The home furnishing industry will be quite turbulent in 2023. For more than half a year, the international environment has been complex and severe, and economic growth momentum has been insufficient. Although the national economy continues to recover, the overall market performance has been mixed. However, in the middle of the year, national-level policies to promote household consumption continued to be introduced, which brought new opportunities to the development of the household industry.
However, market recovery will not happen overnight. In the face of changing market conditions, market demand growth will slow down or even decline. For the next market, some companies continue to be cautious; some work hard to dig deep, find new businesses and cultivate new growth points; some companies are preparing to further reduce costs, increase efficiency, and ensure profits.
How can home building materials companies adjust development strategies, optimize business structures, continue to strengthen internal strength, adhere to long-termism, and create new patterns to achieve high-quality development based on actual conditions?
On September 13, NetEase Home and Bohua jointly held the "Building Long-termism through Cycles - High-Quality Development of the Home Furnishing Industry", inviting a number of heavyweight industry experts and business representatives to the same stage to break through and innovate the high-quality development of the home furnishing industry. !
Crossing the cycle and focusing on high-quality development of the industry
Grasping the laws of industry change will greatly help brands go through cycles. Tang Ren, a well-known strategic expert in the pan-home decoration industry, interpreted the evolution of the industry and its internal dynamics around the "power of industry evolution".
In his view, "decorating a home" is the basic need of consumers. Driven by it, the industry is no longer satisfied with the distribution model of single category home products centered on home shopping malls. In the pursuit of better user experience and higher operational efficiency, it is focusing on the demand for multi-category integration. Promote the reconstruction of design elements, material elements, and construction elements.
In this process, home furnishing companies, home decoration companies, home furnishing shopping malls, and even home furnishing dealers are facing evolutionary challenges, but it is also the species changes of each enterprise that promote the evolution of the entire industry. Tang Ren also said that the evolution of pan-home decoration is a protracted battle, and companies need to act immediately and cannot wait; but they cannot move too fast and lead to decoupling from the industry, and there is no rush!
Regarding the high-quality development of the home furnishing industry, Zhong Beihong, executive deputy general manager of Shanghai UBM International Exhibition Co., Ltd., believes that in the business era of great changes, change is the best way out, and UBM insists on long-term service and empowerment with a future perspective. Let’s look at the present and explore new paths with the company.
Zhong Beihong said that the 2023 Pudong Furniture and Home Furnishings Double Exhibition not only presents the latest status in new business, new brands, new life, new consumption, new experience, new services, etc., but also through online and offline integration and diversified channels. The rapid development of modernization and digital capabilities will help enterprises achieve actual exhibition results and gains.
Facing enterprises, Bohua insists on long-term service and empowerment. Zhong Beihong said, "The exhibition platform should do more than just a scene where thousands of companies and hundreds of thousands of visitors gather for four or five days during the exhibition. We want to do it 365 times a year." Heaven serves and empowers enterprises." Setting its sights higher and further, Bohua will do its best to promote the high-quality development of the industry.
After three years, the 2023 Pudong Furniture and Home Furnishings Double Exhibition has shown a good momentum since its reopening. Hu Yanli, the national editor-in-chief of NetEase Home Furnishing, believes that this is due to the accurate positioning of the exhibition, the organizer's keen innovation, and the professionalism of the team.
The strong vitality of the exhibition is inseparable from the brand's resilience through cycles. Hu Yanli said that if a brand wants to go through cycles, it must be prepared to face unexpected situations behind sustainable growth and be able to find opportunities in the insights of the general environment. At the same time, what is more important is to improve its own capabilities and outperform the market. Harvest excess profits and prepare to become a century-old enterprise.
"Sun Tzu's Art of War" said that "success is achieved by the enemy and defeat by oneself." Hu Yanli believes that the true strength of an enterprise comes from itself, and hopes that more enterprises will find their correct positioning, build core barriers and competitiveness, and become a brand that continues to develop through cycles.
Peak discussion: thinking about offense and defense under long-termism
In the first half of 2023, the "blowout phenomenon of home decoration consumption" that home decoration people expected did not happen as expected. When the home furnishing industry transforms from the channel era to the service era, when the market picks up and demand is released, every company should think about how to survive the cycle in order to build strong growth resilience in the "headwind situation".
