[Tidal Business Review Original].
How long has it been since you have replaced your kitchen appliances?
Sister Zhang's stove has been completely scrapped recently, and she has found someone to repair it a few times before, and it has been used for more than eight years. If it hadn't been completely broken this time, Sister Zhang would never have bought a new one.
Last time, I saw my neighbor move to a new house and install an integrated stove, not only a range hood, but also a steamer and oven, which looks atmospheric and saves kitchen space!I have watched so many advertisements on TV before and I have never been moved, and I only feel good when other people's homes are installed. This time, I'm going to replace it with the old stove oven at home, and I'll replace it with the integrated stove!Sister Zhang said as she prepared to enter the home appliance market.
Sister Zhang's case is also a microcosm of the consumer side of China's kitchen appliances:The concept of "not going to be bad, not to be replaced" is deeply rooted in large household appliances;Low acceptance and slow acceptance of emerging products;Driven by advertising with a thousand words, it is better to replace it with acquaintances around you.
It is also this concept of mass consumption, coupled with the loss of real estate dividends in recent years, that the kitchen appliance industry has also embarked on a growth "speed bump".
According to the total data of Aowei Cloud Network (**c), in 2022, the retail sales of major kitchen and bathroom appliances (smoke, stove, disinfection, washing, embedding, collection, heat, and net) will be 158.6 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 96%。
Among them, the retail sales of smoke stoves were 46.6 billion yuan, down 11 percent year-on-year0%, retail sales of 39.87 million units, down 150%。This is the first time since 2015 that the scale of smoke stoves has fallen below 50 billion.
Although in the first three quarters of this year, the cumulative retail sales of kitchen and bathroom appliances increased year-on-year, compared with offline consumption in 2022, which has not yet been fully liberalized, today's growth is more just a "warming" comforting effect, not enough to be excited.
With the end of the real estate era and the more rational consumption environment, the kitchen appliance industry has entered a new stage of development. When external forces are no longer the main force, how to expand domestic demand is a problem that the industry needs to think deeply.
At present, the supply side is taking Chinese kitchens to a more advanced, intelligent and diverse high-tech era with new technologies, new scenarios and new needs, but the demand side seems to be still immersed in the traditional concept of "not bad, not new".
When the "new era" kitchen meets the "old concept" user, a showdown around the "new" is also started.
If you pull the time to the 60s, "earthen stove + firewood" may be the whole picture of most "kitchens" in China, cooking a meal and smoking.
In the 80s, the emergence of honeycomb coal replaced the "original ecology" of firewood and straw burningThe Chinese people began to have the concept of "kitchen".Make your own simple cupboards at home to place dishes, chopsticks, pots and pans, etc.
Later, from coal to electricity, the stove changed the traditional form, and a variety of new stoves such as gas stoves, induction cookers, solar cookers, and microwave ovens emerged, thus giving birth to the birth of the kitchen appliance industry.
Later, rice cookers, microwave ovens, ovens, and other household appliances that shared the "stove power" appeared, becoming a corner of the kitchen.
But so many appliances squeezed the kitchen space to the left, and it was at this time that integrated appliances began to show signs of integration.
At the beginning of this century, the first integrated stove appeared, and the integrated stove at that time only integrated the smoke machine and the stove together, although it saved the area of a wall cabinet, but other spaces were still occupied by other household appliances. Later, the integrated stove continued to innovate, and finally integrated the steamer and oven into the cooker, and launched the integrated stove products with different functional combinations such as oven model, steaming and baking integrated model, steaming and baking independent model, steaming and baking integrated frying model, and the countertop area of the kitchen was gradually swept away.
The concept of integration has also been further expanded, as a new kitchen appliance dishwasher, and the collection of sinks and other products have also been included in the scope of integration, since then breaking the boundary of integrated stoves, opening a new home appliance track, our kitchens have become more and more advanced. Nowadays, with the wide application of artificial intelligence, kitchens are also moving in the direction of intelligence.
Despite the innovative technological products on the supply side of Chinese kitchens, the consumer side seems to be half a beat slower than the development of the industry. Nowadays, supporting the modern, intelligent and high-quality kitchen in the 21st century, several "main" kitchen appliances: integrated stoves, dishwashers, built-in all-in-one machines, etc., which have broken the public's perception of the original kitchen's vision, experience, and technology.
In 2022, the average penetration rate of household kitchen appliances in China is 50%, of which the average penetration rate of traditional kitchen appliances is 65%, and the average penetration rate of such emerging kitchen appliances is only 14%.
Taking the integrated stove as an example, it has been 20 years since the first integrated stove appeared in 2003. Although the penetration rate of integrated cookers has increased relatively rapidly in recent years, in 2022, the penetration rate of integrated cookers in the domestic market will only be 1364%。Dishwashers are even more "niche", according to the survey data of China State Grid, the current dishwasher penetration rate of Chinese households is only 3%.
Judging from the combination of Aowei cloud network (**c) retail push total data and real estate big data, the penetration rate of dishwashers and embedded (considering the integrated stove part) per 100 households is less than 3%, which is far lower than that of developed countries such as Europe and the United States. At present, the penetration rate of China's high-quality kitchen appliances (dishwashers, disinfection cabinets, built-in micro-steaming and baking, and water purifiers) is still at a low level.
