At present, the incremental era has become a thing of the past, and the stock era has brought new opportunities for the housing construction and decoration industry. The demand for improvement is rising rapidly, and the consumption scenarios of users are gradually opened. In the new cycle, how to seize new opportunities and achieve growth with highly adaptable products, diversified channel layout, and full-link digital capabilities?
As the world's first exhibition in the home furnishing and decoration industry, China Construction Expo (Guangzhou) is highly synchronized with national policy guidance, industry change trends, and enterprise growth needs, bringing together the unique resource advantages of the exhibition to lead the industry to create a new development pattern. The 2024 China Construction Expo (Guangzhou) "Industry Coffee Talk" series interviewed Zhou Kaijun, general manager of Feimei Furniture. He said that relying on the hard core strength of digital intelligence, Feimeijia has enough confidence to achieve high-quality delivery, flexible delivery and efficient delivery of "light quality and high custom".
The following is a transcript of the interview:
[Global Network Home]: As an industry vane, China Construction Expo (Guangzhou) has always been an important platform for brands to release new products and new ideas. What kind of killer features will be taken in terms of new product releases at this year's exhibition?
[Zhou Kaijun]: This year, Feimei Furniture released a new positioning - "light quality and high custom". In March, Feimei participated in the China Construction Expo (Shanghai), with the theme of "Getaway - Kun", showing a unique home art journey, as the only brand in the Gaoding Pavilion focusing on "paint-free customization", which attracted wide attention, and the exhibition effect was very good.
We plan to participate in the China Construction Expo (Guangzhou) again in July. This time, Feimei's new product series has been improved in terms of design, quality, materials, and process details. It is worth mentioning that we chose the Italian CLEAF high-end paint-free board, which is known as the Hermes of the plate industry. At that time, visitors will be presented with a light and high-end art of life, so that everyone can experience the texture and beauty of light and high-end.
[Global Network Home Furnishing]: China Construction Expo (Guangzhou) is the first major exhibition in the home furnishing industry, what are your expectations for the 2024 China Construction Expo (Guangzhou)?
[Zhou Kaijun]: As one of the most important exhibitions in the home furnishing industry, China Construction Expo (Guangzhou) is an excellent platform for exhibitors and visitors to gain insight into industry trends and exchange cutting-edge technologies.
For the 2024 China Construction Expo (Guangzhou), Feimei Furniture has great expectations, hoping to capture the macro trend of the industry in this conference. It is essential to understand and anticipate the general direction of the industry, which will guide our strategic planning and product development.
[Global Network Home]: Where do you think the brand barriers and moats of Feimei Furniture are? How to achieve a breakthrough in the involution of the whole industry?
[Zhou Kaijun]: The core competitiveness involves multiple dimensions, and each enterprise has its own uniqueness. Feimei Furniture, as a veteran custom enterprise with digital awareness and intelligent manufacturing capabilities since its establishment in the industry, has been insisting on real money investment in intelligent manufacturing since 2009, so to speak, every key link, every place that should be worked hard, we have first-class hardware.
Laser edge banding machine
Since the establishment of the factory, Feimei Furniture has introduced a full set of Halma equipment and digital drive system, which has maximized the standardization and unity of the entire production chain. Since then, we have continuously increased our investment in intelligent manufacturing hardware and digital construction, promoting technological changes in the industry. For example, robot cutting and laser edge banding have only recently become popular in the customization industry, and Feimei has been using these advanced technologies for many years. During the Spring Festival this year, we introduced robot AGVs for transfer between processes, so that production is more accurate and delivery is more timely.
Robotic sorting
In addition, Feimei has invested more than 10 million yuan in digitalization and informatization, and has completed the digitalization of the whole process of design, manufacturing, logistics and delivery. The "hard core power" of digital intelligence has made Feimei Furniture successively recognized as a benchmark demonstration case of industrial Internet in Hebei Province and a pilot project for industrial Internet innovation and development in Hebei Province. Therefore, Feimeijia has sufficient strength and confidence to achieve flexible and efficient delivery of light and high-end on the basis of maintaining high-quality cores.
[Global Network Home]: What changes have occurred in consumer demand and market trends in the stock era? How are businesses responding?
[Zhou Kaijun]: At present, the custom home furnishing industry has shifted from rapid growth to the era of stock competition, and consumers have increasing requirements for "quality-price ratio". However, in my opinion, the impact of changes in the market environment on Feimei is limited.
In fact, due to Feimei's high-end brand positioning, it focuses on attracting improved customers who have higher requirements for quality of life and are "particular but not compromising". Although this strategy has led to our market expansion speed not being as fast as some competitors, and we have not enjoyed the dividends of the rapid development of real estate, it has achieved high customer loyalty and high market satisfaction.
Therefore, whether it is in the previous stage of rapid growth of the industry or in the current stock market environment, Feimei Furniture has always adhered to the high-end route, mainly relying on old customers and repeat customers, so that external changes have less impact on us, and continue to maintain the stable development of the business.
At the same time, in order to adapt to market changes and further improve performance, we will focus on two aspects: on the one hand, "optimize management capabilities", including improving the detailed control of internal management and operations, so as to better cope with market uncertainties; On the other hand, we are investing resources in short video marketing to enhance customer acquisition capabilities in online channels. It is hoped that through these efforts, Feimei can more effectively expand its market share and achieve sustained and stable growth.
[Global Network Home]: What are the phased goals and strategic deployment of Feimei Furniture this year?
[Zhou Kaijun]: Feimei's strategy has been upgraded to "quality light and high-end" this year, and the reason why it chose this track is because high-end is facing a core problem: delivery. Design, production, and final delivery are often challenges due to the constant push of materials and process limits. In contrast, the positioning of "quality light and high custom" is between higher than Puding and slightly lower than high definition, and within this range, Feimei is able to maintain its high-end market positioning while achieving batch, high-quality and flexible product delivery through digital intelligence capabilities.
It is worth noting that despite the complex market situation, in March this year, there are still many new dealers who choose to join Feimei, which also shows the attractiveness and competitiveness of Feimei Furniture's "light quality and high custom" in the current market environment, which is very encouraging.
Our goal is to aim for a slightly better performance this year than last year, and as of the first quarter, our growth in performance has been limited, but has already exceeded the same period last year, which is a clear positive sign. In addition, we have set a specific goal to expand our market coverage by increasing the number of stores nationwide from 80 to 100. Feimei is accelerating its pace and is committed to achieving this growth as soon as possible.