As a result, Xia Chuanlin, Chairman of Xiameng Lighting, Qin Wen, Vice President of Sano Home Furnishing, Liang Fei, General Manager of Merriface China, Xing Min, Chairman of Oumaihong, Song Huang, General Manager of HARVEST Zhenshi Home Soft Decoration and Zhang Lu, executive editor of NetEase Home Furnishing, launched an attitude debate to build offense and defense under long-termism!
Qin Wen, vice president of Sano Home Furnishing, said that whether it is the involution of price wars or the penetration of the Internet, it shows that the home furnishing industry has entered a new consumption era. This requires brands to follow trend changes, be brave enough to attack, and be prepared for all attacks with consumers as the target! Qin Wen also revealed that this year, Sano was able to achieve its scheduled goals ahead of schedule, whether in terms of channel performance, number of stores opened, or single store growth. In the future, traffic will become more and more dispersed. Enterprises need to continue to output content, integrate online and offline, and create and convert traffic to help brand growth.
Xia Chuanlin, chairman of Xiameng Lighting, also supports the offensive approach. In his view, consumer demand is constantly changing, and companies need to find the right direction, predict in advance, improve quality, and achieve brand development through continuous publicity and promotion. In the face of the changing industry, Xiameng has narrowed and deepened its products on the one hand, pushed back-end products forward by extending the service chain, and extended lighting services from lighting; on the other hand, it has changed orders in channels. The channels are multi-channel to broaden the market. In addition, Xia Chuanlin said that Xiameng will also promote the best, most fashionable and trendy products and brands through new media, so that more people can participate and make the cake bigger.
Liang Fei, general manager of Merriface China, always believes that the home furnishing industry is continuing to develop upwards, especially when consumers pay more attention to emotional value and sleep. As a high-quality mattress imported from Italy, Merriface faces A bigger market. Therefore, online, Merriface breaks tradition, embraces new consumption, and designs a relatively young and classic product structure; while offline, in addition to dealers, Merriface also focuses on the designer track to achieve more to reach consumers; at the same time, it also upgraded the store image and even built a mattress culture museum, tea room, laboratory, etc. to enhance the shopping experience.
Oumaihong Chairman Xing Min believes that in the face of the current industry situation, companies need to take advantage of the trend. Following the trend means looking at the market from a multi-dimensional perspective from a consumer perspective and an industry perspective, and then following the trend, taking advantage of opportunities, and avoiding pitfalls. In addition, in the process of building Oumaihong into a circulation operation service provider and creating new retail for D2C services, Xing Min said that accumulating core capabilities is also very important in following the trend, and may even affect the development of business and partners. As for the accumulation of abilities, Xing Min refuses to follow the trend and advocates finding advantages within weaknesses, finding increases within stocks, and adjusting one’s mentality to promote development!
Song Huang, General Manager of HARVEST Zhenshi Home Furnishing Soft Decoration, provided another development path. Faced with consumers' demands for better products, better services, better experiences, and higher value, Zhenshi Home Furnishing has transformed from wall soft decoration to full-case soft decoration, and provides more products through integrated supply chains. In addition to richness, Zhenshi Home Furnishing also achieves differentiation with designer services, creates retail soft decoration design, achieves the purpose of "selling new products to old customers, further tapping the existing market", and ultimately creates a new environment for dealers. A closed-loop profitable full-case soft decoration business model has been established.
NetEase Home Executive Editor Zhang Lu concluded that no matter offensive or defensive, the ultimate goal is to make the brand and market bigger. With clear goals and paths, it is easier to achieve high-quality development, but in the end, "forging iron requires hard work." She pointed out that in this era of traffic anxiety and market bottoming out, brands need a larger and more growing market, as well as better product communication, experience and conversion. As a media with attitude and depth, NetEase Home is willing to join hands with more home furnishing companies to break out of the circle, maximize brand value, open up and transform multi-channel traffic, and solidify the brand's "long-termism"!
