Taking User Driven As The Center

The outbreak of the epidemic in a large scale in the world has not only brought turbulence to the domestic economic environment, but also accelerated the reshuffle of the household appliance industry and promoted the structural reform in the industry.

This year's government work report pointed out that in 2021, China should steadily increase large-scale consumption of automobiles and household appliances, make good use of "Internet +", promote wider and deeper integration of online and offline, and develop new formats and models.

"The Internet is a kind of empowerment. It is a way to improve efficiency and efficiency in the development of the real economy." Dong Mingzhu, deputy to the National People's Congress and chairman of Gree Electric appliances, told reporters in the 21st century economic report that Gree will continue to promote the new retail transformation this year, and will further carry out technology research and development around the needs of consumers' quality of life.

Liang Zhenpeng, a senior analyst in the household appliance industry, believes that with the continuous improvement of consumer demand, the intellectualization of household appliances and the three-dimensional sales channels in recent years have jointly led the new consumption trend of the household appliance industry.

As the epidemic situation has entered the stage of normalized prevention and control, consumer demand has shown different characteristics compared with that before the epidemic. The product layout and sales channels of the home appliance industry should also be adjusted accordingly to build a new growth curve. The new consumption era with user driven as the center of the household appliance market is accelerating.

The trend of health and intelligence is increasing

In 2020, the sudden epidemic situation made the home appliance market in trouble. Dong Mingzhu once disclosed that due to the closure of offline stores, the closure of residential areas, and the inability of installation personnel to enter the home, Gree sales in February were basically zero. Relevant data shows that in the first quarter of last year, the retail scale of home appliance market dropped by 38%.

In the second half of the year, the economy recovered and consumption recovered, and the decline rate in the second and third quarters was narrowed. The consumption of household appliances showed a V-shaped trend in the whole year. According to AVC, China's home appliance retail market will reach 705.6 billion yuan in 2020, down 11.3% year-on-year. "In 2020, the overall retail sales of household appliances will suffer heavy losses, and the decline rate is rare in history." This is the evaluation of Ovi cloud.

From the perspective of categories, the overall decline of traditional TV is the most severe, among which air conditioning has the highest decline, with retail sales down 21.9% and retail sales down 14.8%, followed by color TV, kitchen TV and water washing.

However, contrary to the cold situation of the traditional power grid and the overall market, the comfort category has achieved the growth against the trend and is rejuvenated in the epidemic situation. Dishwasher, micro steaming and baking machine, integrated stove and other comfortable categories have achieved double increase in volume through all channels, of which the sales volume of composite micro steaming and baking machine has increased by 45.4% year-on-year. Sales also increased by 41%. Ovi cloud predicts that the average annual growth rate of comfortable home will exceed 30% in the future.

The epidemic situation has stimulated the rapid growth of consumer demand for health appliances. According to the data of China health appliances white paper in 2020, 93% of consumers will pay special attention to health functions when purchasing home appliances, mainly focusing on healthy diet and air health. Among them, health air conditioning (74.9%) has the highest recognition among consumers.

Health appliances have gradually become the mainstream research and development trend, and enterprises have launched health products. Dong Mingzhu told reporters that during the epidemic, Gree developed a "Hunter" virus purifier based on the original air purifier and put it on the market. "We are now developing a lot of core technologies for air health." Dong Mingzhu said that health is the starting point of Gree product research and development.

In addition to health demands, intelligence is also a major trend in the new consumption of household appliances after the epidemic. According to the survey report on top ten nest stream users in 2019, 71.5% of young people give priority to intelligent factors when purchasing home appliances, ranking second only to 75.7% of safety factors. Smart appliances have become the mainstream choice of home appliances consumption for young people.

Oaks air conditioning has previously disclosed that its intelligent products account for 80% of the total. Zhou Yunjie, deputy to the National People's Congress and President of Haier Group, said in an interview with 21st century economic reporter that Haier has applied for the national innovation center of high-end intelligent home appliances. Next, it will jointly tackle key problems with 15 enterprises in order to become a world leader in the field of high-end household appliances.

"New retail" leads channel reform

Affected by the epidemic situation, in the first half of last year, online sales exceeded offline sales for the first time in the home appliance industry. "2020 annual report of China's household appliance industry" pointed out that last year, the sales scale of China's home appliance online channel reached 336.8 billion yuan, an increase of 8.4% year-on-year, and the online scale accounted for 46.2%, an increase of 7.5 percentage points compared with the same period in 2019, "the business model has fully transformed from offline leading to online leading".

In Dong Mingzhu's view, the combination of online and offline retail is the inevitable result of the changes of the times, "the times are forcing you, and you will be eliminated if you don't turn.". It is reported that Gree will continue its nationwide live tour this year to promote channel reform.

Simple understanding, in fact, is "where the consumer is, you need to be". In addition to Gree, Midea, Haier, Hisense, Skyworth, TCL, aux, Xiaoxiong and other large and small appliance enterprises are actively innovating marketing methods, exploring new retail transformation through online precise drainage, electronic recognition, community group buying, sharing of different users, online live broadcast and offline promotion.

According to Guo Meide, President of Aowei cloud, with the popularity of 5g mobile network, online shopping platforms are getting better and better, and 90% of users will buy products recommended by the anchor. He pointed out that Chinese families will enter the era of zhihuijia life, and start comprehensive health upgrading, appearance upgrading, function upgrading, comfort upgrading and intelligent upgrading. When consumers choose products, on the one hand, they will choose trend products, on the other hand, famous brands and platforms are also of great importance.

On January 5 this year, the Ministry of Commerce and other 12 departments jointly issued the notice on measures to boost the key consumption of large-scale consumption and promote the release of rural consumption potential. Article 2 of the notice focuses on promoting the consumption of household appliances, furniture and home furnishings in rural areas. On March 8, Wang Wentao, Minister of Commerce, said in an interview at the second "minister channel" of the fourth session of the 13th National People's Congress that traditional household appliances still have great development potential in the rural market. "Now the water and electricity conditions in rural areas have been improved, and the market for rural household appliances is gradually expanding."

One after another signals point out the direction of the current home appliance market. New retail transformation and channel sinking have become the main melody of the current home appliance market. On the one hand, home appliance enterprises accelerate their penetration into the low-end market with the help of Suning, Jingdong, Gome, pinduoduo and other retail platforms; on the other hand, retailers themselves are accelerating the channel sinking.

In the middle of last year, vantage put forward the strategy of "accelerating the progress of channel flattening" at the national marketing conference. Coincidentally, in May last year, Midea's kitchen electric business also started the transformation of "changing the agent into an operation service provider", turning the agent into a service provider of a local factory and no longer undertaking the tasks of collecting money and pressing goods.

Every change is bound to be accompanied by pain. Under the new consumption trend of household appliances, enterprises are also constantly adjusting to obtain further development space. Even Dong Mingzhu, an iron lady, agrees. She confessed that Gree has been exploring the road of new retail transformation, from the initial online batch to the later combination with local cultural characteristics. According to her disclosure, Gree hopes to build the live broadcast into a platform for cultural communication.