Home appliance sales are "one-sided": online sales are booming, while offline sales are bleak

The home appliance market has been declining since the second half of last year, and the decline in sales has caused many domestic home appliance companies to face losses. Against the backdrop of bleak sales in traditional channels, the rapid development of online sales has become an important factor in the recovery of home appliance sales.

According to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics, in the second quarter of 2014, my country's total retail sales of consumer goods reached 6.2 trillion yuan, and online shopping accounted for 10.1% of the total retail sales of consumer goods, the first time that the penetration rate in a single quarter exceeded 10%. If a penetration rate of more than 10% is a strong indicator of the main channel, then in 2014, e-commerce channels have undoubtedly become the main channel. In the first half of 2014, the online sales of flat-panel TVs accounted for 15% of the total, the sales of air conditioners accounted for 10.5% of the total, the sales of refrigerators accounted for nearly 13%, and the online sales of washing machines reached 12.3% of the total. The sales of mobile phones, which had already "broken 10" in the same period last year, accounted for 16.5%.

Due to the consumer electronics attributes of color TVs, flat-panel TVs were the first major appliance products to enter the e-commerce channel. By the second half of last year, almost all traditional color TV brands had made a strong move in the online market, and the online market quickly replicated the offline brand structure. By the first half of 2014, this situation reappeared in the white appliance sector.

In general, driven by the competition and promotion of major brands, the brand rankings in the online markets in various fields are gradually converging with those in the offline markets, and the online brand landscape is becoming increasingly stable.

Some analysts pointed out that low prices may be the key to online sales, but online channels have also tapped into the potential needs of some young customers and created new consumer demand. Online home appliance shopping is not a "poaching" of the traditional offline home appliance market, but rather it allows home appliance products and industries to quickly adapt to the young population that survives on the Internet, opening up a larger sales market.

Industry experts said that e-commerce does have a price advantage in sales costs, but whether the cost advantage can be transformed into a unified topic among suppliers, consumers and e-commerce channels is a question that is still under discussion. At this stage, e-commerce has successfully used price advantages to attract consumers for its own development, but the attraction to suppliers and manufacturers is a question that e-commerce should think about more. Otherwise, without the support of upstream suppliers and manufacturers, e-commerce products will be single and the subsequent supply power will be insufficient, which will inevitably hinder the further development of e-commerce.

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.