E-commerce and home appliance brand cooperation attracts attention

"From September 21st to the beginning of the holiday, it was not possible to go from morning to night. In the past two years, the more busy the festival was, the more we had to bring two or three people together. There was no human power to eat." The word is Lao Ding of Guangzhou (a pseudonym), a Jingdong home delivery agent. For him, the biggest change in recent years has been the increasing burden on his shoulders.

According to data from the “China National Grid Purchase Analysis Report for the First Half of 2015” released by China Electronics and Information Industry Development Research Institute under the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology in August this year, China’s B2C home network purchase market (including mobile terminals) reached a total of RMB 136.1 billion in the first half of 2015. 64% increase. More consumers choose to buy home appliances through the Internet, which was unimaginable a few years ago.

Looking from the cold eye to the scrambling

“In the past, we sent home appliances and made many brands. Now what brands of China and foreign countries have.” Laoding felt that in the past two years, consumers suddenly bought high-end brands or foreign brands. Actually, otherwise, in the eyes of people in the industry, this is the lag in the development of the sales channels of domestic power grids.

Friedman Stucker, Global General Manager of the Household Appliances Business of the GfK Group, said that "The Internet must lag behind other consumer products for home appliances. This is mainly due to the large size of home appliances and logistics distribution is a problem. However, we should also note that with the development of the Internet economy and the improvement and upgrading of distribution systems, there will be ample room for the development of home appliances through the Internet."

Simply put, the brand concentration of the traditional home appliance market can best reflect the actual needs of consumers, and online marketing channels will gradually move closer to traditional channels. Why does the speed of online marketing channels lag behind?

"In addition to logistics, after-sales and other issues, it is also subject to the model of agent dealership in which the household appliance industry depends on. The major manufacturers did not dare to go too close to e-commerce in previous years. Like this year's promotion, the United States, LeTV, Samsung and several top consumer electronics brands got together and cooperated deeply with JD. In the past few years, they did not want to think about it. Most of the manufacturers just started watching themselves with cold eyes, said Liang Zhenpeng, a senior home appliance analyst. From the visible billboards of major cities, we can see that in the “Home Appliances Retrieval Festival” promoted by the 11th National Congress this year, apart from the six first-tier home appliance brands, Midea, Fanta, Letv, Samsung, TCL, and Boss Appliances In addition to the exclusive “Super Brand Day”, it also cooperates with JD.com to conduct all-round deep cooperation through various promotion methods. This has always been an exclusive right for home appliance chain stores.

“In the past, traditional channels accounted for more than 80% of sales. Agents are the lifeblood of brand manufacturers.” Liang Zhenpeng continued, “For e-commerce, most brand owners come up with some low-end products to clear inventory channels. However, due to low online sales prices, even low-end promotions will still cause complaints from channel providers. In order to avoid contradictions, many manufacturers are forced to choose “discard nets” and JD.com has been oversold due to excessive promotions. There are also manufacturers who have adopted Tai Chi as a way to change the model. Therefore, there have been reports in the media over the past few years that household appliances have different models of the same paragraph."

“Now it is not the same, e-commerce channel share has been rising year after year, a single Jingdong East appliance sales are almost catching up with the overall sales of Suning online and offline home appliances, and it is also about to catch up with the overall home appliance sales of Gome. In the downturn of the home appliance industry, e-commerce provides a new marketing model for the industry. In the face of such a large order volume, which manufacturer dares to miss?” From Liang Zhenpeng's point of view, with the influence of the sales channels of the home network represented by JD.com. With the enhancement, the monopoly position of traditional home appliance agents has undergone a fundamental change. Therefore, manufacturers no longer stand idly by, but rather boldly embrace change.

Eleven promote the Internet +

The change that Liang Zhenpeng said in Lao Ding's view is that people now have money. Whatever they want to buy is good. This year's long holiday will be spent on busy delivery routes. Laoding said: “The most of May 1st and 11th in the past two years have been overtime delivery. However, it is also good to get a triple wage.”

