leaks, stained sheets. Her fix was not a thicker pad. It was switching to Lancool period pants and keeping a full drawer of them. The note pulled replies for hours. Almost none of them argued about brand. They argued about nighttime geometry. That is the part worth writing about, because the same geometry decides what sells in menstrual pants wholesale channels too. Pads do not fail at absorbency. They fail at angles. A pad is engineered to work on a body lying still. The moment a sleeper turns onto her side, or draws her knees up, the pad stays flat while the body does not. Gaps open at the front and the back. The core may hold plenty of fluid — it just never receives it. This is why the "heavy flow" complaint and the "restless sleeper" complaint are reall...

China's Feminine Hygiene Products Can Compete With Global Brands. But What Keeps Them Going?

Image
 China's feminine hygiene industry has reached an unusual point. The early accumulation phase is over. Now it is time to build brands and go global. I say this as someone who has gone out. Our period pants first ranked first on 1688, then buyers from Taiwan and Thailand came to us. In 2024 we caught the overseas e-commerce wave in Thailand and reached the top of the period-pants category there, with single-day orders breaking ten thousand. We later expanded to Vietnam and the Philippines. Those experiences convinced me: Chinese feminine hygiene products can stand next to international brands. In some ways, they are even stronger. But matching global brands is only the start. Staying ahead is the hard part. I have seen too many brands rely on live streaming, promotions, and short-term traffic bursts. It creates volume for a month or two. Then consumers realize the product is no different from the next brand, and a newer brand replaces you. You are always running behind the next wave...

China's Feminine Hygiene Products Can Compete With Global Brands. But What Keeps Them Going?

Image
  China's feminine hygiene industry has reached an unusual point. The early accumulation phase is over. Now it is time to build brands and go global. I say this as someone who has gone out. Our period pants first ranked first on 1688, then buyers from Taiwan and Thailand came to us. In 2024 we caught the overseas e-commerce wave in Thailand and reached the top of the period-pants category there, with single-day orders breaking ten thousand. We later expanded to Vietnam and the Philippines. Those experiences convinced me: Chinese feminine hygiene products can stand next to international brands. In some ways, they are even stronger. But matching global brands is only the start. Staying ahead is the hard part. I have seen too many brands rely on live streaming, promotions, and short-term traffic bursts. It creates volume for a month or two. Then consumers realize the product is no different from the next brand, and a newer brand replaces you. You are always running behind the next wav...

Teen Pads Are Harder to Make Than Adult Pads. Here Is Why.

Image
When we built a product line for young students, many people assumed it would be easy. Young users accept new things, right? They are less picky. I thought the same until I started working on it. Teen pads are probably ten times harder than adult pads. Why? Because the usage scenario is much more demanding. An adult who feels uncomfortable can go to the restroom and change. A student in the middle of class cannot. She may be sitting for hours, moving between classrooms, running in gym class. The pad has to stay in place, not leak, not shift, and not show through tight clothes. One mistake — a side leak during class, a visible outline — and the embarrassment is enough to make her want to stay home. I remember an old-timer pointing out a detail: girls today wear skinny jeans and fitted underwear. If the pad is bulky, it shows. If it is too long or too wide, it bunches. Every dimension matters more for this user because discretion matters more. So designing for teens forced us to think di...

Why Cheap Pads Win Once — and Never Come Back

Image
 I often use a simple line: use it well, and the customer orders again. Use it badly, and she leaves, no matter what you say. It sounds obvious. It is also the cruelest truth in this industry. I have watched too many factories calculate costs down to the last cent. Can we use less SAP? Can we use a cheaper topsheet? Can we trim the core? The assumption is that users will not notice. But they always do. A cheap pad feels different. It is less absorbent, less breathable, less comfortable. The user tries it once, and that is enough. Next time she buys something else. Poor reviews follow. Returns follow. The brand loses her forever. You think you won the sale. You actually lost the customer. The opposite also happens. I have seen premium products build repeat purchase not because they were heavily advertised, but because they felt right. In Thailand, when we sold period pants there, local consumers cared less about price than about whether the product was comfortable, breathable, and s...

When R&D, Marketing, and Production Do Not Talk, Everyone Loses

Image
  我在这行干的时间越长,就越发现一个隐藏的浪费:研发部门各司其职,市场部门各司其职,生产部门各司其职。三个部门,三个孤岛,彼此之间毫无沟通。 结果呢?产品卖不出去,市场部把责任推给研发部,说产品不好。研发部遭到批评,然后又把责任推给生产部。生产部觉得受到了不公平的指责,说是机器出了问题。如此循环往复,资金不断投入,责任却不断推诿,问题始终没有解决。 这种逻辑是本末倒置的。正确的逻辑链是:机器服务于产品结构,产品结构服务于消费者。你根据消费者的需求来选择产品。这才是出发点。 一位老前辈多年前就教导我,新产品开发应该“横向”进行。老板想推出新品?不要立刻让研发部门去发明。先坐下来问问自己:这款产品是面向谁的?如何销售?是高端市场还是大众市场?只有在这些问题得到解答之后,市场部和研发部门才能讨论需要哪些材料、设备和结构来支撑它。 如今,令人遗憾的是,这种情况常常颠倒过来。研发部门跑到市场部问:“你们想要什么?我们来做。” 这是错误的。研发部门应该告诉市场部:我们的技术发展到了什么程度,我们能够稳定生产什么。这样,市场部才能知道应该朝着哪个方向努力。 如果你每天都追逐市场潮流,照搬畅销产品,你永远都会落后。我们设计经期内裤的初衷是,首先询问年轻女性夜间最担心的是什么:侧漏、闷热、不适。一旦答案明确,方向也就清晰了——轻薄透气,立体防漏设计。产品由此诞生。 制造业的运作模式在各地都一样。率先理顺这条产业链的公司能节省最多的钱。 对于与OEM工厂合作的品牌 一家只听从自身生产团队意见的工厂,只会生产方便的产品,而不是真正需要的产品。寻找一个以目标用户为中心、以客户需求为先的合作伙伴。 Nafei 以实际使用场景为导向,而非受限于机器性能,来设计 OEM 卫生巾和月经裤。了解我们的流程:女性卫生用品 OEM 合作伙伴的优势。 李根元是湖南娜菲生物科技有限公司的创始人,该公司是一家位于中国的女性卫生用品OEM/ODM制造商。他撰写文章,讲述如何在卫生巾和月经裤行业打造真正的产品业务。更多信息请访问hnnafei.com。

When Payment Terms, Subsidies, and Tax Tricks Are Tapped Out, What Is Left?

Image
  Lately the word I hear most from veterans in the feminine hygiene industry is "neijuan" — involution. Everyone is asking the same question: how do we survive? An old-timer who has been in this business for over thirty years described what he has seen. At first, companies competed by lowering prices and sacrificing margin. Then they tried to lose less instead of earn more. Then even that stopped working, so they started squeezing internal costs: longer payment terms with suppliers, chasing government subsidies, optimizing tax structures. Every possible source of savings got dug out. But here is the tragedy. The money saved often did not go back into the product. It went into marketing — live streaming, promotions, paid traffic. And marketing without a differentiated product is just burning cash. This month you get a spike; next month a new brand copies you and buries you. You are forever running just to stay in place. Why? Because everyone got the priority wrong. What the in...