CHINO, CA— With the tagline “Beautiful Function,” the Cangshan Cutlery Company is honing its market position in the U.S.
Founded in 2014 by New Star Foodservice Inc., Cangshan Cutlery has expanded its presence in the U.S. consumer marketplace.
With a strong emphasis on design, the company said the cutlery collection is positioned as a “best” product line that is priced 40% to 50% less than the competition at retail. Currently, the collection includes 12 original knife designs, seven original knife blocks, leather knife roll sets, magnetic knife bars and a pair of kitchen shears.
The brand grew out of New Star Foodservice’s restaurant quality food service business and it was founder/CEO Henry Liu’s desire to shake things up in the U.S. and try his hand at something new.
“When it comes to cutlery, the U.S. is the largest market and all of the high-end established cutlery brands are here. They have done a good job in building up the foundation of consumers who are willing to invest in high-end quality knives,” Liu said.
After nearly two years of doing his research, Liu honed in on both the function and design of the cutlery. He felt the cutlery industry hadn’t changed much in the last few years and there hasn’t been a strong design element.
“We felt that the high-end knife manufacturers are really good with functionality but have completely ignored the design angle. I have seen many classic designs in the market for many decades, so I asked myself, can I maintain the highest functionality standards and do something different with beautiful designs? This is why Cangshan Cutlery Company was born, and how our tagline, ‘Beautiful Function,’ came about. We believe the consumer wants both. In fact we believe the consumer demands both,” Liu said.
For the Cangshan Cutlery collection, Liu said the company utilizes materials including German, Swedish and Japanese high alloy steels and that each knife is hand sharpened with an Asian-style edge. The knives’ plastic handles are made from food safe plastic, while the knife blocks are crafted from durable, rich textured woods such as acacia, teak, walnut and African blackwood.
This attention to detail and design, he said, has earned several Cangshan Cutlery knife sets two 2016 Red Dot design awards and three 2017 A’Design awards.
This achievement, added Rob Walling, the company’s national sales manager, has helped the company when approaching new retailers.
“Winning these awards has opened the door a bit more, it lends credibility to what we are doing. When you go in as a new brand that no one has heard of and to be able to lead with how we have already earned industry recognition, it opens people’s eyes,” said Walling.
In addition to the design awards, Liu said the company also gained exposure from its presence at the International Home + Housewares Show in Chicago earlier this year.
“After two years of research and development, we officially exhibited at the IH+HS show this year and had an overwhelming response. After the show, within a couple months we had over 60 sales rep on board across the country and began our push into retail,” he said.
According to Liu, the company’s sales team covers 3,000 stores nationwide, consisting of both independents and larger gourmet retailers.
Moving forward, Cangshan Cutlery is focused on expanding its retail presence, especially with in-store opportunities at major retailers nationwide.
While there have been some accolades and successful sales stateside, launching a new product that is made in China is not without its challenges.
“We absolutely must have a superior product as far as functionality goes. We pride ourselves on our factory partners. Unfortunately when people hear a product is made in China, they tend to freak out. We remind people that there are good quality products coming out of China so that has been our biggest challenge,” said Walling.
To help overcome that challenge, the company has put a strong focus on its packaging, which Liu stated was critically important to everything the company does.
“If we are standing on the assumption of ‘Beautiful Function’ it is imperative that our packaging speaks to this first. We are also highly engaged on all social media platforms and are very proactive in listening to both our customers and retailers to constantly refine our vision,” he said. “We pride ourselves on being an alternative in the market place for high end knives that are both beautiful, functional and affordable.”
In addition to independent specialty and gourmet retailers, Cangshan Cutlery can be found on Amazon and Home Depot’s website. The knife block sets have a suggested retail price range of $129.95 to $749.95, and the knives are also available in open stock.
AJ Khubani
CEO
TeleBrands
We’ve been managing our customer’s inventory for years. We monitor on a weekly basis 80% of our retail sell through. We know how to tell if an item is at or past is peak, and we will advise a retailer that it’s time to wind down and take a markdown.
