Custom home e-commerce has a good prospect for pan-home e-commerce in this life

At the beginning of 2013, Cobo Bolognese's Cobo cabinets will significantly adjust their e-commerce strategy this year, announcing the suspension of direct sales transactions in e-commerce channels and transforming information communication. This is by no means an accidental phenomenon in the field of household products that rely on traditional physical stores to “get home”, especially in the field of custom home products. On the one hand, this is the status quo: traditional storefront fixed investment, high cost requires high price support, and still dominates; on the other hand, with insufficient understanding of the future development trend, the potential role and importance of e-commerce, The lack of proper strategy response has a lot to do with it.

Customized home e-commerce "this life"

Customized home sales and transaction process requires a series of long and complicated processes such as pre-communication, on-site measurement, customized production, delivery and installation, and after-sales maintenance. This is not only far different from fast-moving consumer goods, low-value consumables, but also very different from durable consumer goods such as electrical appliances and standard household products such as tiled sanitary ware and furniture.

Durable consumer goods such as electrical appliances, although the value of single items is also high, but does not require complex measurement, customization, installation and other services. Moreover, standard products such as electrical appliances are relatively easy to implement the "union" service of the manufacturers, and consumers have less concerns about quality and after-sales. In addition, non-customized standard consumer durables, online can be easier to accurately understand product information, while custom home products rely more on physical experience.

Even for household products, custom home products are very different from standard home products such as flooring, ceramic tiles and sanitary ware. Standard home products, because there is no complicated custom service process, it is easier to achieve online transactions. This is just as the staff of Cobo said. Customized home is not a simple product. Every order is a complicated small project. Many jobs need to be done offline, and the role of e-commerce is greatly reduced.

It is precisely because of the above characteristics of customized home products that the market share of customized homes in independent e-commerce channels will be very limited.

Customized home e-commerce "afterlife"

Although the direct Internet trading function of customized home products is very limited, we cannot but admit that the future of the Internet will play an increasingly important role in the sales of all pan-home products including custom homes.

Pan-home e-commerce: a promising "low-carbon" sales channel

The "post-90s" and "after 00" new human beings born in the Internet era will soon become the leading consumer groups of household products. Their shopping habits and values ​​are very different from those of the previous generation. For the "post-90s" and "after 00", the Internet is not only a convenient shopping channel, information channel, but also their lifestyle. Many consumers today, Taobao's trading volume ranking, buyer evaluation, is more important than any other information. It can be predicted that rejecting e-commerce is tantamount to refusing consumer approval and rejecting sales transactions. Only Internet information is published and there is no shortage of e-commerce transactions.

More importantly, e-commerce as a sales transaction channel can greatly reduce the investment in the construction of physical stores, and is a veritable "low-carbon channel." At present, in the physical store sales business, the store rent, decoration fee and water and electricity fee sharing and other expenses account for an average of more than 20% of the turnover. Although e-commerce can't completely replace physical storefront display and product entity experience, it can greatly reduce the dependence on the number and location of stores, thus minimizing transaction costs. With the further intensification of competition and the further thinning of circulating profits, all pan-home products, including customized home products, will have to pay attention to low-cost e-commerce channels in the future.

At present, the role of e-commerce channels is limited, mainly because of consumers' dependence on offline display, offline services, consumer attitudes, shopping habits, etc., but also deliberately control or even resist the e-commerce channels of sellers of home products manufacturers. Tanning, e-commerce channels and traditional channels do not have a good interaction. Existing mature manufacturers are vested interests of traditional physical storefronts, with their established investment and operating cost burdens. Before e-commerce channels have not become mainstream channels, vendors are considering the pricing of e-commerce channels based on the protection of traditional channels. The product line supply "has a hand" and does not dare to push forward. If the manufacturers let go of all the burdens and concerns and make every effort to develop low-cost e-commerce channels, the market share of e-commerce channels will be far from what it is now. In addition, many manufacturers today, e-commerce channels and traditional traditional physical store channels and agent channels all adopt independent operations and lack of interactive cooperation. The original agents not only did not support and cooperated, but strongly protested against the boycott and offline display experience. The online trading of services and e-commerce is out of touch, which seriously affects the experience and confidence of consumers in the e-commerce channel. But the above problems are not insurmountable.

