The business of home furnishing and home improvement community stores has attracted dozens of big names to enter the market, and the way out may still be bumpy!

Dacai Research, Chief Analyst: Deng Chaoming, Pan Home Furnishing Boss Business Internal Reference, Manager's Daily Reading, Business Staff of Front-line Personnel, to create an influential large home furnishing construction and decoration research institution, professional evaluation and communication center.

Since 2024, community stores have been mentioned again by some companies, and they have launched bold plans.

This is not a new thing, a few years ago, companies entered the market one after another, and even created an independent brand on its own, in the form of community stores to go deep into the community, trying to seize the traffic entrance and seize the opportunity to reach customers first.

Especially in the environment where the proportion of the stock market is getting higher and higher, and the wave of renovation of old communities is higher and higher, the time may have come to choose the right location to invest in community stores.

According to the understanding of Dazai Research, in the near future, at least St. Bao Luo Door and Window, Schneemann, Sophia Wall and Ground Integration and other enterprises have once again come up with a plan for community stores.

St. Paul's overall doors and windows attach great importance to this, and revealed the news of entering the community store in the form of a press conference, trying to grasp the needs of consumers for "old house renovation and bureau reform" with the goal of improving the living experience, focusing on the dividends of the community economy and the pain points of dealers, and launching a small but refined "St. Paulo Community Experience Store".

According to reports, the area of this kind of store is 40-80 square meters, and the investment only needs about 50,000 yuan to create a high-convenience small community store.

At the 2024 St. Paulo 415 World Door and Window Safety Day event, Wu Guohong, chairman of St. Paulo's overall doors and windows, set the strategic layout as "the store moves with the market", that is, where the market is, the store will be opened, providing efficient and convenient services in a way close to consumers, and opening up the last mile of door and window bureau reform.

In terms of operation strategy, St. Paulo Community Experience Store takes "China Door and Window Repair Service Center" as the main business concept, takes root in the community, cuts into the "door and window renewal" market from maintenance services, and provides one-stop service for door and window purchase, repair, maintenance and replacement.

In the next 2-3 years, it plans to open 2,000 community experience stores nationwide and gradually expand to 8,000 to build a dense service network covering hundreds of thousands of communities across the country.

Let's look at another company: Schneemann, which proposed the operation plan of the community store a few years ago, until 2024, the company is still emphasizing deep cultivation of the community, with products and services that exceed user expectations, and tap new increments in the existing market.

In the upgrade of its store format, there is a model of community stores, which is used as a weapon to deepen the community.

At the 2024 Shenzhen Furniture Fair, Sophia Space Customization has launched two model stores, specialty stores and community stores, which only need an area of 60 square meters and an investment of about 150,000 yuan.

It is characterized by low threshold, small investment, low risk and strong support to attract merchants to sign contracts.

Sophia Whole Case Space Customization provides decoration owners with: free full case design, complete case products, and a package of full case delivery of the whole chain of services, and promises the delivery of renderings and the acceptance of renderings, which can achieve more than 99% of the restoration of the effect.

According to its official WeChat information, after the first launch of Sophia Space Custom Community Store on March 17, the first batch will recruit 500 partners across the country. Undoubtedly, this goal fully reflects Sophia's confidence and ambition to customize and develop the community business.

In 2023, Pocket Pearl Home Flonishing will launch a whole customized community store format - Jizhiguan, redefining new community retail with a capital-light business model.

With the support of the wisdom model, dealers can build stores with an investment of 100,000 yuan, with a store area of 50 to 100 square meters, with community model rooms + digital intelligence stores as the carrier, supported by the whole family 4.0 product system of Pocket Pearl Home, and providing brand, product, traffic and retail and other empowerment.

Specifically, its products are no different from the whole house design and bag check-in services promoted by the main Pearl Home Furnishing in the palm of the hand, including furniture, customization, cabinets, wooden doors, soft decoration and other five categories of one-stop shopping.

In terms of terminal form, Jizhi Hall is composed of a design area, a smart store experience terminal, a reception area, a material selection area, an indoor landscape area, and an office/VIP meeting area.

In terms of traffic, we will achieve global drainage, match the real estate resources around Jizhi stores, and carry out community marketing.

In terms of retail, it provides support for new store operation, store digital operation tools, bag capacity improvement, and terminal management system.

According to the information at that time, the Jizhi store of the Palm Pearl has been piloted in some cities, and some results have also been unveiled. Its core logic is to invest lightly to do the whole family, focus on the needs of young consumers, and create a low-risk, high-empowerment light capital operation model for young entrepreneurs.

Earlier, there were many companies that proposed plans for the layout of community stores, but no results have been announced since 2023 or 2024.

