New Trends in Home Appliances Demand, Appliance Firms Face Strategic Transfer

What kind of home appliances do consumers want? Is price-driven market or brand, service, or other factor? This is a problem that every appliance manufacturer is pondering over. According to a survey conducted in the Golden Week of the Spring Festival this year, it is shown that shopping malls in Xidan, Cuiwei Building and Dazhong Electric City are the best home appliances with high prices and advanced technology. In the past, the phenomenon of cheaper purchases of home appliances has disappeared. Instead, higher-level appliances with more advanced features and more advanced technology have become the new darlings of consumers. In Xidan Shopping Mall, ordinary TVs sell high-end models, while rear-projection and other image appliances that embody fashion and avant-garde have attracted much attention. Air-conditioners and refrigerators are also popular in high-tech prices and prices. Walkman, digital cameras, digital video cameras and other impressions of luxury goods are sold very well, and even the computer is also the best selling high-end products for eight or nine thousand yuan.

At a home appliance counter in a shopping mall in Beijing, the reporter talked with a middle-aged consumer. He told reporters: “Home appliances are cheap, but they are also a large item. They are durable goods, not daily consumables, such as color TVs, DVDs, and refrigerators. Air conditioners, etc. It is impossible to buy a second one in a short period of time. Besides, there is no place in the home. Therefore, it is an exclusive choice for a period of time during the purchase of electricity." To the price war of domestic appliances, he said: "The low price is one of the factors affecting the purchase, and the decision-making factor is quality.

According to a survey conducted by the Shanghai Color TV Festival in 2001, when consumers purchased color TVs, 84% of them first considered quality, 43% focused on services, 39% required brands, and only 25% were most concerned about prices. . According to analysis by industry experts, with the development of the economy and the increase in per capita national income, the current consumption structure of residents in China has entered an important period of transition. The large appliances that had appeared as luxury goods in the past have long since become a necessity in everyday life. Products that used to require residents to save for years are now available for purchase in just a month or even half a month. In the next 10 years, the consumer demand will move from a relatively prosperous life to a more affluent transition period. People's consumption concepts, methods, contents, and supply and demand of the home appliance market will all undergo major changes. In this situation, the buying trend of household appliances is changing from "wish to buy" to "wish to buy well." This is especially true for some people who have grown up in a new environment. They are highly educated, have stable jobs, and are rich in income. They have high requirements for high quality of life, strong consumer awareness and spending power, and they represent the future market consumers. They will dominate the consumption of the future society.

It seems that the market space for traditional home appliances that has lasted for many years is getting smaller and smaller. In the future, home appliance consumers will pay more attention to individual consumption. In other words, they are more concerned about the products that are most suitable for them. The number and variety of household appliances that are currently available in the market are many. However, many consumers still cannot buy their own products. This shows that people have begun to increasingly seek quality of life, consumer demand for personalities, fashion, and even home appliances have gradually replaced the emphasis on the practicality of home appliances, which is a trend and trends.

For consumers to speak, the best fit is “the consumer’s choice is cost-effectiveness, not price. In the home appliance market, consumers have experienced too much baptism and become smarter. What consumers should enjoy The product should not be the final say by the manufacturer, but it should be the final say by the consumer.” Mr. Kan Zexi, the president of Samsung Electronics China headquarters, broke the secret.

A variety of household electrical appliances have entered people's lives for many years, but in the past, people only passively accepted products pushed by enterprises. Even if these products are produced by companies that actively investigate and solicit opinions from consumers, they still have serious problems. Self-centered factors cannot reflect real consumer demand, so that product homogeneity becomes more and more serious. This point is more prominent in the domestic market, especially some domestic home appliance companies, are not fully integrated with the international market, although they have realized that the interests of consumers for the product market, but there is no more in-depth behavior Combining with consumers, businesses are mostly behind closed doors. In such an environment, consumers do not have more opportunities to make suggestions for products they use in the future, and more often they accept it passively, that is, choosing products that are relatively suitable for themselves from the existing products in the market. The research and development do not have a “speech right” in practical terms. In fact, this is a misunderstanding of the development of home appliances.

Some home appliance companies with international brands are fully aware of this, and have adopted a series of market behaviors to enhance their core competitiveness – consumer demand orientation. Samsung Electronics recently initiated and organized a "2002 China Samsung Home Appliances Creative Contest" event in China, fully demonstrating the long-term strategic vision of international brands. The content of the activity is South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. in Beijing, Shanghai University students and postgraduates to collect the concept of future home appliances or product design of Chinese refrigerators, washing machines, microwave ovens, air conditioners, vacuum cleaners, etc. , and will recruit a group of outstanding individuals from the winners to form a young plus membership member organization. Samsung will provide funding for activities to encourage young people to further develop their talents in home appliance design and creativity, and provide product improvement and design advice. Can grasp consumer demand for the future of home appliances, to produce more suitable for future Chinese life of home appliances. As an internationally-recognized home appliance company, Samsung Electronics initiated the Home Appliances Creative Contest. Its goal is very clear. It is to make home appliances closer to the life of the Chinese people, to have the most favorite home appliance products that suit them, and to allow consumers to describe themselves. To create their own living environment and improve the quality of life. Although the competition is only a Samsung Electronics market activity, according to industry insiders, Samsung’s initiative represents the future development strategy of Samsung in the Chinese home appliance market, that is, “product-oriented” to “demand-oriented”. From the competition for the traditional home appliance market to the development of the new home appliance market in the future.

From this activity, we can feel that international companies like Samsung Electronics have seen a fact in advance: Today's customers are less satisfied with passive consumption, and it is also difficult for companies to meet the changing and individualized needs of customers. Therefore, only by allowing customers to participate in the design can we truly satisfy consumers' demand for future home appliances. According to Harvard Business School survey, 57% of new products listed are directly created by consumers (or users, customers); Sloan School of Management survey results show that: 60% of successful civil new products A 80% comes from the user's suggestion, or adopts the user's process of reform. This is a new requirement under the new environment and is the most direct embodiment of consumer demand. For home appliance companies, grasping this link and fully integrating with the company's strategy will surely win the battle.

Household appliance companies are facing a strategic shift. Where do domestic home appliances go? For two years, international brands have re-emerged. The topic of “continentalism” has been popular in the home appliance market. However, if we look closely, we find that this kind of dispute between international and domestic brands is not a “contending” fundamentally, or that there is no “contempt” at all, but that international brands have entered a middle-to-high end product market, and in this market, Domestic manufacturers can say nothing, that is, in the high-end market, domestic companies either have no products or they are not competitive at all. Therefore, the home appliance market in the past two years has performed very weirdly. In the low-end market, domestic manufacturers are still bleeding big price cuts, and fighting for market share; while the high-end market and the performance of the international brand-name soldiers do nothing, get a lot of profits. Why does this happen? This is mainly because a new consumer group of high-end and high-end home appliances is expanding, consumers' tastes have been improved, and demand has increased. A medium-to-high-end market is beginning to take shape. The domestic appliance manufacturers have almost become waiters.

At present, the home appliance market in China is undoubtedly in an important transition period. The segmentation between the mid-range and low-end markets is more and more obvious, and shows a growing trend. It is the consistent strategy of international manufacturers to lead the development of the Chinese home appliance market in high-end products. The Samsung held a home appliance creative contest to use the Chinese people's own creative design to produce home appliances that suit China's future life. The target will be directed at the future demand of the Chinese home appliance market. This means that Samsung has already transferred product development to China. It also means that international brands will undergo a second shift-design technology transfer.