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After the difficulties in the business environment caused by the 2020 epidemic, the pattern of the home furnishing market in the first half of 2021 has quietly changed.

In the past six months, the traditional home furnishing business model has become increasingly declining. Large home furnishings, whole house customization, self-contained, smart home, Internet new retail are extremely hot, the industry is developing rapidly, and the way of thinking of operators has gradually changed.

Compared with last year, the National Building Materials and Home Furnishing Prosperity Index (BHI) continued to climb, and consumer demand was strong. However, there are still many phenomena behind the data that deserve our conclusion and reflection.

The survival crisis faced by traditional small and medium-sized building materials and home furnishing stores will continue to increase; competition in the home improvement market is intensifying; the living space of building materials retail is being repeatedly squeezed; real estate and home appliances are seizing industry shares...

The industry as a whole in the first half of 2021 can be summarized by the following six phenomena. These changes also remind the householders that they must change their thinking and seize the opportunity to use the new track, otherwise they will be marginalized by the times.

Phenomenon 1:

Real estate and e-commerce continue to penetrate home improvement

The entry of real estate into the home improvement market is nothing new. Since last year, Vanke, Evergrande, Country Garden and other real estate developers have set their sights on the home improvement industry. Home improvement is a downstream enterprise of real estate, and it seems logical for developers to penetrate into this industry.

At the beginning of this month, Shell Looking for Real Estate announced that it had reached an agreement with Shengdu Home Improvement to acquire 100% of the shares of Shengdu. In addition to the continuous penetration of real estate, Gome, Suning, and Haier also entered the home improvement industry strongly in the first half of the year, taking a fancy to the market size of 3.54 trillion yuan in the home improvement field.

Comment: "Cross-industry" provides more possibilities for enterprises and also makes the entire home furnishing circle more dynamic. In the future, enterprises will no longer only play one role. Enterprises in different fields will form a "team" through cross-border cooperation and strong alliances, which will also make the industry more branded and standardized.

Phenomenon 2:

Home improvement iterative upgrade customization to the whole outfit

Judging from the marketing model of the Xi'an home improvement market in the first half of this year, the package has been delisted, and the whole package is in full swing. Several decoration companies newly opened in the first half of the year are all focused on outfitting. According to relevant data, consumers' choices from single decoration to complete decoration accounted for nearly 80%. Not only the decoration companies are transforming towards complete decoration, but also the customization companies are also making efforts to complete the decoration.

First in 2020, Sophia completed the signing plan for 500 self-contained enterprises throughout the year, achieving sales of 74,173,100 yuan. In 2021, custom home furnishing head companies have launched a new round of offensive to seize the ready-to-wear track.

At the beginning of 2021, Shangpin Home Delivery announced that the company will fully transform into a self-contained company, and is committed to creating a one-stop home improvement solution platform that "looks at BIM (generally referred to as building information model) for decoration".

In April this year, Oupai Home Furnishing and Shengdu Home Furnishing launched the "One Heart, One Billion" strategy to jointly promote the development of the whole package. Complete decoration has become the next focus of customized home furnishing companies, and multi-brand and full-category are also the direction of customized companies.

Comment: The home improvement industry has been iteratively upgraded all the way from half-package, package, all-inclusive, and complete package, step by step towards worry-free, efficient, money-saving and convenient. The entry of custom home furnishings is also a trend in the industry. After all, the current home furnishing involves more or less customization. Entering the furnishing industry can better understand consumer pain points and meet consumer needs.

Phenomenon three:

Finished furniture is fully transformed into customization

In the past two years, finished home furnishing brands, such as Qumei, Dynasty, Federal Gordon, Red Apple, Quanyou, Zuozuo Furniture, and other software home furnishing brands, have cross-border customizations, and customization has become a sweet cake.

In the first half of this year, Simi cabinets first announced their entry into the customized market, and then Chivas announced the acquisition of Chengdu high-end brand Naku...As of now, many domestic brands such as finished products, bathroom, ceramics, plates, etc. have followed the kitchen cabinet and wardrobe brands. The footsteps of the quotient enter the game.

