What changes will occur in China's home appliance industry after the epidemic?

As the saying goes, one move affects the whole body. Affected by the epidemic, all walks of life across the country will face losses for at least a few months. Among them, offline enterprises such as cultural tourism, transportation, hotels and restaurants, film and television entertainment, etc. have the most direct impact. According to statistics from relevant departments, the railway system alone has experienced more than 115 million refunds due to the epidemic. In addition to these directly affected companies, what is the status of indirectly affected companies like the home appliance industry? What changes have occurred?

There are many short-term difficulties: the proportion of personnel returning to work is low, and the entire chain of suppliers, channels, and brands themselves is affected.

First of all, the first problem encountered by home appliance companies is the problem of personnel returning to work. Take the SARS epidemic 17 years ago as an example. Affected by the SARS epidemic, it was difficult for personnel to return to work. Therefore, the production and sales of air conditioners and refrigerators in my country experienced a serious decline that year. , and also affected by the epidemic, most provinces and cities in my country are actively responding to the national call, delaying the resumption of work or resuming work on a small scale to avoid the spread of the epidemic. For the home appliance industry, insufficient personnel first cause upstream raw material suppliers to be unable to provide sufficient raw materials on time. Secondly, due to insufficient personnel, production capacity is limited, and the prices of some scarce materials will rise, increasing product costs.

In addition, for the company itself, failure to resume work in time will also cause insufficient production capacity and even increase personnel and production costs due to the epidemic. In addition, there are also big problems for transportation and sales channels. First, logistics has not yet recovered to pre-epidemic levels. Coupled with road traffic control, the transportation of home appliances has caused cost and effectiveness problems. Secondly, sales channels Problems, especially in offline channels and after-sales installation, are due to the impact of the temporary suspension of operations of large-scale stores and consumers not going out at home. The sales proportion of the offline market will decline sharply in the near future. According to data from the SARS period in 2003, the May Day shopping Golden Week during the same period dropped by 10 percentage points compared with 2002. Considering the current situation where online and offline channels are evenly matched, it is believed that the overall sales of home appliances should not be affected by SARS again. A huge drop of 10 percentage points over the period.

Based on the above problems, rising costs and unsalable products are inevitable for home appliance companies. Therefore, if small and medium-sized home appliance companies do not have sufficient cash flow, they will be greatly tested during this epidemic. Although China We are already in the stage of cutting reserve requirements and interest rates, but water from afar cannot quench our thirst. In the future, the industry may be reshuffled due to the epidemic.

The concept of health is popular in the short and medium term: consumers will focus on health functions and products when purchasing new home appliances

As long as the economy is running, there will always be people who make money and people who lose money. Affected by the epidemic, the biggest impact may be on tourism, hotels and restaurants. As for the mask protective equipment and disinfection equipment industries, this year’s epidemic has brought them With unprecedented growth and market growth, protective equipment and disinfectant supplies have been sold out across the country and even around the world.

According to online monitoring by AVC, the sales volume of the purifier online market in weeks 04 and 05 was 29.1% and 120.8% year-on-year, and the market continued to grow steadily. Judging from channel feedback, the online platform purifier Search volume also continues to increase. Judging from public information feedback, HEPA purifiers that specialize in disinfection and sterilization and high quality are very popular. These data all reflect a problem. The epidemic problem has driven consumers’ panic consumption psychology. For the entire home appliance market, it can We have seen that steam mops with high-temperature sterilization functions, some disinfection machines, air purifiers, and thermometers are all out of stock. Through this epidemic, consumers have once again put forward higher standards for personal health requirements, and at the same time increased their awareness of prevention and control.

Therefore, in the short to medium term, due to the impact of the epidemic, when consumers purchase home appliances in the future, whether they have disinfection functions, air purification functions, and sterilization functions will become an important factor in promoting transactions. I believe it will also More home appliance manufacturers will develop the above functions for the products they produce and sell to stimulate consumers' desire to buy.

Looking at technology in the medium and long term: artificial intelligence, unmanned operations and online marketing will become new strategic directions for enterprises

After the epidemic, not only individuals but also companies have realized the important impact of personnel on companies. Among them, artificial intelligence and unmanned fully automatic production technology, which major companies are developing, will receive further attention and attention. In the future, manufacturing companies will be less subject to the manual influence of personnel, and smart manufacturing companies represented by Midea KUKA will have more stable production expectations in the future.

Different from the single offline sales channel of the home appliance industry during SARS in 2003, China's home appliance sales channels have seen a flourishing of online and offline sales channels in 2020. According to the "2019" jointly released by the China Household Appliances Research Institute and the National Household Appliances Industry Information Center The "China Home Appliances Industry Annual Report" shows that in 2019, the online market retail sales of China's home appliances industry was 310.8 billion yuan, accounting for 38.7% of the total, and the offline market was 492.4 billion yuan, accounting for 61.3%. Online sales channels The proportion is close to 40%, and due to the impact of the epidemic, the proportion of online home appliance sales will still increase in the short term. In the future, joint focus and construction of multiple channels will be the development trend of sales channels for home appliance companies.

Information source: Tencent News Network  https://wxn.qq.com/cmsid/20200224A03O6B00