Can e-commerce illuminate the future of the furniture industry?

Can e-commerce illuminate the future of the furniture industry?

"This is the best era, and the worst era." This quote is written in the opening of "Tale of the City" to describe the status quo of China's furniture industry is appropriate. In recent years, affected by the real estate control policies, there has been a surplus of furniture stores across the country, and there has been a continuous shutdown and closure. Dealers are also experiencing an unprecedented peak of demolition, and the entire furniture market is increasingly depressed. The furniture industry is facing the most severe test in years.

However, in the face of the question of survival, the furniture industry is not sitting still, but is actively looking for new breakthroughs. The emergence of numerous large-scale e-commerce websites has brought diversified sales channels to the furniture market. The reporter learned that since last year, furniture e-commerce has created a new marketing model of “online sales, offline experience”.

E-commerce era in the furniture industry

According to statistics, in 2011, it can be said that the e-commerce market in China has emerged as a blowout year. The number of domestic e-commerce websites has exceeded 20,000. The market transaction amount of online shopping (hereinafter referred to as online shopping) has increased from 498 billion yuan in 2010 to 770 billion yuan in 2011, accounting for 4.3% of the total retail sales of consumer goods. The number of online shoppers in China increased from 130 million in 2009 to 187 million in 2011.

Although China's furniture industry started late, it is also entering the era of e-commerce. It is understood that since the beginning of 2008, Xi Mengbao took the lead in creating an online store, and in the past 100 years, it also created an E (E network) purchase store. Since then, well-known furniture manufacturers such as Yaobang, Red Star, and Oriental Home have created their own online stores. Then, large-scale e-commerce platforms such as Taobao also began to introduce preferential measures in the sales of furniture products, which led to a number of furniture enterprises that rely on e-commerce business, such as Lin's Wood and Han Feier. At present, e-commerce platforms such as Tmall Mall and Jingdong Mall have attracted many well-known furniture brands such as Qumei, Nick Aijia, the Federation, and Disney.

According to the reporter, furniture e-commerce is exploring new marketing models. While some furniture manufacturers are selling online, they are also building offline furniture experience halls. These furniture experience halls mainly display the furniture sold by the brand in the online store, in order to let consumers experience the quality of the products on-site or directly promote offline sales.

At present, there are 88 furniture experience halls in the country. On July 14, the Tmall Aibo Chao Furniture Experience Hall in Chengnan Square outside Beijing was officially opened. The venue area is 50,000 square meters. In addition, in May, the furniture e-commerce experience hall jointly built by Jimei and Sina.com was also located in Hall 1 of Jimei Home Dahongmen, with an area of ​​more than 6,000 square meters.

Melody CEO (CEO) Gao Yang told reporters: "At present, the scale of furniture e-commerce is not too big. Melody is one year and a half earlier than other furniture manufacturers to conduct e-commerce. See who runs fast, the rules of the Internet game are fast fish to eat slow fish, not big fish to eat small fish."