Seller Story: Lumos Helmet
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Pedal to the Metal — How a Singaporean dropped out of Harvard to co-found the smart helmet startup Lumos

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Taking the plunge to start your own business is intimidating in itself, but what if your vision is to create an entirely new product category, with no precedence or competitors to compare yourself to?

That’s exactly what Lumos did in 2015. What started out as a mere idea in the head of a Harvard MBA student has become a pioneering product in the smart bicycle helmet industry—one that was the first to be stocked and sold at Apple stores worldwide, broke crowdfunding records by reaching their funding goal in just four minutes for their Ultra helmet, clinched the Red Dot Design Award for excellent design, gotten recognised by celebrities and avid cyclists alike, and, most recently in 2022, began consistently hitting seven-figure sales on Amazon.com.

Since the brand was launched, Lumos has sold over 300,000 helmets worldwide to date, with a significant portion sold through Amazon Global Selling in the US, UK, Germany, and Australia. For new and seasoned sellers alike, there’s a lot that we can learn from this thriving, passionate brand, so we sat down with co-founder Eu-Wen Ding to find out more about the secret and strategy behind the company’s success, and what it takes to carve out a whole new product category, succeed in the US and Europe, fund-raise for B2C brands, and grow consistently on Amazon’s global stores.
Call it a pandemic-driven trend, a health fad, or the result of the rising cost of living, but over the past couple of years, cycling has become an increasingly common mode of transportation for people in many cities. But even so, most cities remain unsafe for cyclists—a lack of dedicated cycling paths and narrow sidewalks mean cyclists often have to cycle alongside vehicles on main roads, which can be extremely dangerous even for the most experienced of them. Of course, there are precautions that cyclists can take like ensuring that they’re clearly visible on the road, and investing in quality gear such as helmets that can serve as a form of protection in the case of accidents.

But back in the early 2010s, products like bicycle helmets with built-in lights did not yet exist, which is likely why, in the market of bicycle safety products, brands like Lumos were able to fill the gap in accident prevention and build up a niche category of smart bicycle helmets and bike lights. This is what eventually led to them hitting six-figure sales in their first year as an Amazon Global Seller on Amazon.com, and growing considerably as a brand since expanding to the UK, Germany, and Australia where the cycling community is vibrant and the demand for bicycle safety products abounds.

This begs the question: how exactly do they do it? To find out, we sat down with co-founder Eu-Wen Ding for a chat about the brand’s humble beginnings, how it’s grown both on Amazon Global Selling and expanded retail channels, and how they’ve focused on product research, design, and reducing the rate of customer returns to boost their sales on Amazon’s global stores.

1. Can you tell us more about the inspiration behind Lumos and some of the milestones that the brand has clocked over the years?

The main inspiration behind Lumos was that I wanted to solve a problem that I was facing as a cyclist.

Back then, I was a Master of Business Administration (MBA) student at Harvard in Boston. There, I fell in love with cycling as a way to get around because of the freedom it gave me to get to places quickly and easily, but I often felt invisible at night, even with my bike lights on. I would also often meet with aggressive drivers on the road, which got me thinking more about bike safety and how cycling could be made safer for everyone.

I created a prototype of what I had in mind, which was a helmet with built-in lights. When I went out cycling with it, I got a lot of attention from other cyclists on the road. Being such a simple idea, I’d assumed that something like this had been done before and was already available on the market, but after doing a quick search online, I couldn’t find anything similar. That’s when I realized that I was onto something, and that there was in fact a market for a product like this.

So I dropped out of Harvard to set up Lumos with my co-founder, and with just four employees, we got to work developing our first helmet in 2015. We spent US$100k designing and manufacturing 1,000 helmets, of which 10% were sent to a bunch of users for testing.
Product testing and rounds of research and development for Lumos Kickstart
The beta model (L) versus the final version (R) of the Lumos Kickstart. Image courtesy of Eu-wen Ding.
Unfortunately, our testers came back with lacklustre feedback. Many commented on the fit and shape of the helmet, noting that it felt too shallow, sat too high on the head, and was too wide, causing the helmet to wobble aggressively from side to side when in use.