When a product is dying, you need to react sooner than later. It’s better to bite the bullet early, while the retailer still has some interest in it. They may even take more goods at a markdown. That can infuse new life into an item.
There are a lot more items being launched, and a lot more hot items. The retailers have not caught up with how to give more space to the category.
Now, retailers are allocating features only to the top, top items, which makes sense for them, but results in a lot of very good items not getting featured space.
We are actually having to make decisions to drop items that once would have been considered very good. We’re selectively missing opportunities, because there are so many strong items out there.
Why should retailers allocate more space to this category? Because even the least items among the winners is better than the best of items in in-line categories at retail.
Because of the limits to shelf space, we’re opting for higher pricepoints, which is a big change in this category.
It was very rare for us to go above $19.99, but now we’re getting a lot of success at $39.99, sometimes higher.
It’s changed the way products are selected for this category.
Ron Boger
President & COO
IdeaVillage
Inventory management is much more of challenge. It was very evident last year: We did some early back-to-school promotions and sell through was fair. Because of that, many retailers were afraid to add inventory the rest of the year. There was little bulk out for Christmas.
There are a lot of super items. But retailers are making their big bets on fewer items— they want to manage the rest of the items without any stress.
If it’s the end of October and you’re still sitting on goods, you really need strong replenishment right now for the retailers to react and drive more sales.
Craig Jordan
VP/Sales & Customer Solutions
Ontel Products
There are a lot of big items. The reality in the marketplace for the fourth quarter and heading into 2017 is that even though we are a big impulse and feature category, retailers are challenged, and they can’t support features on 25 items. Those days are over. When retailers are taking billions of dollars out of inventory, that comes with fewer and fewer opportunities to feature items in our business.
They’re taking the three or four big bets and getting behind them to make sure they have enough inventory to fuel the flames. If something takes off, then it’s our responsibility to supply the demand. For us, it’s kind of a Catch-22. The more product you take in, the more you can sell, but then there’s also the possibility of a fast drop off.
The opportunity we have is with our brands— big items becoming brands. You have to have a long-term business model where the best products can transition in line. That’s how you manage risk on inventory.
The more seasonal an item— such as a heater— the more complex the situation becomes. What happens when demand doesn’t really kick in until mid-November? How much will a retailer invest in that product?
It’s a balancing act. We have to be much better with launch buys. If we believe in an item, we have to invest in it. But you walk a fine line so if it doesn’t perform, you’re not stuck with 24 months of inventory.
It all comes down to discipline and having a great product supply line with flexibility.
Scott Boilen
President & CEO
Allstar Products
The fourth quarter and year is looking strong for Allstar and the whole industry.
There is an abundance of high-quality, strong-selling products in the marketplace right now.
The bar is now really high for what a good performer is based on quantity and quality. There are so many products performing really well, where good product need to sell even better to be considered a home run.
A lot of that is the push-away from $10 products to higher-quality products ranging from $20 to $60. That was unheard of two years ago.
Retailers are playing it tighter on the medium-performing items and leaning heavily on the biggest items.
To get high-level management support to commit dollars based on outstanding performance, if a product can’t last in a modular for one or two years, it might not be considered a good item anymore.
That said, we have some retailers that are up 40% year over year. That’s unheard of in most any other category.
And things could be stronger in January and February than they are in December. There are several great new products set for the first quarter. We expect sales to pick up after the holidays, and several retailers are buying inventory accordingly.
Eddie Mishan
President
Emson
Inventory management has always been a challenge: The retailers don’t want to take the burden of carrying excess inventory if you can hold the inventory.
If you get good projections from retailers based on their first few weeks of sales, and you have broad range of retailers at the launch of a product, then you can overcome some of the inventory challenges.
If the DRTV marketer continues
TV support for strong items, projections and sales should hold up to initial results. And if a retailer advertises items on a constant basis, it also provides a big lift on the shelves that can be projected for inventory planning.
Inventory management can be more of a problem on seasonal-type DRTV products for which the retail sales window might be narrower.
Of course, if the marketer sees sales starting to dry up, it’s the marketer’s responsibility to alert the retailer sooner than later and help liquidate the products.