Looking at the Shanghai and Guangdong Home Furnishing Fairs held in the first half of the year, customization has accounted for more than 85% of all home furnishing brands, and almost all software, solid wood, and children's furniture have customized modules.

Comment: With the development of the market and the upgrading of consumers, whole-house customization has long been the main market and industry entrance for the building materials and home furnishing industry. Data shows that custom home furnishings are increasing at a rate of 30% every year. In particular, seeing that customization giants such as Oupai, Sophia, and Shangpin Home Delivery can achieve good results in a bad market environment, how can other practitioners not come to "share a piece of the pie."

Phenomenon 4:

The living space of building materials retail is becoming more and more difficult

The hard-covered houses and the finishing actions of the decoration companies have put a lot of pressure on the building materials industry. Judging from the sales of mainstream home furnishing stores in Xi'an during the May Day period in the first half of this year, the sales of building materials did not improve, especially ceramic tiles and wood floors, which have even been declining in recent years.

Some wood flooring companies are even shrinking store areas and adding a whole-house customization model. From the perspective of the floor layout of the home furnishing store, the building materials that originally occupied a large proportion and were in the best position have begun to customize the place for the whole house.

Comment: At present, the field of building materials has been reshuffled obviously. First-line domestic and foreign companies such as Nature, Dekor, Dongpeng, etc. have started the expansion road with the theme of large home furnishings, and the living space of small and medium-sized enterprises is getting smaller and smaller.

At present, the field of building materials has formed a state where the strong become stronger and the weak are delisting. This state will continue to intensify.

Phenomenon five:

Environmental protection has risen to the key to business survival

In February this year, Qumei held the first press conference of 2021 in Beijing, calling on home furnishing companies to take up social responsibility and provide the market with more environmentally friendly, low-carbon, and more durable products. It has repeatedly emphasized that environmental protection is the key to the survival of home furnishing companies;

In June, Weiyi Customized launched the new "Weiyi Clean Flavor Antibacterial" technology, saying that this technology is an important update of panel furniture, giving the furniture the ability to "automatically long-lasting sterilization and antibacterial"; then Dinggu released the first Three generations of pure bamboo fragrant board upgrade strategy; recently Quanyou also launched a green ecological board...

Since last year, OP, Sofia, Hao Laike, etc. have successively introduced formaldehyde-free sheets, and environmental protection has risen to a height related to the survival of enterprises.

Comment: If home furnishing companies want to develop sustainably, environmental protection is the top priority, and the leading home furnishing companies have realized this. If the leading companies play a leading role in environmental protection, I believe that consumers will be the biggest beneficiaries, and they will also have more positive guidance to the industry.

Phenomenon six:

Smart home has penetrated into life

Smart homes have been mentioned for a few years, and smart homes have only been called out after the epidemic. We visited major home furnishing stores in Xi'an. Smart home has grown from zero stores to at least 5 smart home brands in one store today. According to the forecast of the China Commercial Industry Research Institute, my country's smart home market will reach 580.05 billion yuan in 2021.

At present, systems such as smart lighting, smart home appliances, and smart security have penetrated into our lives. Not only that, in June this year, Shangpin Home Delivery and Chuangmi Technology signed a strategic cooperation. Since then, other customized brands have thrown "olive branches" to smart homes. The cooperation between customization and smart homes promotes the digitalization and intelligence of the whole installation process, allowing users to get a more comprehensive and worry-free one-stop service, making the whole house even more powerful. .

Comment: With the popularization of 5G technology, smart home will inevitably become a new hot spot of competition in the home furnishing industry in 2021 and even in the future. The development of smart home will inevitably have an impact on the existing pattern of the home furnishing market. Therefore, increasing investment in science and technology and R&D efforts will become more and more important. It has become the key for home furnishing companies to enhance their market competitiveness.