Shenzhen's New Marvel: This Chair Goes Global, Leaving Overseas Competitors "Unable to Sit Still"

How has AI Luo Huiping’s tour guide experience shaped Xihao’s business decisions?

Shenzhen has always been good at creating miracles. And another name for miracles is often reversal—in the business jungle, it’s a series of counter-inertial, counter-path choices and decisions.

Xihao, a Shenzhen-based ergonomic chair brand, is enriching the core of Shenzhen’s miracle through repeated reversals: while competitors stick to offline, it rushes online; when price wars heat up across the internet, it cuts off 70% of low-end revenue; when traffic pools are overcrowded, it re-enters offline with heavy assets.

This chair, which has gone from Shenzhen to 85 countries, not only supports the spines of Chinese people but also boosts China’s manufacturing confidence to compete alongside top global brands.

Cut off old paths, forge new ones: He rewrites industry patterns with a chair in Shenzhen

Many people wouldn’t expect that Luo Huiping, born in the 80s and in charge of this tech manufacturing company, studied tourism and hotel management in college. Over 20 years ago, tour guides were highly sought after, but Luo Huiping quickly discovered industry rules: guides had no base salary and even paid “lead fees,” with real income coming from commissions on tourist shopping.

“I would remind tourists before each trip, ‘Protect your wallets and buy only what you need,’” Luo Huiping jokes. At the time, this was equivalent to cutting off his own income. But this moral bottom line in his guiding career became the foundation of his future business decisions.

After struggling to support himself, he quit guiding, moved south to Shenzhen, worked various jobs, and finally chose to start his own business. His focus on ergonomic chairs has a family background—his family was involved in furniture business early on, mainly chairs.

In 2011, Shenzhen Xihao Smart Home Co., Ltd. was established in Bao’an. At that time, the best-selling products were “status symbol” executive chairs, but Luo Huiping resisted doubts and opposition from those around him, choosing to focus on ergonomic chairs, which were still somewhat luxurious and niche. “We want to make products that can accompany users long-term and truly improve health,” Luo Huiping’s original intention and Xihao’s starting point.

Back then, selling furniture online was still a “risky” niche, and logistics for large items was a pain point that discouraged many entrepreneurs. But Luo Huiping made a seemingly rebellious choice: moving the business online. This decision not only allowed Xihao to benefit from the earliest wave of domestic e-commerce, but also unexpectedly helped it seize the opportunity to target C-end consumers, laying the groundwork for future brand development.

However, entrepreneurship is never smooth sailing, and challenges arrived as expected. In 2014, many factories entered e-commerce, rewriting the game with cost advantages. “Making homogeneous products tests efficient operations and cost control,” Luo Huiping admits. At that time, Xihao was at a disadvantage in both.

Deepening in the price war, a more severe problem emerged: the company had two lines—one targeting the mid-to-low-end market under 200 yuan, contributing up to 70% of revenue; the other for mid-to-high-end products over 500 yuan. “Over 80% of resources were spent on that 70% of revenue, but profit contribution was almost zero,” Luo Huiping recalls.

Should they keep fighting in this red ocean or cut losses to survive?

In the face of team doubts, Luo Huiping decisively cut the low-end line that accounted for 70% of revenue, focusing all resources on the “Xihao” brand in the 500+ yuan segment. He admits, “It’s hard to make that decision just looking at revenue.” But this move allowed Xihao to break free from homogeneous competition and pursue a “single path” of product R&D and branding—this was not only Xihao’s coming of age but also a watershed for China’s ergonomic chair industry to shed low-end internal competition and move toward specialization.

Cut off the back door, strengthen internal skills, leverage ecosystems—Xihao builds the strongest brand “moat”

After cutting off the “retreat route,” Xihao embarked on a true product long march.

“In 2015, we started to focus on product innovation,” Luo Huiping recalls. The first milestone was the M18 series. “Chinese people are very particular about their ‘waist,’ and long sitting causes back pain.” The precise lumbar support design of M18 made Xihao stand out among homogeneous “office chairs,” and it remains the first ergonomic chair for many workers today.

M18 was a key to Xihao’s survival, and the 2022 launched C series marked its rise. It achieved full-body support from “single-point support,” defining ergonomic standards and pushing Xihao into the mid-to-high-end market. The 2024 T6 smart ergonomic chair offers a Chinese perspective on “smartness.” “In the past, people adapted to chairs; now, chairs actively adapt to people,” Luo Huiping states. This evolution from “support” to proactive “data intervention” is akin to how smartphones revolutionized traditional phones, delivering a technological and experiential blow to traditional overseas ergonomic brands still rooted in 20-year-old classics.

