In recent years, China's economy has risen rapidly, health quality has become a consensus, and the lifestyle of Chinese people has undergone tremendous changes. With the return of traditional culture and the deepening of the concept of green quality life, "solid wood" is redefining a better life with an unprecedented attitude.
On March 17, Home Micro Observation and Genji Wood released the "2024 Solid Wood Furniture Lifestyle Trend Report" (hereinafter referred to as the "Report"), which attracted widespread attention in the industry. This article will provide an in-depth interpretation of the changes in the contemporary solid wood lifestyle and the market opportunities it brings.
First, the willingness to consume solid wood furniture is improving
The market is dynamic and has full development potential
According to the National Bureau of Statistics, since 2018, the output of wooden furniture has fallen to the lowest value, and since then it has shown an increasing trend. In 2021, the output of wooden furniture in China reached 380,081,200 pieces, an increase of 58,448,500 pieces from 2020. In 2022, the output of China's wooden furniture industry will be about 412.032 million pieces.
As Chinese consumers have higher and higher requirements for the home environment, the solid wood furniture market has a broader outlook. This is evident from the Report.
Seventy percent of the respondents expressed their liking for solid wood furniture, 25.69% felt average, and only 5.36% clearly did not like it. This is related to the deep solid wood complex of the Chinese, and even if they don't like it, it can hardly be called disgust.
It is worth mentioning that 90.76% of people have bought solid wood furniture, which far exceeds the proportion of people who love solid wood furniture, which may indicate that solid wood furniture has some reasons for people to buy, such as health, environmental protection, and nature...... Even people who feel average about it are hard to resist.
As for whether they will buy solid wood furniture in the future, 63.96% of people expressed a clear willingness to buy. On the whole, consumers have a strong willingness to consume solid wood furniture, and consumer confidence is also relatively sufficient.
The above is enough to show that China's solid wood furniture market is full of vitality and great potential. In the context of 2024 being designated as the "Year of Consumption Promotion", solid wood furniture is expected to become a new consumption growth point in the home furnishing industry.
Second, new groups of people lead to new needs
How does solid wood furniture give birth to a "new consumer brand"?
With the change in the structure of the main consumer group, new consumer groups of solid wood furniture have begun to emerge.
From the age level, in the past, when it comes to the consumption of solid wood furniture, many people will think that it is dominated by the 70s and 80s, in fact, according to the report, in addition to the 80s, the 90s and 00s have also become the emerging force of solid wood furniture.
Different consumer age groups have different consumption concepts and preferences for solid wood furniture:
After social tempering and years of precipitation, the post-80s generation will pay more attention to the quality of life and the choice of materials;
The post-90s generation is the main force in the digital age, they are more willing to accept and try new things, and they are more inclined to products with a sense of design and diversified functions.
The material living conditions of the post-00s are superior, they have experienced strong aesthetic edification, and they also pay attention to spiritual resonance, so they will require more solid wood furniture to achieve the integration from art to life.
From the perspective of urban lines, the demand for solid wood furniture in new first-tier cities is much higher than that of other cities, followed by second-tier cities and third-tier cities. In fact, this shows that the more consumers in the spire city, the more they pursue a high-quality life and return to nature.
From the perspective of family structure, families with children have a more prominent demand for solid wood furniture, and they pay more attention to the impact of the family environment on children's physical and mental health.
The diversified demand of the new consumer group of solid wood furniture is actually one of the characteristics of the prosperity of solid wood furniture, and the solid wood furniture brand can only better grasp the new trend and new trend of consumption in order to better stimulate the vitality of consumption.
Third, the concept of solid wood furniture is too common
Only by expanding category awareness can we enhance the pull of consumption
The state has strict standards for the classification of solid wood furniture, which are mainly divided into three types: "all solid wood furniture", "solid wood furniture" and "solid wood veneer furniture" according to the different processes and materials.
However, according to the report, consumers can not distinguish the difference between "all solid wood furniture" and "solid wood furniture", and believe that veneer solid wood and board also belong to the category of "all solid wood furniture" accounted for 64.14% and 51.02% respectively, reaching more than half.
Consumers' perception will greatly affect their perception and evaluation of products, thereby influencing purchase decisions. At present, there are some bad manufacturers on the market, taking advantage of consumers' vague understanding of solid wood furniture, deliberately confusing the concept, so that many consumers spend a lot of money to buy the so-called pseudo "pure solid wood" furniture, which is not conducive to the sustainable development of solid wood furniture in the future.
Brand education and nurturing is a key measure to enhance consumers' awareness of the category. Only by changing consumers' cognition can they influence their consumption behavior and create a strong consumption pull.
Fourth, the era of careful budgeting
Rationality and quality upgrading coexist
Zheng Ye, Chief Growth Officer of NielsenIQ China, likened the current era of "budget-conscious" consumption, which is intuitively reflected in the consumption decisions of solid wood furniture.