This was a significant issue as it made the helmet unwearable for a large number of our testers. Consequently, we returned to the drawing board armed with these insights and drastically improved not only the fit and shape of the helmet, but also its overall aesthetics, achieving a sleeker look as opposed to the original rounder and bulkier design. This set us back by a year on our initial timeline, but thankfully we made that call because the eventual helmet, the Lumos Kickstart, turned out to be a huge success! We launched it on Kickstarter in July 2015, and managed to raise over US$800k for it, which is over six times our initial goal of US$125k!
Lumos Ultra became the highest-funded cycling product in Kickstarter history
When it was first launched on Kickstarter, the Lumos Ultra reached its funding goal in just four minutes, and went on to become the highest-funded cycling product in Kickstarter history. Image courtesy of Lumos.
In 2017, we won the Red Dot Design Award for the Lumos Kickstart, and caught the attention of Apple. We worked together with the brand to incorporate an Apple Watch integration into our helmets, which allows Apple Watch users to control our helmet’s turn signals by simply raising or extending their hands. The team at Apple loved this because it was a use case for the Apple Watch that had never been explored before, so it was a really fresh and innovative project for us both. And in May 2018, we became the first-ever helmet to be stocked and sold at Apple retail stores around the world.

Later on in 2018, we were listed as one of the best inventions of the year by TIME Magazine under the Transportation and Travel category, and included in Oprah’s Favourite Things under the Tech Gadgets category.

A couple of years later, the Covid-19 pandemic hit, and though we were prepared for the worst, we were pleasantly surprised by the global cycling boom. That year, we launched a second crowdfunding campaign for our second helmet, the Lumos Ultra, which raised a whopping US$3.8million on Kickstarter and Indiegogo.

Since then, we’ve launched a line of smart bike lights (the Lumos Firefly) as well as a range of other cycling accessories, and have sold over 300k helmets worldwide.
Lumos smart helmets was the first-ever helmet to be stocked and sold at Apple retail stores around the world
The Lumos Kickstart on the shelves of an Apple store in 2018. Image courtesy of Lumos.
Lumos shares their keywords funnel mapping for brand visibility
When selling on Amazon.com, it's important to map out a list of both branded and unbranded, broad and more specific keywords to help boost your brand’s visibility both among existing and new customers.

2. You started selling on Amazon.com in Lumos’ early years. What made you decide to become an Amazon Global Seller in the US, and how has Amazon Global Selling helped Lumos?

When we first launched the Lumos Kickstart, we noticed that the bulk of our Kickstarter backers were from the US where I was based back then, and Singapore where I’m originally from, so naturally, the next step was to make our products shoppable to customers in these regions.

Customers in different regions have different shopping habits. For American consumers, we knew that they’re very comfortable shopping on Amazon.com because of its reliability and convenience. This is why we started selling on Amazon.com in 2017. Reviews on Amazon are also highly trusted by customers.

One of the things we’ve found most helpful about selling on Amazon.com would be Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA). We’ve been using FBA ever since we became an Amazon Global Seller. In the weeks leading up to peak shopping periods like Black Friday/Cyber Monday and the year-end Christmas shopping season, we also start to direct customers from our website to our Amazon.com storefront to make use of FBA’s next-day shipping, and to ease the strain on our own fulfilment operations.

We also like that Amazon.com helps to settle most of the customer service needs in this aspect, which saves us a ton of manpower hours as a small team. We’ve also since expanded to selling on Amazon in the UK, Europe, and Australia, and have sold over 41k helmets and accessories combined across our Amazon Global brand stores.

Did you know?

As part of Fulfillment By Amazon (FBA), our team will help to manage all your customer enquiries, returns and refunds so you can focus on growing your business.

3. With relatively niche products like smart bicycle helmets, how do you boost your brand’s visibility on Amazon.com?

For starters, experimenting with keywords is something we’ve found helpful in making our brand seen. We gathered a list of keywords that were relevant to our products, like “bike helmet with turn signals” and “smart bike lights” and made sure that we were at the top of the search rankings with these keywords as much as possible.

We also tested out branded keywords like “Lumos Firefly” and “Lumos smart bike helmet” for audiences that already had an idea of our brand, as well as generic, unbranded keywords like “bicycle helmet” and “adult bike helmet” to reach a wider audience that might not yet be aware of our brand.