Behind this product strength is a strict quality control system. At Xihao’s testing center, a chair must pass “nine lives” tests: 120,000 backrest pushes, 100,000 seat impact tests, 120,000 gas spring safety tests… These “tortures” are the minimum thresholds for a chair to leave the assembly line. While competitors compete on price, Xihao relies on stable quality to build reputation, ultimately achieving an industry position with annual sales of 1.5 million units and four consecutive years of top rankings.

“From a financial model perspective, these R&D investments are not profitable in the short term,” Luo Huiping says. But this is precisely Xihao’s deepest moat, built on the supply chain ecosystem of the Greater Bay Area, which is “world-leading.”

Rooted in Bao’an for 15 years, Luo Huiping has witnessed the full operation of the manufacturing ecosystem: from material procurement, mold development, to production and logistics, the dense and mature industrial network significantly accelerates product iteration—Xihao typically completes a product update in three months, while many European and American brands take two years.

“Reliable, responsive, and trustworthy”—this is the common praise from many entrepreneurs about Shenzhen’s business environment. Luo Huiping mentions that in early days, when e-commerce was still unclear, Bao’an authorities encouraged companies to explore first, saving Xihao many detours; as the brand grew, Bao’an actively promoted Xihao’s participation in the Japan Expo, providing global exposure; and by leveraging Bao’an’s open scene environment, Xihao’s products were integrated into government and enterprise offices, exhibitions, and public services—another ladder built by Bao’an for Xihao’s ascent.

New routes: a “non-conventional” overseas expansion

As the domestic market stabilizes, Luo Huiping set his sights globally. Just as navigation routes are not charted on maps, Xihao’s overseas journey was recalibrated after a “reef” incident. In 2017, Xihao tried traditional foreign trade exports, investing over 5 million yuan, but only earned less than 3 million yuan, ending in failure. This failure made Luo Huiping realize: the core problem of traditional foreign trade is “heavy selling, light branding”—partners only care about costs and styles, not brand value; to truly go overseas, they must adopt a ToC approach, directly facing overseas consumers and building trust through product strength.

In 2018, Xihao nervously listed the $200 M18 ergonomic chair on Amazon US. At that time, the US market was polarized: high-end domestic brands dominated above $1,000, while cheap products below $50 flooded the low-end. Xihao’s $200 price just filled the “mid-market” gap. “We had no brand premium, only product strength,” Luo Huiping recalls. The team was uncertain, but the product sold out within a month of warehousing, and replenishment waited three months. That year, Xihao’s overseas sales soared from 8 million yuan to 360 million yuan, confirming the “mid-market gap” insight.

Global expansion is never smooth. Xihao paid expensive tuition. “The threshold is very high, not only dealing with complex trade rules but also adapting to different countries’ standards,” Luo Huiping recalls. One of the most memorable “rejections” was when a batch of products, despite passing all quality tests, failed at a safety feature review.

“In China, who would think of building such facilities in a furniture factory?” But to meet European and American standards and open overseas markets, Xihao had to localize and overcome these “invisible barriers.” This battle boosted confidence and clarified overseas market rules, eventually making Xihao one of the core suppliers for Amazon and other giants.

Vine tendrils worldwide: opening up the imagination of global goods

But this is not the end. While many Chinese brands struggle over online traffic, Xihao once again took a “contrarian” approach—laying out a global offline retail network with a “heavy mode,” transforming from traditional “low-price product export” to a “brand + technology + business model” integrated value export.

“Gone are the days of just ‘selling products,’ now we’re doing ‘exporting business models,’” Luo Huiping told Nandu. Xihao is aggressively expanding offline, with nearly 200 stores in China, its first store in Los Angeles under construction, and localized retail networks in Japan, Thailand, the Philippines, and Europe. Instead of a light asset model of franchise fees and inventory pressure, they adopt a “empowering management” heavy mode, personally ensuring same quality and service online and offline.

In an era of traffic saturation and rising offline costs, this contrarian expansion reflects Xihao’s long-term brand strategy: winning traffic online, building trust offline. Only by allowing users to touch and experience products closely can they truly establish a cross-border brand identity.

This countertrend move not only challenges the limits of brand control and supply chain but also turns Shenzhen’s “speed” and “innovation” into Xihao’s sharpest weapons for overseas expansion, opening a new “route” from “selling goods” to “selling value.”

When asked what the future of a Chinese-made ergonomic chair might look like, Luo Huiping gave an eagerly anticipated answer: “Because of work and leisure needs, the thing that can accompany you the longest might be a chair.” He envisions future Xihao products evolving into “life support capsules” that monitor health data, warn of risks, and even call for help when needed.

Perhaps this is also the mission of the new generation of “broad goods”: not just cost performance, but defining future life with Chinese manufacturing.