CE Brands Announces Five-Year Brand Strategy

VICTORIA, British Columbia, June 25, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Following its business combination with eBuyNow, a data-driven consumer-electronics company, CE Brands Inc. (TSXV: CEBI) (“CE Brands”) is pleased to announce its five-year brand strategy, the goal of which is to manufacture 192 licensed product categories within five years and become a leader in manufacturing, brand licensing, and global product distribution.  

Powered by extensive consumer research, CE Brands focuses on factory partnerships, iconic brand licenses and agreements with the world’s leading retailers. The business combination with eBuyNow was an essential landmark for the company to become a global leader in licensed brand manufacturing of consumer electronics products. The combined company’s name, “CE Brands”, represents its commitment to its five-year brand strategy.

The business process for creating new products, internally called the ‘CE Method’ is a repeatable process starting with deep analysis of competitors, and consumer requirements using ProductLoop, CE Brands’ proprietary artificial intelligence software. CE Brands analyzes millions of data points per category so it can effectively understand the market pricing, user sentiment and feature analysis of each product category and share this data as a truly vertically integrated business with factories, brands, distributors and retailers.

Over the last two years, eBuyNow, which is now CE Brands’ principal operating subsidiary, has evolved the repeatable method and delivered in line with the “North Star” target of manufacturing 192 categories in five years, which can be defined and measured by three key indicators:

1. MANUFACTURING: eBuyNow has product agreements with eight leading manufacturers today and continues to work on expanding into new categories with these partnerships. As new categories are identified through internal data analysis, eBuyNow has a dedicated team identifying and engaging with leading manufacturers to increase overall expansion and manufacturing capabilities.
   
   
2. BRANDS: Long term agreements have been secured with Eastman Kodak Company and Motorola Solutions Mobility LLC to bring iconic brands into the Smart Home and Smart Wearables product categories, respectively. Smart Home and Smart Wearables are two of the fastest-growing consumer product segments that include a wide array of categories. Being armed with highly trustworthy and globally recognized product brands enables strong market share through consumer trust. CE Brands will continue to expand eBuyNow’s iconic brand agreements through new licensing opportunities in fast growth categories.
   
   
3. DISTRIBUTION: With global sales, marketing, logistics, and support operations managed from 13 subsidiary offices aligned with distribution capability covering the world’s largest markets, CE Brands can immediately launch new products into over 70 countries. CE Brands intends to enter into additional distribution agreements and direct vendor agreements with the world’s largest retailers to increase the monthly revenue per category.
   

CE Brands plans to disrupt how traditional consumer electronics businesses have operated for the last half-century, leading to increased success with product launches with the features and solutions consumers are demanding, and ultimately higher margins with operational efficiency through vertical integration.

“We use proprietary data to see market opportunities and consumer needs; we then work with iconic brands and the world’s leading factories to expand their product portfolios based on the opportunities and insights the data generates,” says CE Brands’ Chair and Chief Executive Officer, Craig Smith. “CE Brands owns the resulting product and sales. Our aim is to increase our sales reach, expand consumer awareness in the brand license and secure long term manufacturing rights with leading factories. Our target is to make this process highly repeatable to reach our North Star target of manufacturing 192 categories in five years.”

eBuyNow was formed in 2012 originally as a research and development agency for global eCommerce operations servicing exclusively consumer electronics brands. eBuyNow’s agency business evolved from delivering eCommerce solutions to engineering and delivering Internet-Of-Things (IOT) products for brands that lacked data insights or technical resources to create highly complex products in rapidly changing markets. eBuyNow was the execution team behind more than 20 globally recognized successful IoT products.

Two years ago, eBuyNow pivoted the agency business to become a fully vertically integrated global consumer electronics business, and to leverage its experience working with brands and factories, in an innovative business model focused on partnership and repeatability.

CE Brands uses internal software to analyze market sales data to ensure that it only begins production in a new category if it already has the channels to generate an average of over $1,000,000 a month in gross revenues per product category.

CE Brands’ plans related to category expansion are set out more detail in the following table:

“Two years ago, we set out our target to reach 192 product categories by 2026; having technology brands like Motorola Solutions , Kodak, Alphabet , Qualcomm , and LifeQ supporting our mission were essential steps to validate our model. We are incredibly proud to be working with world class factories such as Luxshare and Compal and will continue to increase our manufacturing relationships in the coming years with our teams in China, HK, Vietnam, North America and Europe. We have a host of major well-known retailers list our product lines for the first time this year, so the business is well on track to reach our goals. We will continue to strive to focus on manufacturing iconic brand products and increasing distribution partnerships as these are the key drivers of the business.” says Smith.

For more information, please see CE Brands’ corporate presentation at www.cebrands.ca.

About CE Brands

CE Brands (TSXV: CEBI) develops products with leading manufacturers and iconic brand​ licensors by utilizing proprietary data that identifies key market opportunities​. With sales today ​in​ over 70 countries, our innovative, ​highly ​repeatable process, we call the CE Method​,​ has created ​an ​optimal growth ​path for CE Brands to be the premier global licensed brand manufacturer.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its regulation services provider (as defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this press release.

Forward-Looking Information

This press release contains forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable securities legislation. In general, forward-looking information refers to disclosure about future conditions, courses of action, and events. The use of any of the words “anticipates”, “expects”, “intends”, “will”, “would”, and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking information. More particularly and without limitation, this press release contains forward looking information concerning CE Brands’ five-year brand strategy. The forward-looking information is based on certain key expectations and assumptions more particularly described in the prospectus of CE Brands dated June 3, 2021. Although CE Brands believes that the expectations and assumptions on which such forward-looking information is based are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on the forward-looking information because CE Brands cannot give any assurance that they will prove to be accurate. By its nature, forward-looking information is subject to various risks and uncertainties, which could cause the actual results and expectations to differ materially from the anticipated results or expectations expressed in this press release. These risks and uncertainties are more particularly described in the prospectus of CE Brands dated June 3, 2021. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on this forward-looking information, which is given as of the date of this press release, and to not use such forward-looking information for anything other than its intended purpose. CE Brands undertakes no obligation to update publicly or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise, except as required by applicable securities legislation.

Further Information

For further information about CE Brands or its principal operating subsidiary, eBuyNow, please contact:

Kalvie Legat
Chief Financial Officer
778-771-0901
ir@cebrands.ca