For example, Schneemann's AI Home has made a long-term investment in community stores.

At the 2023 China Huzhou Nanxun Global High-end Home Design Innovation Conference, an executive mentioned that AI Home Furnishing has more than 1,300 stores across the country, which is basically a small store model and serves rigid needs at low cost. More than 60% of the stores are aimed at the community, and it is planned to achieve thousands of stores in thousands of cities by the end of 2025.

The small orange store launched by Shangpin Home Delivery in 2022 is also aimed at the community.

In the early stage, we have created personalized customized spaces such as "cute pet home", "gourmet", "dreamer" and "talent home", mainly selling packages, including cabinet packages, bag packages, drainage packages, space packages, etc.

In terms of operation, the headquarters can send a team to support the store and provide a complete set of data tools, such as AI intelligent cloud design, K20 whole house design system, VR cloud exhibition hall, cloud shelves, etc., to empower the operation of community stores.

The "Kuanzhai Smart Home" released by Yilian Customization in 2021 takes the route of fashion and high cost performance, focusing on community stores.

The "Laizhu" brand incubated by Hollywood is a fashion brand for young people, and there are community stores in the planned store format, which are juxtaposed with designer stores, decoration stores, flagship stores, etc., in an effort to shorten the service distance for customers.

Red Fuji Home Furnishing once held a press conference on the "Future Home Ecosystem", in which it was revealed that with the empowerment of Sikong New Home Improvement, it officially entered the community home decoration and planned to open 1,000 community stores in 2021.

The model is to start with home improvement, provide some services for community residents, build trust, and then activate needs such as renovation and transformation.

In its model planning, it is supported by Sikong New Home Improvement, and through industrialized customized home decoration products, it realizes fast installation and fast living, and meets the home decoration needs of old communities, such as renovation and transformation, daily home building materials needs, and of course, whole house decoration.

Renhao Home Fnishing has launched a cooperation model of 35 square meters to open a customized store, and launched a new "1+N" community store satellite matrix.

The "1+N" model means that "1" refers to the opening of one or two large stores of 600-1000 square meters in a city's traditional home furnishing store or street store;

"N" is to open 35 square meters or 45 square meters of community stores in a number of large real estate projects, and harvest the traffic of the whole city with points and areas.

In addition, Dongpeng Ceramics and Eagle Ceramics are also exploring the community store model, some of which are initiated by manufacturers, and some dealers themselves find ways to sink into the community to open stores.

Some home improvement companies have long been exploring community stores, such as the Qiaojia Community Store of Jinzhao Decoration, which provides free services such as home improvement consultation, printing and copying, tool lending, home maintenance, etc., and provides decoration business.

The company insists on holding "community public welfare tours" projects, covering convenient services such as toilet repair, wall and floor tile joints, water supply and drainage testing, and has put forward the goal of covering hundreds of communities.

As far as the overall situation is concerned, the research found that the categories that currently run through the community store model are mainly hardware, switches, etc., which are sold in small community stores.

For example, Bull had 750,000 hardware channel outlets a few years ago, many of which were hardware and daily grocery points downstairs in the community, and the vitality of such community stores was extremely tenacious.

However, in industries such as finished furniture, custom home, whole home customization, soft furniture, smart home, tile flooring, doors and windows, home decoration, etc., community stores are also successful, but they are not very common, far less than the specialty stores in home furnishing stores.

Theoretically speaking, the demand for renovation and equipment renewal in old residential areas continues to flourish, and there is no shortage of customer resources that can be tapped. For home furnishing brands, the prospects of community stores may not be bad, but the difficulty of operation should not be underestimated.

Round after round of big-coffee enterprises to explore, at present, has not run out of the broad road, nor has accumulated mature experience, in the future, we need to continue to test the water.

Dazai Research has mentioned in an article that it is difficult for most community stores to survive independently, and it is best to have a large store in the city as a support to provide brand endorsement, event venues, multi-scene experience platforms, etc.

The community store is mainly to get close to the residents, and provide maintenance, design, home improvement consulting, printing and copying and other services within their capabilities, so as to establish close contact with the residents and discover business opportunities.

If it can be sold, it will be sold on the spot in the community store. If you can't make a deal, you can invite you to a big store to experience, participate in activities, and endorse the big store, which can improve the chance of a deal.

In addition, the coverage of community stores is relatively narrow, which requires operators to actively acquire customers and expand marketing coverage. Sustainable operations can only be ensured if a certain order volume is achieved.

In addition to strengthening active marketing capabilities, it is best for community stores to increase their business categories, match high-frequency consumption with categories with high customer unit prices, generate income in multiple ways, reduce cost pressure, and further reduce risks, so as to live better.