Text | Wu Ying
Edit | Yang Xuran
The accumulation of wealth and the upgrading of residents' consumption have raised consumers' consumption preferences from simply meeting the needs of life to the level of quality of life and "freshness". Young people's consumption of small household appliances is a concentrated embodiment.
The main consumer group of small household appliances is not the family-style mass market, but the young Z generation crowd, of which female users in first- and second-tier cities are the main force.
Holding the "pulse" of consumers, it can grasp the hearts of consumers, which has been held very steadily by some manufacturers.
At present, it is the era of planting grass, and in order to cater to the tastes of young consumers, various small household appliance manufacturers have engaged in IP joint models, Internet red anchors with goods, popular idol endorsements and so on. Practice has proved that this is a successful strategy for small household appliances to open up the market.
Because the older generation buys electrical appliances, they often tend to choose large-capacity, family-oriented, inexpensive products, and the old brands of home appliances such as Midea and Suber have become their first choice. In the eyes of the younger generation of consumers, the appearance of fashion is one of the factors that make them produce consumption impulses, "appearance" is equally important as performance, and price is not a problem.
Under the joint catalysis of the e-commerce promotion festival and the "home economy", consumers are fiercely operating on the shopping platform. But after the boom in small household appliances has receded, what is left for consumers is more to think: how much is not used in the middle? Is it "paying the IQ tax"? "One look will be, once done, it will be wasted", why not go outside and buy a good one? After not using it a few times, I was idle, and I began to wonder why I bought it in the first place...
Consumers' continuous pursuit of quality of life is the driving force for the upgrading of small household appliances. Rather than saying that small household appliances are "IQ tax", it is better to pay more attention to the consumer demand reflected behind the "IQ tax".
Iq tax means that the role of small household appliances does not meet the needs of young people, does not mean that the needs of young people have disappeared. Being criticized as an "IQ tax" can only explain the drawbacks of the current small household appliances, which is where the future development opportunities of manufacturers lie.
01 Undercurrent differentiation
Nowadays, the market for small household appliances is surging and the differentiation is obvious.
Beginning in the second half of 2019, small household appliances began to show value in the capital market. By the beginning of 2020, the overall revenue growth rate of listed companies in small household appliances will be higher than that of A-shares. But from 2021 onwards, different categories will begin to diverge.
For example, clean small household appliances continued the high prosperity of 2020 in 2021, and the market size reached 13.6 billion yuan, an increase of 40.2% year-on-year. The turnover of vacuum cleaners, sweepers and scrubbers in 2021 was 5.64 billion yuan, 8.43 billion yuan and 5.03 billion yuan respectively, of which the turnover of scrubbers increased by 333% year-on-year, and the three-year CAGR reached 339%.
However, according to Aowei Cloud Network (AVC) data, a total of 12 categories of small kitchen appliances, retail sales in 2021 were 51.4 billion yuan, down 14.1% year-on-year, of which online retail sales were 35.64 billion yuan, down 9.7% year-on-year, and offline retail sales were 15.72 billion yuan, down 22.7% year-on-year.
Suber and Xiao Bear electrical appliances, which are mainly kitchen appliances, have not performed well.
As a small household appliance brand based on online channels, the dividend of the "home economy" once made the performance of Xiao Bear Electrical Appliances explode, and its stock price once hit a high of 165.9 yuan, but since then, Xiao Xiong has ushered in a simultaneous decline in profit growth and stock prices. Entering 2021, the net profit of Xiao bear electrical appliances has shown negative growth in the first three quarters.
The overall growth of massage personal care is relatively stable, but the turnover of massage chairs has declined in 2021 due to the overdraft of part of the demand due to the epidemic; the intelligent micro-investment market is dominated by two major brands of extreme rice and nuts, forming a duopoly pattern, and the turnover has increased by 34% year-on-year, continuing the high prosperity.
The epidemic dividend has receded, the track has diverged, and specific analysis and judgment are needed for each segment of the market.
Kitchen small household appliances are just in demand, and the market is running well. Although Midea, Jiuyang and Suber are not the first choice among young consumers, cr3 reaches 81% in the electric pressure cooker category, and its share in related categories is relatively stable.
However, in recent years, some new kitchen appliances that have become popular have been overdrawn in part of the demand, and now they are relatively cool, such as health pots, multi-functional cooking pots and other categories of turnover under pressure, the industry has entered the stage of stock competition: before there is a head enterprise "Meijiu Su", after the rookie Beiding, Mofei, coupled with the serious homogenization of products, the differentiation between different brands has shrunk, and the competition pattern has become more and more intense.
In contrast, cleaning categories, massage personal care categories, and intelligent micro-projection electrical appliances are relatively optimistic. Due to the relatively high technology content, there is a certain degree of differentiation between products, the overall competitive pattern of the industry is relatively scattered, and the market share of major brands remains stable.
In addition, the consumer demand of some categories has not yet been fully released, such as intelligent micro-investment and intelligent toilet penetration growth space is still large, the market is broad.
02 There is demand≠ value
Enthusiastically buying small household appliances back, it did not take a few times to put them in the corner to accumulate dust, which became a problem for consumers.
Buying means there is a demand, and the machine eating ashes means that there is a problem when the demand is met. The actual demand and product value can not match, which can probably be attributed to the following three aspects: the product itself is lacking, the use of the use of limited scenarios, cheap product use effect is poor.