So,Why don't consumers love these emerging products?For most consumers, the emergence of new products, everyone first looks, but when the "no demand" consumers meet the main "quality of life" dishwashers, integrated stoves, especially in the current consumption environment, just ** will make many consumers open the "shopping link" directly closed, no initiative to understand. Secondly, before understanding the product, the unresolved questions in the minds of consumers may become unfounded "prejudices". For example, until now, the question of "does the dishwasher waste water" can still be seen on the Internet, or "new products, the technology is not yet mature", and this kind of answer is not uncommon.
However, emerging products are more expensive for many small families. Lv Shenghua, editor-in-chief of China State Grid, once said, "70% of China's family kitchen area is 4-6, it is very challenging to install a dishwasher into the kitchen, for most Chinese family kitchens, it is very simple to install a dishwasher, remove the cabinet door plug, the difficulty lies in the water circuit before and after the dishwasher, kitchen renovation work, the time cost is acceptable to consumers, but how about the transformation cost?."”
All of the above scenarios make the road to penetration of "dishwashers" bumpy and tortuous. Since 2018, with the end of the era of real estate dividends, the kitchen appliance industry has also lost its pillar sales in the past. The kitchen appliance industry has also entered the stock market from the incremental market.
The data shows that the growth rate of China's kitchen appliance market has been negative for three of the four years since 2018, and the overall market size has also dropped from the highest point of 186.3 billion yuan in 2018 to 158.6 billion yuan in 2022.
At the same time,Consumers do not like to replace the new, which is also a headache for the kitchen appliance industry and even the entire home appliance industry. The consciousness of "big items don't need to be bad, don't replace them" is deep-rooted.
In the era of kitchen appliances entering the stock market, on the one hand, the kitchen appliance giants are changing their tricks to present the imagination of "China's future kitchen" to consumers, and on the other hand, consumers are sticking to the "old concept" of not loving the new and not loving the new and refusing to consume
In July this year, the Ministry of Commerce and 13 other departments jointly issued the "Notice on Several Measures to Promote Household Consumption" to encourage and support residents to carry out renovation and partial upgrading of old houses to promote household consumption and encourage household consumption**. Among them, residents can withdraw their provident fund for self-occupied housing renovation, which has attracted everyone's attention.
Under the "warmth" of the policy, how to break through the kitchen appliance market from the consumer side is the key to breaking the bottleneck of industry growth.
The first step to a breakthrough is to understand consumers. The reason why consumers don't love "new products" is nothing more than two points, one is **, and the other is not understanding;There are two reasons why consumers don't like "replacement", one is the high cost of replacement, and the other is that there is no demand. Once you have found the consumer pain points, the next step is to solve the pain points.
In response to the "high cost of replacement" and "expensive new products", kitchen appliance giants have given their own solutions.
For example, Robam Appliances, in 2022, the company launched a 0 yuan worry-free kitchen transformation brand service, evolving passive user service into active value embodiment. With the continuous promotion of the old kitchen of the stock house, Robam Appliances has now formed a complete set of professional service system for kitchen replacement.
According to the person in charge of Robam Appliances worry-free kitchen reform, unlike the current kitchen reform business that generally relies on the tripartite platform in the industry, Robam Appliances has established a professional kitchen reform service team of more than 1,000 people, has 93 service stations nationwide, opened a 24-hour kitchen reform line, and has carried out door-to-door kitchen transformation services for more than 180,000 families.
In April this year, Robam Appliances not only brought innovative digital kitchen appliance products, but also distributed 100 million yuan of kitchen appliance consumption coupons to consumers across the country, which can be consumed and used in offline stores of Robam Appliances across the country. "New products + 0 yuan kitchen reform + consumption subsidies", Robam Appliances helps consumers to "replace" in an all-round way from demand to pain points to solutions.
In November, Wanhe Electric held a national trade-in action launch conference, targeting users who have new purchase and replacement needs nationwide. For new users, different products can be deducted differently, up to 1,000 yuan;Some products can enjoy free service for installation materials;For new users, users who purchase all-round integrated stoves and water purifier series products can enjoy the benefits of buy one get one free.
Some kitchen appliance companies such as Fotile, Vantage, and Yitian have launched the "Integrated Cooking Center", which not only has the multiple functions of integrated kitchen appliances, but also has the characteristics of split kitchen appliances, and the installation does not require cutting kitchen cabinets, so that consumers can replace them without pressure.
Obviously,A competition around grabbing "people" and "changing" officially kicked off.
With the efforts and boosts of policies, industries, enterprises and other parties, the perception of slow and half-beat on the consumer side will also be on par with the industry. In 2023, the battle between the "new era" and the "old concept" of the Chinese kitchen may have reached an inflection point.
Not to mention, this integrated stove is really convenient. One stove for stir-frying, steaming fish, cooking soup, and baking cakes are all done, saving time and effort!If it weren't for the stove breaking down this time, how would I have had the opportunity to experience such a good thing. "Sister Zhang, who has changed the integrated stove, is really a little excited.
You see, consumers are very simple, and business is like that.