The dramatic changes in consumption behind the passionate festivals created by home appliance giants

JD.com's 618 promotion has just ended, Suning's 818 promotion has just started, and Alibaba's Double 11 and Double 12 promotions have entered the warm-up period in advance. Similarly, Haier, Midea, Hisense, TCL and other home appliance giants have also launched their super brand days. The home appliance giants have created festivals one after another, which has become the most mainstream landscape in the current home appliance retail market. The business logic behind this is that home appliance consumption has changed dramatically, and users are becoming more and more difficult to figure out and grasp.

The home appliance industry is really going to change! This is a phrase that many second- and third-tier manufacturers in China's home appliance industry have always liked to say in recent years. They generally believe that with the impact of the Internet wave and the diversification of demands brought about by the younger consumer groups, the original leading brand camp and commercial competition landscape of the home appliance industry will face a series of new changes.

In fact, the most drastic and turbulent part of the great changes in the home appliance industry is not the changes in the home appliance brands and home appliance retail channels, but the changes in the habits, awareness and needs of home appliance consumption. It can be said that the standards, scales and habits of the main consumer groups for home appliance purchases are becoming more and more complex and picky under the joint efforts and guidance of home appliance manufacturers. This means that if home appliance manufacturers continue to use the old "wait for customers to come" mentality to deal with this change, they will only fall into the point of being eliminated by the times.

In recent years, from JD.com's 618, Suning's 818, Alibaba's Double 11 and Double 12, as well as Haier Brand Day, Midea Brand Day, Hisense Brand Day, and Gree Brand Day, behind the passionate creation and frequent explosion of home appliance manufacturers, there is a new climate and pattern of consumption in the home appliance retail market, which is entering a new channel of rapid fission. It is necessary to cater to the changing consumer demand with a new approach and a new rhythm.

In the past, the home appliance retail market was a typical "routine holiday promotion and normalized inertial sales" system. May Day and National Day were major home appliance festivals, while traditional New Year's Day, Spring Festival, and weekends and holidays were minor home appliance festivals. In addition, most home appliance manufacturers "waited for customers to come to them" and occasionally "went out to greet customers." Even due to the advantages of "information asymmetry" and "price opacity", many home appliance manufacturers had relatively sufficient profitability in the past, which also cultivated a "lacking ambition" mentality among some home appliance manufacturers.

Today, as the entire home appliance retail market continues to consolidate and fluctuate at the bottom and in the downward channel, the structure of home appliance retail channels has become highly flattened and verticalized under the impact of e-commerce, with multiple channels such as e-commerce, chain stores, and specialty stores. The entire business system has seen "price transparency, information disclosure, and convenient choice", resulting in changes in consumers' demand for home appliances such as "not only big brands, but also good products, more favorable prices, and more functions", which has also brought about the complexity and refinement of home appliance manufacturers' product management and market promotion.

At present, these home appliance retail giants and home appliance manufacturers frequently break the conventional home appliance retail system and promotion strategies, and artificially create and plan a series of "real profit sharing, large margin" theme promotions. On the one hand, they break the traditional May Day and National Day promotion cycles, and create a series of new nodes including 315, 618, 818, Double 11, as well as home appliance brand day, home appliance manufacturer special events, etc., to achieve seamless connection of promotion activities; on the other hand, they break the conventional ideas of low price war and flooding of gifts of traditional promotion methods, and launch big-name high-end profit sharing promotions and quality-upgraded boutique promotions, to achieve full coverage of promotions at the high, medium and low ends.

However, the changes in the promotional content, means and methods of home appliance manufacturers facing the consumer market and user needs have just begun. From the perspective of means, they are still too extensive, lacking precision and differentiated stratification for different users and different needs; from the perspective of content, they are still too thin. In addition to achieving high, medium and low coverage of promotional products, they need to reduce price elements in promotional content and increase value-added content; from the perspective of frequency, the number is large but the quality is low. They are exhausted from coping with promotional tasks from manufacturers and merchants, but ignore the formulation of differentiated content to meet the needs of users in different regions and levels.

In fact, in recent years, compared with the past 10 years, the promotional activities for home appliance first-tier market users have been much richer in terms of content, form, and quantity. However, there is still a distance and gap to meet the changing requirements of young consumers. The key is that consumer needs are not only changing, but also more precise and rich. Therefore, in addition to pursuing quantity, promotional activities must also pursue quality, especially the richness of content.

Consumer demand is changing, and the products of home appliance manufacturers are changing, so the promotion methods and content for users must also change. Change is not the purpose, and promotion is not the core. It is just to better usher in this changing era, so that home appliance manufacturers can truly grasp the main artery of the times and take the initiative in user needs!

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.