According to the report, when the respondents purchased solid wood furniture, they ranked quality (49.91%), practicality (38.63%), price (36.78%), health and environmental protection (31.61%) in the top four, followed by value preservation (28.47%), appearance design (22.55%), service life (23.84%), and brand reputation (14.6%).
This reflects the trend of consumers in the more complex and differentiated home consumption strategies and behaviors, and also shows that consumers are becoming more rational and more pursuing the quality of products, which will not only give birth to a richer and more diversified service model, but also make domestic brands favored by more consumers.
Fifth, the change of solid wood home application scenarios,
"Multi-form" and "multi-functional" have become important directions of design
Solid wood furniture is suitable for all kinds of home spaces, including living rooms, bedrooms, dining rooms, etc. In the past, solid wood furniture was used not only as the main type of furniture, such as sofas, beds, dining tables and chairs, but also as auxiliary furniture such as storage cabinets, bookshelves and TV cabinets.
But at present, according to the report, the application scenarios of solid wood home furnishings have undergone important changes: the study room (74.86%), the living room (48.43%), the children's room (47.69%), and the bedroom (38.82%) have become the four ideal use areas.
This reflects that the functional settings in the traditional home space are gradually weakened, which not only reflects the changes and development of the times, but also indicates that the design of solid wood home needs to become more "multi-form" and "multi-functional", so as to meet the diversified lifestyles of modern people.
For example, today's study room has long been out of the category of simply reading books, but intertwined with various forms and functions such as drinking tea, working, playing the piano, sports, and games;
The standard equipment of the traditional living room - TV, sofa and coffee table - is gradually being replaced by new elements such as projectors, coffee tables and carpets;
In addition to sleeping, learning and other functions, the children's room also needs to consider storage, decoration, social entertainment;
Multi-functional integration has become the main trend of modern bedrooms, and various functions such as sleep, leisure, relaxation, and dressing complement each other, so contemporary consumers pay more attention to the health, environmental protection, comfort and healing of the bedroom...... This is also reflected in the data, with bedrooms opening up the fault advantage with a ratio of 38.82%.
To sum up, solid wood furniture needs to continue to innovate in design from the aspects of comfort, convenience, space utilization, personalization and sustainable development, and lead the revolution of modern family lifestyle.
Sixth, the Internet catalyzes a new pattern of solid wood home furnishing
The progression from "Internet celebrity" to "mainstream brand".
Under the wave of Internet+, many new brands have quickly become a new force in the consumer market by relying on category innovation and product innovation to break through online channels.
It can be seen from the report that consumers have the deepest awareness of traditional home furnishing brands, and they have a deeper understanding of home furnishing brands that started with e-commerce, which also reflects the significant results of brand building in the home furnishing industry.
It is worth noting that the new consumer brands represented by Genji Muyu and relying on online channels have been branded with value anchors in the hearts of users, which first highlights the significant changes in the brand pattern of solid wood furniture in China today.
Secondly, it also shows that as a former traffic brand, Genji Muyu has begun to become a mainstream brand through brand building, and has achieved explosive influence by moving from online to offline, so as to establish such a deep understanding in the minds of consumers.
7. The troika of the rise of the Genji wood language
New channels, new people, new supply
What are the "forces" behind the rapid rise of Genji Muyu? By summarizing the purchase motives and behavior types of past users of Genji Muyu, we can summarize three key words: new channels, new supply and new people.
From the perspective of new channels, Genji Muyu not only deeply cultivates different e-commerce platforms, but also uses different self-media platforms to promote brands, and has achieved excellent results: nearly half of consumers have learned about Genji Muyu through online shopping platforms (Tmall, JD.com, Pinduoduo, Douyin, Kuaishou, Vipshop, Group Buy, Xiaohongshu, etc.), and the influence of self-media platform promotion accounts for 39.78%.
From the perspective of new supply, consumers are becoming more and more selective about household products, and have shifted from the pursuit of basic product satisfaction to the pursuit of quality life. Relying on the mature supply chain system, Genji Wood provides consumers with solid wood furniture products covering the whole scene of the home through category and scene innovation, and builds a unique solid wood beautiful lifestyle for consumers. In the report, solid wood sideboards (46.41%), solid wood tables and chairs (43.09%), and solid wood desks (39.78%) became the top three purchases of solid wood furniture by respondents.
From the perspective of the new population, young consumers have become the main group of new consumer brands, and they are more in pursuit of quality, service, and appearance...... Genji Wood Language, which breaks through the shortcomings of traditional solid wood furniture brands in satisfying young consumer values, fully meets the needs of new groups with high cost performance (72.71%), high-quality delivery and installation services and after-sales service (50.28%), good quality (46.96%), and high appearance (39.23%).
