E-commerce channels forcing appliance companies to change

Analysis of industry experts believes that the growth of e-commerce channel sales data mainly comes from the decline of home appliances to the tertiary and tertiary markets. Under the premise of a new growth point of the home appliance market, the e-commerce channel's rapid on-line speed and low cost have undoubtedly become the company's primary choice.

Retail volume increased 175% year-on-year

According to data from third-party survey institutions, during the “11th” Golden Week period (September 16-Oct. 6), the retail volume of color TVs was 5.33 million units, an increase of 7.2% year-on-year; the retail sales of air-conditioning were 3.15 million units, an increase from the same period last year. 10.2%; refrigerators, washing machines and other home appliances have all increased in different ranges.

It is worth noting that the e-commerce channel continues to maintain a high growth rate. In color TV, the retail sales growth rate of e-commerce channels during the “Eleventh” Golden Week was 87% year-on-year, nearly 40 times that of the offline market. In the first eight months of this year, the volume of online retail sales of major home appliance categories increased by 175% year-on-year, showing strong growth momentum.

In this regard, Zhongdong Yi, general manager of Jiadong Sheng believes that the rapid rise of e-commerce and subvert the traditional channel layout of the home appliance industry, stems from its advantages in information flow and feedback to enable businesses and consumers to achieve a win-win situation. For businesses, the Internet provides a fast, efficient, and low-cost platform for product launches, information distribution, and order processing. At the same time, online channel consumer word-of-mouth accumulation is fast, visible, and quantifiable, and the accumulation of word-of-mouth has contributed to facilitating purchases. Direct impetus.

Market growth down

In fact, the changes in the channels are mainly due to changes in the market. Appliance analyst Liang Zhenpeng believes that now whether it is television, refrigerators and other major appliances, or water heaters, range hoods and other kitchen appliances, one or two markets have been approaching saturation, three or four markets to become a new growth point in the home appliance market , and this trend is still spreading to the rural villages in the five or six levels.

Due to the large-scale market in the 3rd and 4th tiers and the wide distribution of the branches, it is difficult for household appliance enterprises to quickly realize the sinking of channels through the laying of specialty stores, which has led to the emergence of e-commerce channels.

Jia Dongsheng believes that the e-commerce platform combines the advantages of product sales, brand promotion, consumer interaction, and big data information applications. Its advantages in information flow and feedback enable businesses and consumers to achieve a win-win situation.

Jing Ye, chief marketing officer of JD.com, pointed out that e-commerce channels have a natural cost advantage, and e-commerce channels cost about two-thirds of the cost of traditional channels. At the time of the surge of home-grid power purchases, home appliance brand manufacturers should follow the trend and optimize their costs, improve their efficiency, and promote the development of the industry.

Businesses compete to explore e-commerce

The rapid growth of e-commerce channels has also caused home appliance companies to change their attitudes, and the mentality of the past has been changed to focus on development. The 2013 Jingdong Home Appliance Industry Summit held recently attracted many home appliance brand companies such as Haier, Midea, Hisense, TCL, Konka, Philips, etc. The focus was to explore the new layout of the e-commerce industry.

Since the beginning of this year, traditional household appliance companies have been promoting brand positioning and reforms both online and offline. In June of this year, Midea announced the launch of a sub-brand “ECO cool” for online channel sales. In September, TCL and iQiyi jointly launched TV+TV, followed by Konka Group’s official launch of the KKTV brand on color cables, all of which selected Jingdong’s first sales. .

Although the development of e-commerce channels has many advantages for enterprises, it also has certain risks. Hong Shibin, executive chairman of the China Home Appliances Commercial Association Marketing Committee, reminds that when developing e-commerce channels, home appliance companies should pay attention to the establishment of after-sales service systems such as capacity supply, logistics distribution, and installation and maintenance. If these corresponding links are difficult to keep up with, then E-commerce will not only help the company's market development, but may also cause the company's brand reputation to suffer setbacks.