Pan-home e-commerce: the process of online and offline interaction

Of course, household products, especially customized home products, rely to a large extent on physical display and offline services. E-commerce is also unlikely to completely abandon physical storefronts and field services, replacing traditional physical stores as a monopoly channel. The biggest possibility in the future is the combination of e-commerce online communication, online communication, online trading, offline entity display, and field service to complete the entire transaction process. Specifically, the future trading mode of household products will be: consumers collect information online, understand goods, negotiate orders, and confirm the order offline experience; sellers publish information online, complete offline display and provide services, and finally consumers Go back online to complete the transaction confirmation and payment to get a better protection than the offline transaction payment. To be honest, payments through Alipay and online trading are safer than traditional offline transactions.

Customized home e-commerce "returned to the head"

Carefully balance online and offline transactions. The market share of e-commerce is a gradual process of upgrading. At present, traditional physical store transactions still occupy a dominant position. Under this circumstance, the majority of home furnishing manufacturers, especially those who have already occupied a competitive position in traditional physical storefronts, should balance the e-commerce channel with the traditional physical store channel in a balanced manner in terms of balancing immediate interests and future development. Improper rejection of e-commerce channels will likely cause major obstacles to the future development of the company. For the majority of small and medium-sized enterprises that have not yet gained a lot of vested interests in traditional stores and have not invested much, they should let go of the new e-commerce channel to obtain the speed advantage of channel development and the cost advantage of channel operation and maintenance. A vested interest in traditional channels.

Reasonable planning and separation of online and offline product lines. In line with the principle of immediate interests and future interests, traditional physical storefronts and e-commerce channels, home manufacturers should rationally plan the exclusive product lines of e-commerce channels, and minimize conflicts between online and offline channels. The development of e-commerce channels has gradually strengthened the e-commerce channel product line with the times. Since the customers of the e-commerce channel are mainly low-end customers who are price-sensitive, the short-term e-commerce channel product line should focus on the cost-effective mid-to-low-end product line; and because of competition, the low-end product line Traditional physical store channels, which are increasingly costly, and increasingly competitive in price and promotion, are almost unprofitable. They must use low-cost e-commerce channels, and even use the relatively high pricing of physical stores to match the low prices of e-commerce channels. . The mid-to-high-end product line and the high-profit products with good operating cost tolerance are still dominated by traditional physical store channels in a short period of time. The e-commerce channel needs to provide sufficient cost and profit protection for traditional physical store channels in terms of pricing. After all, mid- to high-end and specialty products, the requirements for physical display and offline services are much higher than the mass low-end products.

Transformation of traditional channels. With the continuous improvement of the status of e-commerce channels, traditional physical store channels need to be gradually transformed. The main points of the transition are:

First, it gradually weakens the customer's interception reserve and sales transaction functions of traditional physical storefronts, and enhances the product display experience and "service base" functions of physical storefronts.

Second, reduce investment and expenses in the number of physical storefronts, and gradually abandon high-priced expensive storefronts to match the low-cost strategy of e-commerce channels.

Third, the headquarters of the brand operator plans to operate the e-commerce channel in a unified manner, and the price of the e-commerce channel is unified. The dealers around the country do the offline display and service cooperation. The profit of the e-commerce channel is reasonably distributed among the brand operators and local agents and service providers. In principle, after deducting the channel profit after the channel operator's channel operating expenses, the “big head” still belongs to the service agents in various places. Only in this way, the e-commerce channel will not be aborted due to the lack of support from the original agents and even the boycott of the agents.