Evenflo innovates in children's products

Evenflo Co Inc, a world leader in juvenile products, is stepping into a new stage of innovation in the US after being incorporated into Goodbaby International Holdings Ltd.

As a household name with nearly 100 years of history, Evenflo was the "innovation award-winning" vendor of the year at Wal-Mart's 2016 supplier summit, and was named one of the "The Most Innovative Companies of 2016" as well as a top-10 innovative car and surrounding product company by Fast Company, the influential American business magazine.

Headquartered in Miamisburg, Ohio, Evenflo makes infant and juvenile products, including car seats, infant carriers and doorway jumpers that are sold through large retailers like Wal-Mart, Toys 'R Us and Amazon.

Attracted by Evenflo's marketing and distribution capabilities to expand its product portfolio in North America, Goodbaby, China's leading manufacturer and retailer of baby-care products, acquired Evenflo in July 2014. It then put a new management team in place to support Evenflo's growth.

Under the new leadership, Evenflo has gone from a loss to a profit. Revenue was around $231 million in 2015, a 16.5 percent increase over 2014, according to its 2015 annual report.

Having struggled with a loss of creativity prior to being acquired by Goodbaby, Evenflo has taken advantage of Goodbaby's innovation system and research facilities in the past two years and benefited from cost reductions as a result of shared services.

Evenflo is well-known for its continuing innovation in car seat technology. Its Sensor Safe technology incorporates a sensor in a car seat to alert parents if they leave a young child unattended in a hot vehicle.

A video showing the technology, which is exclusive to Evenflo, received more than 500,000 views on social media. It won the Best Innovative Product Award from the Baby and Infant Association in United States as well as the first ever "The Bump Best of Baby Tech Award" at the International Consumer Electronics Show.

The integration of Evenflo into Goodbaby has proved to be a win-win strategy. Goodbaby achieved revenue growth of 14 percent in 2015, with the revenue from Evenflo offsetting a 38 percent decline in orders from its largest customer. Its business in North America improved by nearly 123.6 percent, which has been largely attributed to the strong recovery of Evenflo sales.

Goodbaby, which has been built on its founder Song Zhenghuan's first invention of a rocking chair stroller, stresses more research and innovation in its 2016 agenda, as it seeks new designs and products and innovations to existing products.

In the past year, Goodbaby has registered more than 620 patents worldwide and won more than 100 product design and safety awards.

Song, Goodbaby's chairman, wants to make the company the world's biggest and best-known brand of infant and child products. He said that he hopes to grab more market share by introducing global subsidiary brands, including Evenflo, to China's huge market.

In an interview with Forbes, Song stressed the importance of innovation in his company's future, saying he has always sought to steer the image of Chinese brands from being dirty factories to one of high-tech product inventors.

leshuodong@chinadailyusa.com

(China Daily USA 07/05/2016 page2)