Home appliances are an important area to boost consumption. Recently, home appliance manufacturers have seized the business opportunities of the Spring Festival and launched New Year's Day activities one after another to better meet consumer demand with innovative supply, stimulate market consumption enthusiasm with marketing innovation, promote the replacement of old home appliances with new ones, and accelerate the popularization of emerging home appliances.
Trade-in old for new is very popular
"The washing machine at home has been used for a long time and the dehydration function no longer works. Let's take advantage of the holiday promotions offered by stores." On the fifth day of the first lunar month, Wu Limei, a resident of Haidian District, Beijing, went to a home appliance store to purchase a brand-name washing and drying machine. This product has a drying and sterilizing function, as well as a washing program suitable for jackets, which just meets the needs of Wu Limei and his wife who like outdoor sports and take care of their children's health. By participating in the trade-in activity, she enjoyed a manufacturer subsidy of 400 yuan, as well as worry-free services of delivering and installing new machines and dismantling and transporting old ones.
During the Spring Festival, Suning.com’s Xihongmen Huiju store in Beijing was decorated with lanterns and colorful decorations and was full of joy. "Before the Spring Festival, there were several small upsurges in home appliance sales, and the store's daily turnover could reach one million yuan." Li Ming, deputy store manager of the store, said that Suning.com continues to carry out preferential activities such as trade-in for new ones and full discounts on home appliances. Customers and transaction volume gradually increased.
On February 7, Suning.com released pre-holiday consumption data showing that since the launch of the New Year’s Day on January 5, Suning.com’s store customer flow across the country has increased by 206% year-on-year, and home appliance trade-in orders have increased by 153% year-on-year.
Many consumers choose to upgrade major appliances before the Spring Festival. Refrigerators, washing machines, and color TVs are popular categories for trade-in, and upgraded products with large size, large capacity, and multi-function are particularly popular. For example, the sales of products such as large-screen color TVs above 85 inches, side-by-side refrigerators, and washing and drying sets increased by 101%, 136%, and 103% respectively.
Home appliance manufacturers focus on user needs and make precise efforts. Haier Smart Home's original refrigerator's full-space preservation technology extends the shelf life of ingredients and eliminates consumers' worries about not being able to stock up on new year's goods. Hisense actively promotes large-screen products such as 100-inch, 110-inch, and 120-inch foldable laser TV L5K. Its laser TV "screen foldable" technology solves the problem of large-size TVs entering homes and provides convenience for more families to watch large screens.
At present, the traditional large appliance market has entered the stock stage. In 2023, the number of major categories of home appliances will exceed 3 billion, and every 100 residents will have more than 100 air conditioners, refrigerators, and TVs. Some home appliances have been used for a long time, and there is great demand and potential for replacement. At the same time, the trade-in of consumer goods such as home appliances is a huge systematic project, which requires the coordination and linkage of production, supply and marketing, upstream and downstream, government, enterprises and citizens, online and offline.
The "Guidelines for the Construction of a Perfect Typical Construction System for the Recycling of Waste Home Appliances and Furniture and Other Renewable Resources" recently issued by the Ministry of Commerce and other nine departments proposes that by 2025, a number of typical cities and typical enterprises for the recycling system of waste home appliances, furniture and other renewable resources will be cultivated nationwide. The amount of waste household appliances and furniture recycled will increase by more than 15% compared with 2023, and the level of standardized recycling of waste household appliances and furniture has improved significantly.
Xu Dongsheng, vice chairman of the China Household Electrical Appliances Association, said, "The new policy is an important measure to break through consumption congestion and promote the replacement of old home appliances with new ones. We will make up for the shortcomings in infrastructure as soon as possible, and the cycle of the home appliance industry will become smoother."
Emerging categories are popular
"We plan to get married after the new year. The new house must not only have traditional large appliances, but also some relatively trendy appliances, such as dishwashers, sweeping robots, etc." Wang Pang and Liu Huizhi, a couple who returned from other places to celebrate the New Year in Jianhu County, Yancheng, Jiangsu Province He said that when buying home appliances, quality, appearance and cost-effectiveness should be considered, and green smart products are the first choice.
“Washing and drying machines, smart large-screen color TVs, water purifiers, dishwashers, and sweepers are becoming the top five items for newlyweds in counties and towns.” Cui Jiansheng, head of the Suning.com retail cloud store in Jianhu Building, Yancheng, told reporters that now Young people are more interested in new trends in high-end home appliances. In 2023, the "Double 11" store opened, with sales exceeding 1 million yuan, and whole-house appliance package orders accounted for 40%.
Currently, the sales growth of emerging home appliance categories is relatively good. Data show that in 2023, sales of floor washing machines will increase by 45%; retail sales of clothes dryers will increase by 16.4%; the overall scale of dishwashers will be 1.94 million units and 11.2 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 2.3% and 9.6%.
During the Spring Festival, smart floor washing machines have become the preferred gift for more and more people when visiting relatives and friends. The floor washing machine can not only meet the needs of efficient household cleaning, but also means "removing the old and bringing in the new, and bringing happiness in the new year".
The new floor washing machine launched by Timko has an ultra-thin body equipped with a number of leading technologies and can lie flat against the floor for cleaning, and is favored by consumers. Yin Peng, general manager of Timco Greater China, said: "We predict that during the Spring Festival holiday, Timco's offline sales will triple that of the same period last year."
Marketing is innovative
In order to tap consumption potential, home appliance manufacturers have innovated marketing methods and made efforts both online and offline.
From January 4 to February 12 this year, Haier’s “Beautiful Year of China” event had cumulative sales of 17.1 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 7%. According to reports, Haier stores organize live broadcasts of technology to help farmers, reunion banquets and other activities, and also seize the wave of returning home to provide users with services such as bringing goods into the village, cleaning at home, and dismantling old ones and replacing them with new ones. The person in charge of Haier Smart Home China said, “We have also conducted live broadcast events such as the New Year’s Festival and New Year’s Eve dinner. Through interesting interactions such as evaluating ‘C-level’ New Year dishes, we can achieve accurate ‘grass planting’ and then divert traffic to stores to achieve conversion. ".
Since February this year, Hisense color TVs, air conditioners and other all-category products have launched home appliance replacement activities. In terms of attracting customers, Hisense is low-carbon and green-oriented and carries out theme promotion in the form of localized live broadcasts and short videos on the Douyin platform. From February 1st to 13th, Hisense Laser TV online sales increased by 305% year-on-year.
According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics, the cumulative main business revenue of the national home appliance industry last year reached 1.84 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 7%; the profit was 156.5 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 12.1%.
Looking forward to 2024, Xu Dongsheng said that my country's home appliance companies have persisted in technological innovation, explored user needs, and improved global operations for many years, and the industry has strong resilience. He believes that the home appliance industry will continue to maintain steady growth this year and contribute to further stimulating domestic consumption.
Zhou Lei
Zhou Lei