In the home appliance industry,In the past 3-5 years, it has not fallen into the first war but is selling more and more expensive categories,Sweeping robots are among the leaders,Behind this,The continuous improvement of product intelligent technology"Credit"It is not insignificant。 However, judging from the performance of the retail market, the sweeper products are becoming more and more high-end and intelligent, and it seems that they have not been recognized by more consumers, which can be seen from the continuous decline in sales of this category in the past two years. Now, under the general trend of continuing to advance to intelligence, on the other side of the slowdown in industry growth, the quality of sweeper products has gradually become prominent, which seems to have cast another shadow on the development of the market in this category.
Recently, the defect analysis laboratory (service robot) of Jiangsu Defective Product Management Technology Center announced a number of research results on the quality and safety of sweeping robot products, which aroused heated discussions in the industry. According to the agency's test results of 25 sweeping robots of 16 mainstream brands on the market, 11 products were judged to be "unqualified" due to structural defects or safety risks, among them, the failure rate of high-end products with a section of more than 3000 yuan exceeded 3000 yuan. According to the agency's testing and analysis, some products have quality and safety risks in terms of structure, heat resistance and flame resistance, which may cause electric shock, drop and fire risks.
In response to the incident, China State Grid consulted three of the mainstream brands, and they all said that it was inconvenient to speak out. One of the industry insiders who complied with safety regulations further explained that the reason for the inconvenient reply was that the laboratory's recent testing had affected a dispute between a leading brand and a cutting-edge brand, and the issues involving the safety of products in the industry were a little sensitive. However, the person in charge of the company once talked to reporters about the quality of the sweeper product and said frankly that compared with mature appliances, there are still many places that need to be improved in the quality and control of the first chain of sweepers at this stage.
In fact, even if we ignore the inseparable laboratory testing of this position, we can only see from the public information of other market supervision departments and related complaint platforms that the quality of sweeper products is gradually becoming prominent. In late October, the Shanghai Municipal Administration for Market Regulation conducted spot checks on the quality of sweeping robot products produced and sold in the city showed that 10 batches of products were unqualified 2 batches, including 360 sweeping robots. And on the black cat complaint platform,So far,There are as many as 6649 complaints related to sweeping robots,The timeline has been shortened to9month3Months,Complaints about sweeper products have also reached hundreds,Among them,Product quality、After-sales service、Mismatch of goods is a problem that has been complained about more。 In terms of product quality, there are many complaints such as "the product cannot be charged and there is abnormal noise", "water leakage does not absorb water after a few months of purchase", "scratching the floor tile after use", "repeated machine failure during the warranty period" and so on.
For the quality of sweeper products is becoming more and more prominent, some industry analysts pointed out that there are many enterprises in order to save costs and pursue the maximization of benefits and the product quality control is not strict, resulting in product quality problems. "Since the beginning of this year, the overall price reduction trend of the industry has been obvious, such as the beginning of the year, Ecovacs, stone, Dreame and other mainstream brands of the old all-round base station flagship models compared with the beginning of August last year, the decline is in two digits, and the trend of other small and medium-sized brands to exchange price for volume has also begun to be reflected in the market. In the past double 11, the annual new products of major brands basically have greater preferential strength", the analyst pointed out to the China State Grid reporter that among them, the optimization cost of some enterprises may be achieved by reducing the procurement quality in the production and processing process, which has led to product quality problems. This actually reflects the problems and deficiencies of sweeper companies in the management of the first chain. In production and operation, product quality should be the core underlying logic, and while the company's products continue to advance to intelligence, it is also necessary to not forget the 'original intention'. ”
Looking back on the development history of sweepers in the past few years, technically, this category has experienced basic functions such as suction and mopping, self-cleaning, dust collection, automatic loading and unloading, and iterative upgrades of intelligent functions such as automatic sterilization and drying, AI positioning, deep learning Xi, intelligent navigation and obstacle avoidance. Every technological innovation is accompanied by a round of market penetration, but at the same time, because of the increase in functions or experience optimization, the product ** is gradually rising. According to the data of Aowei cloud network, from 2019 to 2022, the average market price of sweepers has increased from 1273 yuan to 2812 yuan year by year, an increase of 120%. Correspondingly, the sales volume of the sweeper market has also begun to decline, judging from the data, the domestic sales of sweepers in 2020 will reach an industry high of 6.54 million units, and in 2021, the category will feel downward pressure for the first time, and the sales volume will decline by 116% to 5.78 million units, and in 2022, it will decline by 24% again to 4.41 million units.