Before we began experimenting with Amazon Ads, we were lowly ranked in the bike helmets category, but two months after, we found ourselves at the top of the search rankings.

Amazon’s Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands Ads have also been a great way for us to boost visibility by targeting high intent customers. Though we only started focusing more on Sponsored Product and Sponsored Brand ads a couple of years ago, they’ve been crucial in improving our brand awareness and sales, and actually helped us hit our first seven-figure sales year in 2022.

As much as possible, we also aim to consistently add newer, better versions of our biking accessories that are all interconnected in the Lumos ecosystem to help increase our basket size. The more products we have in our lineup, the more screen space we take up when boosted on search pages and competitor listings. And since all of our products are related to the larger umbrella of smart cycling, they tend to all show up under the same keywords.
Using sponsored brand ads to drive brand awareness and presence on Amazon
An example of Lumos’ Sponsored Brands Ad, which helps to drive brand awareness and grow a brand’s presence on the Amazon store.

4. On the topic of keywords, can you tell us more about how you conduct keyword research, and the tools you use for this?

The two main tools we use on Amazon.com are Amazon Brand Analytics and Opportunity Explorer, but we also use Jungle Scout externally as well.

Through Amazon Brand Analytics, we’re able to better understand what our customers want out of a helmet based on what they're searching for, and also through analyzing our own sales metrics to find out what’s selling well and what isn’t selling as well. Amazon Product Opportunity Explorer supplements this by providing us with regularly updated insights on this niche industry of smart helmets and bicycle safety products, which helps us greatly in our ideation for new products and also in deciding what keywords to use and include in our product listings.
How Lumos leverage insights from Amazon Product Opportunity Explorer
An example of how Amazon Product Opportunity Explorer helps provide insights into particular niches and keywords.
Screenshot courtesy of Lumos. Data is for reference only and is accurate as of May 2024. Amazon Product Opportunity Explorer is available with the Professional Selling Plan.

5. Apart from boosting brand visibility, it’s also important to boost add-to-cart and checkout rates. Considering how Lumos’ products are pricier than regular cycling helmets in the market because of these added smart features, how did you optimize your brand store and product listings to help increase customers’ confidence to buy online?

First and foremost, in terms of our Amazon store content, we made sure that our brand’s purpose of keeping cyclists visible and safe on the roads was clearly displayed. We also included lifestyle images and videos of our product in action to show customers how our helmets work, and how they’ll help to keep them safe on the roads.
Lumos Amazon Storefront
On Lumos’ Amazon storefront home page, their brand’s purpose and key products are displayed prominently.
Next, on each of our product listings, we’ve added Premium A+ Content such as tables with a ton of details like the sizing measurements, available colors, fit, and weight of our helmets, along with comparison charts across our different types of helmets so that customers can easily compare features across our various helmet models, allowing us to upsell and bundle products for sale on Amazon.com.

Before we optimized our brand’s storefront and product listings, we received quite a few comments and customer refunds due to sub-optimal sizing and fit, so now, we always make sure to be as detailed as possible when listing new products on Amazon as customers are unable to try our helmets on when purchasing online.
Providing detailed sizing chats and product information- Lumos Ultra Fit Guide
When selling products like bicycle helmets online, detailed sizing charts are essential in ensuring that customers are able to select the size that fits them best remotely to reduce the rate of returns and refunds due to an incorrect or unsuitable fit.
Image courtesy of Lumos.

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6. When it comes to reviews, we know that your customers are very clear about what they want, and that their feedback has been crucial in the team designing new products or even improving upon existing products since the beginning of Lumos. Can you share some examples of instances where customers’ feedback has been adapted in the design of Lumos’ products?

One of the more prominent examples that comes to mind would be our Ultra helmet. Today, the Lumos Ultra is our best-selling helmet, but when we first soft-launched it, we put it through some beta testing and received reports from numerous testers about an issue with the fit that was not flagged in our alpha testing sessions. Approximately 25% of users and and testers reported that the design was uncomfortable because of the retention system used in the helmet. Thankfully, we had yet to go into the large-scale manufacturing stage, so we were able to resolve the problem before we officially launched it to the general public.

