Is Suning crazy to spend 150,000 yuan on a refrigerator just to hear the noise during its 618 event?

The future world must be intelligent and convenient. Intelligence has become an important issue that cannot be avoided in the home appliance industry.

In fact, home appliances have already achieved early intelligence, which is called Intelligence 1.0. In the era of Intelligence 1.0, home appliances can simply connect to mobile phone apps through wireless networks, forming a primitive remote control system. Making home appliances "obedient" is the initial manifestation of intelligence.

With the popularization of intelligent 3C products, the market's requirements for product intelligence are gradually increasing. Traditional large household appliances or simple smart 1.0 appliances can no longer provide sufficient driving force for the industry.

The continued downturn in traditional home appliances has sounded the alarm for the entire home appliance industry, while the sudden rise of smart home appliances in recent years has brought a new direction of transformation to the entire industry.

Suning, which has joined forces with dozens of upstream suppliers to form the smart large-screen refrigerator alliance, has clearly seen the opportunity of this home appliance transformation. The upstream and downstream cooperation was reached at lightning speed. Why do the major industry giants involved believe so much in the development prospects of smart large-screen refrigerators?

Smart refrigerators have inherent advantages

Perhaps from the most direct level, smart refrigerators have huge advantages that other home appliances cannot match in terms of usage frequency and power-on time.

In today's home life, we may not use TVs, washing machines, air conditioners and other home appliances frequently, but we use refrigerators at least once a day. High-frequency human-computer interaction means that users can experience more convenient services brought by intelligence. The life changes brought by smart refrigerators will be clearly reflected in daily life.

The refrigerator is the only home appliance that needs to be turned on 24 hours a day, which is a feature that no other home appliance, big or small, needs. When it comes to intelligence, the process of intelligence cannot be circumvented without the collection and processing of big data. A refrigerator that is turned on 24 hours a day can truly collect user usage information at all times, thus providing a very favorable foundation for the precise delivery of services and advertisements.

Blomberg's questionnaire survey based on smart refrigerators shows that users are obviously very interested in smart refrigerators. However, current smart refrigerators still have some defects, such as low intelligence, poor picture and sound quality, and too much trouble in manually entering ingredients. This may be the reason why users are not interested in smart refrigerators.

Wei Jun, general manager of the white goods division of China Market Research, is puzzled by the fact that the penetration rate of smart refrigerators is at the bottom of the white goods market. Perhaps this phenomenon can be explained by the fact that users have higher expectations for smart appliances and thus postpone their purchasing plans.

Unite the upstream and downstream industries to expand the smart refrigerator "cake"

In fact, as early as last year, upstream suppliers had already launched a series of explorations on smart large-screen refrigerators, such as Samsung's food preservation system and Haier's Internet social services. Suning's strong support this time has undoubtedly given suppliers a shot in the arm.

The biggest guarantee provided by Suning is the unification of standards. Suning has worked with many suppliers to create industry standards for smart large-screen refrigerators, and provided shopping, logistics, audio-visual content and other services for smart refrigerators.

Just like when smartphones first emerged, the unified standards of Android and Apple operating systems provided a broad space for smartphones to develop, completely igniting the smartphone market. Suning is currently hoping to play such a role and solve the problem of incompatibility between products from the root.

Suning.com COO Hou Enlong said that smart refrigerators will have several major platforms in the future. In addition to storage and preservation, shopping platforms, advertising platforms and content profit platforms are all promising.

Traditional home appliances are getting bigger and bigger, but the profits are getting lower and lower. This is not a healthy industry development trend. Jointly developing new business models with upstream suppliers, screen providers, downstream dealers and even financial parties is a feasible way of development. Perhaps in the near future, free smart refrigerators will become a reality. By then, the profit model of the product may no longer be hardware sales, but will transform to later service profits.

Suning goes all out with KO618

Suning and its suppliers will start a bloody battle on June 18. At that time, a full-scale price war will be launched on KO618, with 10% of the amount as smart subsidies, and the sales price will not be higher than the price of last year's Double Eleven. At the same time, the reserve of 150,000 units and the half-day and next-day delivery services also convey Suning's determination to fully promote smart refrigerators in this KO618.

But in fact, the smart large-screen refrigerator is only a side battlefield of KO618. Hou Enlong said that in terms of categories, KO618 will take 3C as the first camp, focusing on the TOP30 products, and comprehensively benchmarking with competitors in price.

Looking at the overall situation, this alliance summit of smart large-screen refrigerators may not only expand the smart refrigerator market, but also attract a large supplier group and build momentum before the arrival of KO618, which may be the foreplay of Suning.

The war between Suning and other e-commerce companies is likely to escalate again as 618 approaches. The demographic dividend of online consumption scenarios has gradually disappeared, and there is not much room for maneuver between e-commerce companies. A head-on collision of mainstream products is inevitable.

Suning.com has fully launched the Suning direct store experience activities, and opened up the entire logistics system as early as September last year. Suning has already prepared food and supplies before its troops move, and it is obvious that it has prepared a heavy punch, aiming to defeat its opponents in one fell swoop during the 618 shopping festival.

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.