8. How to break the development of the solid wood furniture industry?
Need to build "multi-dimensional competitiveness"
Throughout the development of the solid wood furniture industry in recent years: the iterative evolution of traditional consumption forms, consumption changes have forced market innovation, and vertical segmentation has become an important trend...... The breakthrough of the new track is intertwined with the innovation of the old track, and how can the solid wood furniture industry "break the game" in the context of more and more involution?
In the process of rapid development for decades, the home furnishing industry has experienced the barbaric growth era of "channel is king" and the mobile Internet era of "traffic is king", and now it has entered a new era of "user is king, service is king, and word of mouth is king". In this context, consumers' demands for solid wood furniture not only focus on quality, design and experience, but also focus on service......
According to the report, as a national solid wood home furnishing brand, consumers are generally satisfied with the evaluation of Genji wood language in five aspects: product quality, design, cost performance, delivery and installation, and after-sales service, among them, the praise rate accounts for: cost performance (82.32%), product design (81.21%), delivery and installation services (66%), product quality (65.2%), and after-sales service (64.64%).
At the same time, 83.43% of people are expected to buy Genji wood furniture again in the future, and more than 9 percent of people are willing to recommend Genji wood to relatives and friends. As household consumption moves from the incremental market to the stock market, with the blessing of service and word-of-mouth, these potential users will become an important private domain traffic pool of Genji Muyu.
9. Trilogy of solid wood furniture brand development
Recognize, recognize, identify
In a real sense, the current competition in the home furnishing industry is not a simple price war and product war, but a cognitive war, because there is no absolute winner in the price war, and the product can be easily copied, only once the cognition is established, it is difficult to surpass.
Since its establishment in 2010, the 14-year brand development history of Genji Muyu is actually a process from recognition to recognition, and based on this, Genji Muyu has imprinted its own unique value label in the minds of consumers.
In the report, "solid wood home furnishing representative brand" has become the most prominent cognitive feature of Genji wood language, which has been affirmed by 77.08% of the respondents, followed by natural health and environmentally friendly furniture (47.87%), Internet home furnishing model (43.44%), "cost-effective solid wood furniture" (35.49%), "healing, warm home furnishing brand" (27.17%). From these cognitions, it is enough to peek into the fact that Genji Muyu has gained wide recognition from consumers, and at the same time, it reflects the satisfaction of Genji's Muyu for consumers' more segmented, diverse and inclusive consumption needs.
10. Customize or become a new engine for the development of solid wood home furnishings
Ignite consumer confidence with quality
With the rise of the new generation of consumer groups, new consumption habits have been born, which has directly triggered the iteration of the market form, and the home furnishing industry has entered a new era of customization.
At the moment when "customization" has become the mainstream trend of home decoration, how should the solid wood furniture industry explore a new model of solid wood customization that is more suitable for its own development?
One-stop solution, convenience and speed are the main reasons for consumers to choose solid wood custom home furnishings, accounting for 66.24%, followed by meeting personalized needs (57.56%) and beautiful design (30.23%).
This shows that for solid wood furniture companies, they should meet the one-stop, personalized and high-value needs of consumers with a wider product matrix, and take the initiative to embrace the changes of the times.
At the same time, when the respondents consider the solid wood customization service, the most worrying thing is that the product quality does not match the expectation (76.34%), and the product does not match the actual product (73.75%). This wants or has opened the "customized" solid wood furniture enterprises sounded the alarm, only pay attention to products, brands, services, all-round improvement of comprehensive capabilities, in order to ensure long-term sustainable development.
11. The emergence of a new wave of solid wood furniture consumption,
Intelligence, cost-effective, appearance, and practicality are the key words
Driven by the new consumption concept, the solid wood furniture industry has also opened a new wave of consumption reform. In the future, where will this wave flock? "Report" revealed, 31.42% of consumers look forward to the "solid wood + intelligent" more possibilities, 27.91% of people hope that the cost performance of solid wood furniture can be further upgraded, 24.95% of the value and practicality of solid wood furniture still have room for continuous rise, 15.71% of people look forward to more personalized solid wood customized products.
In this regard, four major wind directions can be summarized:
1. Intelligent demand has become a must-answer question for solid wood furniture enterprises;
2. "Cost-effective" is still the main starting point for opening the consumption of solid wood furniture;
3. Appearance and practicality, as the two major home furnishing needs of consumers, have become the key to a new round of growth of solid wood furniture brands;
4. Solid wood personalization is still a blue ocean, with broad opportunities.
XII. Conclusion
In the intensifying competition, fierce and turbulent international and economic environment, solid wood furniture enterprises need to adapt to changes faster, constantly innovate themselves, and open a new situation in the changes. On the premise of stabilizing the scale foundation, formulate a reasonable price strategy, strengthen channel management, strengthen brand marketing, and deepen the concept of brand value, so as to drive the value to enhance the industrial upgrading, and further lead the new productivity and competitiveness of solid wood.