Unlike e-commerce promotion seasons such as 11.11 and 618, the May 1st and 11th annual holidays are the most important promotion nodes for traditional home appliance channels. Since adding home appliances is a big project for every family, many families will choose to complete this work during long holidays.

Su Liang, deputy director of the Information Service Platform Media Service Center of the China Household Electrical Appliances Research Institute, stated that “JD’s selection of online appliance major promotion nodes during the 11th period is like an Internet+ for the traditional appliance sales season, which will be more convenient. Consumers can choose to purchase on a long vacation, and it can be said that today's home network sales marketing has been perfectly integrated with traditional channel habits."

The data in the first half of 2015 China National Grid Purchase Analysis Report released by the China Electronics and Information Industry Development Institute under the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology also shows that in the first half of this year, Jingdong’s home network purchase market was far ahead of its competitors with a 60% market share. However, it is not just Jingdong’s own efforts to bring the eleven major conven- tions of traditional home appliances to the Internet.

“Gomeon Online and Suning Tesco have contributed to this incident. They themselves have made their own lives. The online and offline products have the same price, and they have collapsed the model blockade and price blockade of traditional channels by traditional agents. Su Liang said, "On this basis, JD.com's household appliances based on its own flow advantage, making it quickly spread the market on home appliances channels, occupying the commanding heights in one fell swoop."

Based on the status of the king in the e-commerce traffic, Jingdong Home Appliances, breaking the shackles, transplanted the 618 big promotion carnival tone to the home network sales. Under the participation of the six major brands, the 11th promotion of the “Internet + Edition” has suddenly become a A home appliance marketing "big happy." The mainstream major brands jointly participated in JD.com promotion, and let the online channels of home appliances represented by JD.com earn their face in the industry. The influence has long been on the decline.

The new normal of home grid purchase

Lao Ding was previously a logistics company in a newspaper group responsible for home appliance delivery, and later moved to JD Logistics. "All are sending home appliances. Jingdong's treatment is better, so I'll go to work here." Laoding said. Benefiting from the rapid development of home network purchase channels, Laoting has the opportunity to change jobs, and new career opportunities have brought him better treatment.

This opportunity reflects the subtle changes in the ecological environment of the home appliance industry. Relying on the rapid growth and expansion of online channels, the mainstream brands collaborate with e-commerce leaders such as JD.com, and deep cooperation will become the new marketing of the home appliance industry. normal. As mainstream home appliance manufacturers embrace more self-operated e-commerce providers, in turn, they will promote the popularity of home-network purchases and the acceleration of shipments. As a result, logistics demand will also increase, and Laoding’s activities will become even heavier. Now. If we analyze it from the macroeconomic level, it is not difficult to understand the origin of this change.

Li Daokui, director of the China and World Economic Research Center of Tsinghua University, once stated that in the troika of China’s economic “investment, export, and consumption”, investment and exports have basically stopped, and infrastructure construction, household consumption, and capacity renewal under the new normal are expected to become Three new growth points. It can be said that the accelerated development of home appliance e-commerce channels confirms Li Daokui's macro inference from a micro level.

Driven by housing infrastructure policies, the construction of affordable housing and the integration of cities and towns have released a large number of consumer demand for new homes. According to data forecasts from the National Information Center, the scale will be close to 10 million households each year, and after 70 and 80 will be new homes. The main crowd. The online shopping spending habits of emerging consumer groups are the core driving force for the development of home network sales.

Under the new norm of home-network purchases, the mass consumer groups are still accustomed to buying home appliances during the May 1st and 11th holidays, but their channel preferences will become more and more networked. Demand determines the market, I believe that the future of home appliances sales season will have more brands to join, marketing will also be more in line with the tastes of emerging consumer groups. For Laoding, the new normal for home-grid purchases will become more and more "heavily" in his life.