Apart from reviews, we also do extensive research into what customers are looking for and what they’re saying about competitor products using tools like Jungle Scout, Amazon Product Opportunity Explorer, and Amazon Brand Analytics.

For instance, before we designed and launched the Lumos Firefly, we found that customers were looking for bike lighting with turn signals, so we included these features and more into our design—the Lumos Firefly can be used as both front and rear bike lights, and has adjustable brightness levels, synchronised flashing, and brake and turn signals that can all be controlled via an app.
Lumos Firefly- with magnetic mounts and interchangeable front and rear bike lights
With magnetic mounts, the Lumos Firefly are easily interchangeable as both front and rear bike lights. Image courtesy of Lumos.
But apart from using customer reviews to improve upon our products, they’re especially important in helping us build trust among potential customers. On our own website, positive reviews might seem unreliable or too good to be true, but on a third-party site like Amazon.com, you’ll know that each and every positive review is left by a real-life customer who has bought and tested out the product for themselves, which is always more effective at convincing buyers who are on the fence.

When listing new products, we make use of Amazon VINE to gather honest feedback and populate reviews and real-life testimonies on our product pages. Getting a review boost for new products is super beneficial as it takes time to rake up a significant number of reviews, especially as a new brand or with new products, but Amazon VINE speeds up this process a lot. We sometimes also receive emails from customers thanking us for saving their lives, or simply raving about our helmets, which we compile in a little internal Lumos Wall of Love.

What is Amazon Vine?

Amazon Vine is an invitation-only program which selects the most insightful reviewers in the Amazon store to serve as Vine Voices. Vine Voices have the unique opportunity to order items free of charge and share their product experiences with Amazon customers to help them make informed buying decisions. Find out more.

7. Cycling accessories make for great gifts during festive periods. What are some of the sales strategies that the Lumos team has adopted during these peak shopping periods?

Thanks to the pandemic-induced cycling boom, we noticed a significant uptick in sales during Father’s Day in 2022. Back then our monthly growth doubled compared to the average month, but regrettably, because of insufficient stock, we were unable to scale our sales strategy up in time.

We’ve since learned that we need to prepare for these peak shopping periods way ahead of time, and we now start preparing at least eight months in advance. Because we manufacture the product ourselves, there are significant shipping costs and budget planning involved. We have a team dedicated to forecasting inventory to ensure our key stock keeping units (SKUs) are adequately stocked based on past performance and historical data, and that our products are able to reach Amazon warehouses in time to allow for next-day shipping via Fulfillment by Amazon.

Products that are part of Amazon Lightning Deals or Best Deals are also prioritized in our inventory planning, and we generally aim to send a slightly higher stock quantity, prioritizing being overstocked over being out of stock. Maintaining perfect stock levels is challenging, but leveraging data we've collected over the years has enabled us to forecast our sales with increasing accuracy.
This planning is crucial, especially when considering seasonality and peak sales periods, as having sufficient inventory and quick delivery is what informs our marketing spend and allows us to hit our advertising goals.

On the marketing end, what’s equally important is having good organic search and Best Sellers rankings before the shopping season starts. Running top-funnel ads early can also help to prime shoppers’ minds and get them thinking about what they’d like to purchase when the sale season starts.

As for the year-end festive period, our sales on Amazon.com increased by 50-60% during Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Christmas, as compared to our average sales in August and September that same year. In fact, in 2023, our combined sales in November and December formed almost 30% of the year’s total revenue after we increased our ad spend budget and focused on improving our search rankings for certain critical keywords three weeks before the peak shopping season started.

Additionally, we also ramped up our marketing strategy for Prime Fall Day 2023 on Amazon.com after seeing promising results the previous year.

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8. What is it that keeps you motivated in your entrepreneurship journey, and what are your goals for the future of Lumos?

From the very beginning, the thought of conceptualizing and building something of my own appealed to me, and since we’ve founded Lumos, hearing from customers when they thank us for saving them from harm has kept me motivated to continue doing what I do.
At Lumos, our mission is to protect cyclists on the roads, wherever they might be in the world, so moving forward, I would love to continue to design and introduce more products in the bicycle safety industry.
Eu-Wen DingCo-founder of Lumos

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