The sparrow is too small to have meat! A large number of home appliance dealers have disappeared

In recent years, it is with this mentality that a large number of traditional home appliance dealers in the Chinese market have been slowly squeezed to the margins of the market by disruptors such as Alibaba and JD.com, which were spawned by the Internet and the new retail boom. They have gone from being the protagonists to supporting roles and becoming substitutes in the niche market, without any struggle or resistance, until they disappeared.

There are countless similar lessons in the home appliance industry. In fact, many home appliance dealers who were eliminated by the tide of change did not have problems with the industry or the market, but with their ideas and concepts. The most typical example is that they "can't make big money" (the era of getting rich overnight has long ended), but "are unwilling to make small money" (the sparrow is too small to make meat).

one

In recent years, there have been many transformation opportunities and paths facing many traditional home appliance dealers.

The first is to completely transform from a single wholesaler to a retail service provider, helping a large number of terminal franchise stores and mom-and-pop stores in the market with marketing services centered around product promotion. Helping retail stores transform, adopting a model of frequent purchases and fast sales, and event shipments, and assuming the role of a marketing service provider for home appliance companies to open up the "last mile";

The second is business expansion, which is to transform from traditional home appliance business to emerging health home appliance business. This includes the most popular air purifiers in recent years, as well as water purifiers, dehumidifiers, humidifiers, mobile air conditioners, etc. With the flattening of traditional home appliance retail channels, profit transparency has bottomed out, while products such as water purifiers and air purifiers have relatively opaque pricing systems, which can still make some home appliance dealers profitable;

Third, grasp the pulse of the times and become a partner of e-commerce giants in offline channels. Although in recent years, facing the offline expansion of JD.com and Alibaba, some home appliance dealers generally complain more than try. They have accused these e-commerce channels of offline franchising and said that it is impossible to do it. The reason is very simple, that is, home appliance dealers still use the past operating concepts and profit models to evaluate e-commerce, but ignore that the times have changed, and users and demands are changing. It is useless to blindly blame e-commerce for low profits and unfulfilled promises. Instead, they can really use the gameplay of e-commerce to enrich their own competitive means.

two

Why have traditional home appliance dealers' transformation with the help of the trend of the times always ended in failure in recent years?

Is it because the external market competition is too fierce, or are many home appliance dealers too conservative? In the past year or so, when I communicated with companies in various fields such as water purifiers, I found that although these products, which belong to the home appliance category, have been actively exploring and developing home appliance retail channels, they have been rejected by a large number of home appliance dealers. Even if some home appliance dealers participate in the operation of these products, there are few successful cases.

The key reason is that dealers who are used to dealing with large appliances cannot see the market size and profit margin of many water purifier products. Although the price of water purifiers is not transparent and the profit is relatively high compared to traditional appliances, the overall market size is not large, and the terminal retail scale is even smaller, so many appliance dealers do not look down on it. Some appliance dealers have a sales scale of 200 to 300 million per year, which is only a small business, but in the water purification industry, they are big businesses.

On the other hand, home appliances are mature products, basically with brands and prices, and they are easy to become popular in the terminal market. However, as a new product, water purifiers need home appliance dealers to promote and sell them in the first-tier market through a series of activities. Therefore, many home appliance dealers are now unwilling to continue to sell products through complex and lengthy activities, hoping that big brands and low prices can attract users.

The reality is that in the process of many home appliance dealers seeking transformation, they enter some new fields and categories, but what they see is "the plate is too small and the profit is too little", which makes them feel that they are killing a sparrow with the strength of killing a cow. Although there is meat, it is tasteless. Therefore, they often "give up halfway" and are unwilling to persist. In the end, they turn around and accuse e-commerce of exploiting their partners too much, and new categories such as water purifiers are too small and the cake is too small.

However, many home appliance dealers ignore two issues: First, a small sparrow has all the organs, and a small fly is still meat! As long as you persist in any industry, you will definitely find your own piece of the pie; second, transformation and upgrading is a long and arduous road, which requires strength and perseverance to break through and detonate. For many home appliance dealers, it is never too late to transform, but if you don't transform, there is only one way to go!

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.