Appliance chain is optimistic about next year's third and fourth markets

The home appliances market in winter 2011 seems particularly cold. With the three policies of energy-saving and people-friendly projects, home appliance replacement, and home appliances going to the countryside, the sales volume and sales of air conditioners, refrigerators, and washing machines fell in the third quarter. Although the color TV market has shown signs of recovery, it cannot be compared with the high growth rate in 2010. With the withdrawal of policies, declining demand, declining markets, and continuous economic development of the debt crisis in Europe and the United States, how did the domestic appliance market stabilize in 2012?

The most important source of future growth

In fact, although China's home appliance market has entered a deceleration channel, but compared to the near-saturated primary and secondary markets, the broader third and fourth-tier markets are still in a period of growth, creating a huge potential demand for home appliances. The "China's home appliance market grading standards" recently released pointed out that China's third and fourth-tier home appliances market covers 2,050 counties, county-level cities, and a small number of prefecture-level cities nationwide. The tertiary and tertiary markets have a population of 70% of the country, creating a GDP of 45% of the country and contributing 40% of the country's retail sales of consumer goods.

The research data from Zhong Yikang show that after rapid development in recent years, the sales volume of China's third and fourth-tier household appliances market was close to 540 billion yuan in 2011, and the market growth rate has exceeded 20% for four consecutive years, which is the proportion in the national market. It has increased nearly 10 percentage points and has become a major source of growth for China's home appliance market and home appliance industry.

More manufacturers began to turn their attention to this area. Wang Jinliang, Vice President of the China Refrigeration Appliances Group's China Business Division, told reporters that at present, the stores of many products under the United States' refrigeration have exceeded 15,000 in the country, covering all levels of county and township markets; at the same time, Midea announced the implementation of "Central The Rise "plan and deepen the project of Thousand County Wanzhen Project". Haier Rishun has established more than 5000 county-level Haier stores, more than 30,000 town-level stores, and more than 80,000 village-level liaison stations, laying a good foundation for entering the third and fourth-tier markets. Zhang Yanbin, head of the Owei Research Institute, said that if the policy dividends decline, if companies can't improve their channel layout in the tertiary and tertiary markets in time, they will be at a disadvantage in the future competition.

The two giants compete to sink

The rapid development of the third and fourth-tier household appliances market has also increased its market size while also changing its own channel structure. The two giants of Suning Appliance and Gome Electrical Appliances, while further consolidating the monopoly position of the primary and secondary markets, have accelerated the sinking of channels in the tertiary and tertiary markets.

Suning Appliance will expand its 3rd and 4th markets as one of its main targets in its development plan and strategy for the next 10 years. Jining President Suning revealed that in the next 10 years, the Suning chain network will cover most of the county-level markets in China and the developed township markets in South China, North China and East China. The total number of stores will reach 3,500, of which the number of stores in the third and fourth-tier markets will increase. Accounted for more than 40% of the total.

In early 2011, Suning proposed to build 300 stores in the third and fourth markets during the year. As of mid-2011, Suning Electronics has opened stores in 55% of the tertiary market and 14% of the fourth-tier market. Jin Ming stated that in accordance with Suning's strategic development plan for the next 10 years, since 2011, Suning will continue to consolidate the development of the primary and secondary markets, and will concentrate on accelerating the deployment and improving the store network construction in the tertiary and tertiary markets. The fourth-tier market will be the main area for future vertical penetration and expansion of Suning stores. Jin Ming believes that according to the national administrative division and the standards developed by the Suning chain, the county-level market and the wealthy township market are sufficient to support Suning to open more than 3,000 stores. In Suning's storefront segmentation strategy, the county township store model was also specifically introduced. A large number of surveys and standards were formulated in terms of store area, sample quantity, and product planning, and it was also difficult for the suppliers to fully cover and support the status quo. , Promote self-employed work from booth production to sales staff deployment.

Another big home appliance chain giant, Gome, is not to be outdone. This year Gome's expansion in the tertiary market has entered the fast lane. Wang Junzhou, president of Gome, made it clear that 60% of the 480 new stores opened in 2011 will be opened in the second and third-tier markets. Gome's new stores in the future will be tilted in second-tier and third-tier cities to match the rapid growth of second- and third-tier cities in the electronic product market.

Big chains will become dominant

Although the attractive cakes in the third and fourth-tier markets have attracted many home appliance operators, the regional distributors that have mushroomed in the market are still far behind on Suning and Gome.

Currently, competition in the third and fourth-tier markets is shifting from traditional extensive growth to meticulous growth. Attention has been paid to customer consumption experience, understanding of customers' lifestyles, reduction of distribution logistics costs, and implementation of centralized and refined management, which have become the third and fourth-tier markets. The key in the channel value chain. How to realize rapid product distribution, rapid flow of goods, rapid turnover of funds, and rapid transfer of information, so that marketing and procurement are closer to the actual needs of the market, all of which are obviously better at Suning, Gome and other major chains. .

In the view of Zhong Yikang, general manager of Lian Siqing, in the future, the channel competition pattern in China's third and fourth-tier markets will be dominated by national chains such as Suning and Gome, and regional chains and self-built channels for manufacturers will provide support. Shop for supplements. He reminded that with the importance of the tertiary and tertiary markets in the Chinese household appliance market, the three- and four-tier home appliance market is undergoing drastic changes, and it is becoming increasingly important for manufacturers to understand and grasp the status of the tertiary and tertiary markets in a timely manner.

According to the introduction of Lian Siqing, in order to adapt to the above changes, in the 6781 retail monitoring network stores in China Yikang, the monitoring coverage of cities and counties in the tertiary and tertiary markets has reached 34%.