Advocating the concept of healthy life, penetrated into the consumption concept of young people, yogurt machines, ice cream machines and other homemade food appliances have become "planting grass" single products, but in the actual use process, there are complex production processes, high material costs, low success rate problems, and let many people "pull grass".
Simplification, good effect, low cost, should be the original intention of small household appliances, but now it is contrary to the road, complex, poor effect, high cost of the situation, naturally people are reluctant to pay. In the era of "lazy economy", in a limited time, the maximum freedom of hands, the improvement of efficiency, and the ability to meet daily needs are the real demands of consumers.
The limitation of the use scenario is a major reason why small household appliances are idle. Judging from previous successful experiences, adding portability and mobility to products can make all its breakthroughs - this affects the frequency of consumer use, the most typical of which is that vacuum cleaners have ushered in explosive growth after wirelessization. In addition, there are "new species" such as hair dryers used for charging, rechargeable electric lunch boxes, etc., and the acceptance has increased significantly.
A negative problem in the industry is that the competition in the small household appliance industry is extremely fierce, due to the low technical threshold, in order to stabilize sales, some small household appliance manufacturers produce OEM/ODM products, in the form of OEM, OEM, play a low-price strategy, Antarctica 9.9 electric toothbrush, Konka 38 pieces of massager, compared with hundreds, thousands of products, the price is indeed very attractive.
First-time consumers buy products driven by low prices, but the actual use of the effect is not satisfactory, or even counterproductive, some people with massagers are electrically uncomfortable, and some people use electric toothbrushes to brush their gums and bleed.
It is difficult for consumers to trust these inferior products, and then extend their dissatisfaction to all small household appliances, and the label of "IQ tax" falls. Ye Jide, secretary of the board of directors of Suber, once admitted: "Some competitors have been taking the strategy of explosive models and low prices, and this has fallen into a very bad state. ”
The popularity of products is not accidental, nor is it won by price wars, but needs to be based on meeting the real demands of consumers. Whether it is Dyson's hair dryer, vacuum cleaner, or Cloud Whale's sweeping machine, the reason why these net red items can be successful, in addition to being able to cater to the needs of consumers, is more important than taking into account practicality, aesthetics and intelligence.
03 A new way out
Whether it is the kitchen small household appliances market that has long been filled with smoke, or the cleaning category and personal care market that are full of war, the competition in various subdivisions will enter a white-hot stage. The bullets may be able to fly a little longer, but the gunshots are getting closer. Manufacturers need to find new ways out.
At present, the competitive pattern of traditional large items in the market has been relatively stable, it is difficult to accommodate new competitors, rather than taking a piece of cake from the mouth of the old, it is better to make a cake in emerging products.
According to the survey of Cinda Securities Research Institute, the long-tail small household appliance market represented by bread machines and coffee machines occupies a considerable proportion of the scale of the mainland small household appliances market, and the growth rate of long-tail categories is faster than that of traditional categories.
Category segmentation is the only way for small household appliance companies to get out of the competitive predicament. It is not only necessary to broaden the radius of the small household appliance market, but also to jump out of the market and seek deep integration with other industries.
Cross-border cooperation is not a new thing, if you want to "go out of the circle", you have to change from a single product to a more in-depth service.
Beiding is a successful case, its health pot began to be paired with exclusive ingredient packages, to help users avoid the complexity of ingredient selection and collocation. For example, air fryers and stir-fryers can work with prefabricated vegetable manufacturers to create customized recipes, which is closer to lifestyle sales.
In the era of stock competition, homogenization is one of the problems currently faced by the entire industry. The more enterprises want to break the homogenization situation and gain the favor of users, the more they need to launch differentiated and differentiated single products, and the more they must continue to innovate to meet user needs.
For home appliance brands in the mature stage, they began to rely on product upgrades to achieve differentiation, and bound themselves more deeply with a certain type of product, Jiuyang and Suber are similar examples.
According to the report of the Orient Securities Research Institute, the "SKY series" under Jiuyang has steadily increased the average price of soybean milk machine to the industry-leading level by enriching its layout in different price segments, and can maintain its market share in the forefront of the industry.
A more distinctive brand image is equally important in the pursuit of brand culture. As the "façade" of the enterprise, the brand image also shows certain cultural characteristics and penetrates into the product.
Suber and electric pressure cooker are almost equal; Xiao Bear Electrical Appliances attracts young female user groups with the brand image of "cute series"; Xiaomi mainly focuses on "smart home ecological mode" to shape the brand characteristics of minimalist, intelligent and cost-effective, which are successful and worth learning from.
Overall, these success stories have several common characteristics: a distinct product image, a clear product positioning, and a clear customer base. Although the value is expensive and low, it is also "determined by people".
04 Write at the end
Products have been criticized and once reduced to an "IQ tax", which is not necessarily all bad for home appliance manufacturers. If you can gain insight into the real needs of consumers from the "IQ tax" spit, the tuition fees of manufacturers are not paid in vain.
At present, the consumption concept of young people is very worthy of manufacturers to taste and study. They are not only buying a commodity, but also a way of life. A product is not just a commodity, but also an attitude and solution to life.
Relying on traditional pieces is a thing of the past. In a saturated market, it is difficult to compete on the commodity itself, and most of them can only go out.
Adam Smith once said, "For commodity production, expanding the market is the root of the problem." ”
The road from commodity production to service provision may be long, but there are not many paths that most companies can choose to get out of the four walls of the "IQ tax". The market in the traditional sense has reached its limits, and the market for lifestyles and solutions has just begun.