Furniture store dressup show to solve the crisis and meet new challenges

In 2012, the tightening of real estate policies exceeded expectations. This year, furniture stores struggled in the crisis, rents continued to rise, store pressures increased, and the industry’s “shuffle” was ongoing. However, looking back at 2012, there are still breakthroughs in traditional stores, which have turned cold during the crisis.

In the first half of 2012: real estate is heating up, traditional stores staged "dressup show"

At the beginning of 2012, the central government repeatedly stressed that it should not relax the regulation of real estate, and pointed out that it strictly implements and gradually perfects policies and measures to curb speculation and investment demand, further consolidate the results of regulation and control, and promote the reasonable return of housing prices. For traditional stores, it is undoubtedly a huge blow. The regulation of the property market has led to a decline in domestic demand for home purchases, and sales of furniture stores have been “difficult to move”. In addition, affected by the economic crisis in Europe and the United States and the fluctuation of the RMB exchange rate, furniture exports have also been worsened, and the business situation of home building materials stores has fallen into chaos.

On March 31, 2012, Beijing Bafanglong Lighting (lighting decoration renderings) with a 12-year operating history announced the closure of the city. Since then, it has become the main market for the aquarium, wenwan, calligraphy and painting in Huilong Aquarium. Installed into the aquarium market, this is still rare in the industry.

The old-fashioned store "declines", closed down, and the tide of the withdrawal

The “dressing up” of Beijing Bafanglong Lighting City is only the beginning of the closed shop craze. Subsequently, the blue oriental Lishuiqiao store closed, Jimei home Wanjiacheng store strategically closed, and the home of Hangzhou’s new store collapsed, which shocked the industry. In September 2012, Home Depot completely shut down the only seven stores in China. For a time, the bankruptcy and the withdrawal of the tide were repeated.

According to industry data, in the first half of this year, the sales value of enterprises above designated size in the national building materials industry was 2.5 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 16%, and the growth rate dropped sharply by 25.2 percentage points. Among them, the sales of building materials and home furniture above the national scale reached 553.93 billion yuan from January to June, down 7.66% year-on-year. This is the first time in the past five years that the growth rate has declined. Despite the fact that the development of the industry is facing difficulties, most of the stores are unshakable and will start to seek new ways in the second half of this year.

The second half of 2012: in the face of the dilemma, the traditional store turned to the new battlefield

Faced with the dilemma of the industry, some traditional stores began to operate in the second and third-tier markets. At the same time, they launched furniture promotion activities to attract consumers from time to time, and some of them changed their networks to transform e-commerce... The exploration of new models has become the direction of market development.

As the first-tier cities are affected by the regulation of the upstream property market, the traditional stores are under great pressure. However, for the second and third tier cities, this part of the housing is mainly demanded, and the impact is not obvious, and the purchasing power of furniture products in the second and third tier cities is gradually becoming more prominent. At present, many well-known furniture brands and traditional stores such as Yifeng Furniture and Fuzhidao have launched a layout for this part of the market, hoping to dig new energy on this piece of cake. In addition, for the development of second and third tier cities, the state has also introduced relevant support policies, hoping to stimulate domestic demand. Therefore, this part of the market economy is better, and it is also a very advantageous advantage for the development of traditional stores.

In the face of high store rents, some stores have long adopted the mode of operating on the Internet platform. However, it was somewhat difficult to try at first, because after the transformation of e-commerce, there were many problems involved. From sales, delivery, installation to after-sales, there were certain defects, so the online sales did not improve much at first. Some insiders also said that the touch net must walk on both the line and the offline line. The user experience is always the most important, just like the Melaleuca furniture network. At first it was pure Internet marketing furniture, and it was offline in the second half of this year. The Experience Pavilion has covered major first- and second-tier cities across the country and has formed a comprehensive sales system.

In addition, from the sales data of all aspects of the Eleventh Golden Week furniture enterprises, it has been greatly improved compared with last year, and the sales during the “Double 11” period has reached a higher level. The "breakthrough" of furniture e-commerce has given the traditional store a new hope. According to another survey, the current large-scale online shopping is mainly for young people after the 80s, and they are pursuing a good online shopping environment for user experience. Ms. Han, a consumer in Nanjing, said that furniture is a high-value consumer product after all, and she is more willing to choose to shop online. Secondly, many furniture online stores now have offline experience halls, user experience is good, after-sales protection is also guaranteed, and logistics is becoming more mature. In the second half of the year, a European-style (European decoration renderings) bed was purchased at the Melody Guangzhou Experience Hall. It will be delivered in less than 5 days. Finally, the price is high. Online shopping furniture has become a favorite of some netizens. Therefore, opening up e-commerce roads has become one of the trends in the development of stores in the second half of the year.

According to the current housing market policy, traditional stores will be subject to certain "constraints" for a long time, but it is foreseeable that in the future, consumers will take timely and rational shots in the purchase of furniture. The operation of traditional stores will also change quietly, but no matter what the future development trend is, it is the last word to find a road suitable for its own development.