On the one hand, it is the consensus of the industry to iterate the sweeper to be more "intelligent", but on the other hand, the sales feedback from the consumer market is not very optimistic. How can this contradiction be resolved?"Price for quantity" seems to have always been a quick and effective weapon. On the whole, according to the data of Aowei cloud network, in the first three quarters of this year, the sweeper all-round base station products penetrated rapidly, accounting for more than 70%, and the average price of the industry increased by 4% year-on-year under the overall internal structural adjustment, but from the perspective of the proportion distribution of the first segment, the all-round product has rapidly dropped from the 5000+ price in 2021 to about 3000 yuan.
The wide-band layout of all-round base station products has a significant effect on the overall sales of the industry. From January to October this year, the sales of sweepers in the online and offline markets increased year-on-year respectively. 65%。However, behind the promotion of more "intelligent" products and the increase in industry sales, is it as mentioned by industry analysts above, to some extent, some sweeper companies have forgotten the core underlying logic of "product quality"."Now some (sweeper) companies talk about cost reduction, to a large extent, the quality is worse, the use of materials is worse", a few months ago in an exclusive interview with the person in charge of a cleaning electrical appliance company, he said bluntly to reporters. In the person-in-charge's view, there are not many companies in the sweeper industry that optimize product experience and cost to the extreme through design.
Through the technological innovation of mainstream enterprises, whether it is suction, anti-hair entanglement, welt cleaning, obstacle avoidance ability and other technologies, now sweeper products have basically been able to meet the real needs of consumers in more scenarios from the function, but it is more important behind it, and it also needs to be supported by the controllability of quality", another relevant person in charge of a clean electrical appliance company located in Jiangsu and Zhejiang told reporters. As a category with a high degree of intelligence in cleaning appliances and even the entire home appliance field, sweepers are particularly important for the grasp of quality controllability. Taking the motor as an example, a sweeper product needs more than a dozen internal motors to run at the same time, and each motor may have a failure rate, so whether it is the control of materials or the selection and optimization of components, it needs to be paid attention to. "In addition, it is an electrical appliance after all, and at the same time wading in water and electricity, it is inevitable that there will be some risks, so everyone (sweeper companies) should have a basic consensus, that is, the product can achieve more functions under the premise of ensuring safety", the person in charge said.
For the development path of sweeper product technology, the reporter has interviewed a number of cleaning electrical enterprises, industry analysts, although the analysis of the views of all parties is slightly different, but the in-depth development of "intelligence" is an irreversible trend in their opinion. "The sweeper must be iterating in a more intelligent direction, now we have a sweeper and an app, and it is possible to call you what you want to do like a robot in the future", Zhang Junbin, founder and CEO of Cloud Whale Intelligence, told reporters that the sweeper will go down in the future, and more "intelligent" things need to be made stronger and better, which means that higher requirements are put forward for enterprises. Among them, it is not only the higher requirements for the improvement of product experience brought about by intelligent technology innovation, but also the cost control brought about by the control design, standards, systems, and personnel training of the entire production chain, as well as the construction and improvement of the quality standard system, which are all problems that enterprises need to think about and solve. "Now the penetration rate of sweepers is six or seven points, and when it really makes everyone satisfied, the quality is good, and the experience is good, the penetration rate is not just six or seven points, and there is no problem at all when the volume is doubled. ”