Laifen’s $99 Hair Dryer Lands at Costco, Testing Dyson’s Price Wall

Laifen’s SE High-Speed Hair Dryer went on sale inside select Costco warehouses across the western United States on July 18, priced at $99, about a quarter of what Dyson’s cheapest Supersonic model costs. The five-year-old brand built its business almost entirely online before this jump into a chain that stocks roughly 3,700 items at a time and has little patience for the ones that do not sell.

It reads like a clean underdog win. Dyson’s pricing power stands to lose the most from it, but Laifen’s own spot on that shelf is not guaranteed to last.

A $99 Dryer Joins Costco’s Beauty Aisle

Costco began selling the Laifen SE on July 18 at select warehouses, with the heaviest concentration across California, the Pacific Northwest and the Southwest. This is the brand’s largest U.S. retail expansion to date, according to the launch announcement.

The dryer runs a 105,000 RPM brushless motor pushing 21 meters per second of airflow, stays at 59 decibels, and carries 200 million negative ions meant to cut frizz and static. It weighs 0.9 pounds, ships with three magnetic nozzles for straight and curly hair, and comes in white, pink and purple.

Laifen, founded in 2019, has been ranked the world’s No. 1 high-speed hair dryer brand by Euromonitor International, a market research firm that tracks the category worldwide. The company’s products now reach more than 22 million households across over 60 countries, backed by more than 600 patents and over 50 international design and innovation awards, per its own figures.

Costco represents an important milestone in our U.S. retail strategy.

Romeo, Laifen’s general manager of international business, said the listing reflects rising demand for salon-level performance at a lower price. “As more consumers seek salon-quality performance at an accessible price, we’re excited to make Laifen available through one of America’s most trusted retailers,” he added.

The Price Gap, by the Numbers

A side-by-side against Dyson’s flagship shows how wide the gap runs, even before weighing what each brand claims about performance.

Independent market trackers put Dyson’s Supersonic line at a retail band of $400 to $600, with its newest Supersonic Nural pushing past that ceiling in hands-on testing. The global hair dryer market itself is on track to grow from around $9 billion this year toward $14.1 billion by 2035, a steady climb that leaves room for a challenger to grab share. Dyson, Conair, Panasonic, Philips and Revlon collectively hold about 51% of that global market, the wall Laifen is now leaning on at $99 a unit. At that price, Laifen’s SE costs roughly a quarter of Dyson’s cheapest Supersonic and less than one-sixth of the priciest Nural model.

Shark Wrote This Playbook Against Dyson First

Undercutting Dyson on price is not a new trick. It is the same one that built SharkNinja into a multibillion-dollar company, just aimed at a different appliance first.

1. 2010: Shark holds less than 2% of the U.S. vacuum market, a fringe player next to Dyson, Hoover and Electrolux.
2. 2015: SharkNinja vacuums take the top spot in U.S. vacuum sales at 20%, overtaking Dyson for the first time.
3. 2021: SharkNinja holds the U.S. vacuum lead with close to 31% of sales.
4. 2023: SharkNinja spins off and lists on the New York Stock Exchange.
5. 2024: Shark Beauty launches its FlexFusion air-styling systems, carrying the same undercutting approach directly into Dyson’s hair tool category.

By 2024, SharkNinja’s global net revenue had climbed to around $3.6 billion, built largely on one formula: watch what the category leader charges, then ship something close enough on performance for a fraction of the cost. Laifen is now running that exact playbook against Dyson’s hair dryers instead of its vacuums, using Costco the way SharkNinja once used Walmart and Target, as the jump from online curiosity to living-room fixture.

Why Did Costco’s Buyers Say Yes to Laifen?

Costco said yes to Laifen for two reasons that matter more than brand recognition: a price low enough to move fast off a pallet, and a product story different enough from anything already sitting on the floor. Costco stocks a fraction of what other big-box chains carry, and every item has to earn that scarce space quickly.

• Extreme curation – a typical Costco warehouse carries around 3,700 items at a time, compared with more than 50,000 at a typical Walmart, so a new product has to displace something else to earn shelf space.
• Proven sell-through – Costco’s category buyers look for products that can move in bulk fast, not just sell steadily over months.
• A story Amazon cannot tell – Costco’s own supplier program says its buying teams work with small businesses and diverse suppliers to bring unique items into its warehouses.
• Margin discipline – Costco earns most of its profit from membership fees rather than markup, which lets its buyers push for aggressive vendor pricing without inflating the shelf price.

Costco’s buyers are also willing to gamble on unfamiliar formats elsewhere in the business. The chain has pursued a planned 40-pump gas station in Mission Viejo, California, showing how far it will push once it commits to a new bet.

Who Wins and Who Pays for It

Every side of this deal picked something up. The exposure is not spread evenly.

Dyson is never named in Laifen’s own materials, and the July 18 announcement does not mention its rival directly. The comparison is hard to avoid once both dryers sit in the same category, at wildly different prices.

The Shelf Is a Trial, Not a Lease

Costco does not sign vendors to long leases. It runs a constant audition, and the same rules that let Laifen in the door can just as easily walk it back out.

Costco’s warehouses rotate through new items on purpose, part of what the company calls its treasure hunt. Items that do not sell fast enough get moved out to make room for the next thing, often without much warning to shoppers who liked what was there before.

That same mechanism is what let Laifen get discovered in the first place. It cuts both ways once the SE dryer stops feeling new on the floor.

Laifen’s clearest evidence that a Costco placement can hold is its parallel push through Costco Canada, where the SE and SE Lite dryers are already on warehouse shelves north of the border. That gives Costco’s U.S. buyers a track record to check before the next reorder decision, the only real proof so far that a $99 dryer can hold its place next to Dyson’s.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which Costco Locations Sell the Laifen SE First?

The initial U.S. rollout concentrates on select warehouses in California, the Pacific Northwest and the Southwest, the regions Laifen and Costco named in the July 18 launch announcement. Availability is expected to widen if the item keeps selling, though neither company has published a specific expansion timeline.

Is the Costco Version the Same as the One Laifen Sells Online?

Yes, the SE High-Speed Hair Dryer sold at Costco carries the same 105,000 RPM motor, negative ion output and heat settings as the version on Laifen’s own site. The difference is the purchase path: buying it at Costco routes any return through Costco’s policy rather than Laifen’s direct customer service line.

How Does Laifen’s Drying Claim Stack Up Against Dyson’s Newest Model?

Laifen says the SE dries hair three times faster than a conventional dryer. Independent testing of Dyson’s newest Supersonic Nural clocked an average blow-dry time of about 6.5 minutes, a figure that has not been tested directly against Laifen’s claim since the two brands are not compared head to head in the same review.

Does Costco Canada Carry the Same Laifen Lineup as the US?

Costco Canada stocks both the SE and the lighter SE Lite hair dryer, one tier beyond what U.S. warehouses currently carry. The U.S. launch so far includes only the SE model, leaving room for Laifen to widen its American lineup the way it already has north of the border.