In recent years, the architectural ceramics industry is facing a difficult round of channel and terminal transformation.
A very typical change is that competition has escalated significantly around the competition for channel resources, new traffic, and new consumer groups. Without strong skills and system competitiveness, it is easy to lose. Moreover, the main battlefield has become differentiated, and the emergence of hundreds of millions of post-90s consumer groups has driven market preferences onto a new track.
This round of transformation and upgrading began a few years ago. Among the brands that have taken advantage of the trend, there are both leading and enterprising big names, such as Dongpeng, Nobel, etc., as well as hard-core players who have crossed over from other fields, such as White Rabbit Ceramics, based on the category leader of exterior wall tiles and mosaics, has entered the field of wall and floor tiles, striving to create a A trendy brand favored by new consumer groups, the company's first digital green smart floor tile production line in its Hunan production base was officially launched recently, further enhancing its production capacity advantage.
The ceramic market worth hundreds of billions is already in a new era of surging waves.
The big chess game between channel terminals
The stage with channels and terminals as the core is opening up an exciting and spectacular picture.
Let’s look at it in two lines. The first is the reconstruction of channel structure and the development of new traffic channels; the second is the adjustment of terminal business formats, store renovation and service upgrades.
In recent years, channels have been undergoing adjustments. In the early days, store retail + engineering channels were basically enough to guide the country. Later changes were that retail and engineering were further subdivided, and traffic became more centralized.
Taking retail as an example, stores, different industries, communities, e-commerce, live broadcasts, designers, etc. have formed a bigger chess game, which is of course more difficult to play. In the engineering channel, the proportion of furnished houses with supporting facilities continues to rise, becoming a strategic customer source.
It is worth noting that the interception capabilities of decoration companies have increased, especially as a number of leading decoration companies have grown up in various places and have successfully opened up the decoration business, intercepting the flow of building materials such as ceramic tiles in a large area.
what to do? There are only three ways out for dealers, either to enhance their ability to actively attract traffic and go to the decoration company to capture customers; or the brand is sticky enough that customers specify specific brands; or they can establish a good cooperative relationship with high-quality decoration companies. .
Furthermore, driven by the rise of the finely decorated housing market, engineering dealers have become an independent channel force. Many architectural ceramics companies are recruiting and cultivating engineering dealers. There are retail dealers who cross the engineering field and do retail and engineering at the same time; there are also independent engineering dealers. With White Rabbit Ceramics is an example. Its dealers are divided into regional general dealers and regional engineering special dealers, and provide protection for engineering projects in some markets.
A survey from Dacai Research shows that the revenue sources of some ceramic dealers are diversified, with stores accounting for 30%, decoration companies accounting for 15%, active marketing in different industries and communities accounting for 15%, engineering accounting for 20%, and designers accounting for 20%. Accounting for 10%, online accounting for 10%. Some dealers and designers dealing in imported or high-end ceramic brands even contribute more than 30% of the traffic.
Some relatively strong head dealers have already laid out an omni-channel approach and have even established an omni-channel structure. This has created another situation, with large merchants occupying the majority of the market share; merchants at the waist still have room for survival, while merchants at the tail end do not have big killing skills and it is difficult to counterattack.
In the ongoing channel changes, we have discovered two strategic options. One is a multi-category integrated channel approach, which not only operates ceramics, but also operates other categories, striving to form space or package solutions, deeply explore customer needs, and realize Joint sales are used to increase customer order value, such as customized home furnishings + ceramics, ceramics + wooden doors + flooring, etc. Channel merchants operating two or more categories at the same time and acting as agents for two or more brands are gradually growing.
The second is a service-oriented approach, focusing on details such as delivery, after-sales maintenance, and touching services, and using the power of word-of-mouth to expand the scale of old customers, thereby obtaining referrals, repurchases, etc., and building a strong competitive castle. It is even possible to establish a team of highly capable masters and then export home services with ceramic tile paving as the core to the industry to find new growth channels.
Terminal upgrades are also in a critical period of exploration. There are at least three lines. One is to synchronize with the changes and new trends in home aesthetic preferences to shape the store style and atmosphere; starting from props, colors, devices, copywriting, styling, etc., we strive to create Internet celebrity stores attract customers’ attention and interest in checking in. In particular, the emergence of Internet celebrity stores has provided new ideas for ceramic enterprise terminals.
Take White Rabbit Ceramics, which is active on the front line this year, as an example. It focuses on the creation of terminal stores, based on the youthful aesthetics. Trends, reshaping the store experience atmosphere and standardization construction, and improving the physical space of the store into a lever to leverage the market.
The second is the emergence of smart stores. Typical methods include: equipped with 3D cloud design software, designing paving renderings based on the customer's home layout, decoration style, etc., outputting the design plan, and improving customer conversion rate with the help of a WYSIWYG experience; equipped with Electronic large screens, cloud shelves, scene roaming, etc. once again enhance customers' shopping experience. We have seen many well-known ceramic brands take action, such as White Rabbit Ceramics leaps from product delivery to effect delivery.
The third is to introduce digital tools, such as customer management, community management, user fission, cloud stores, etc., to achieve refined store management, in-depth customer operations, and expand online traffic.
New opportunities are born again
No matter how things change, architectural ceramics is a market worth hundreds of billions. As long as you follow the right rhythm, you can naturally make a big difference.
According to the observation of Dacai Research, under the ongoing transformation of channel terminals, new opportunities are brewing, especially in the three tracks, which may become a new choice for dealers to tap wealth.
Track 1: Strong cross-border brands break the traditional pattern and bring new opportunities
Judging from the market situation, the first and second echelons of ceramic brand echelons have basically taken shape. Correspondingly, in the channel map, the dealer echelon composed of big merchants, waist merchants, tail merchants and new merchants is also relatively formed. Now I still want to make ceramic products, how should I choose?
First, entrepreneurs themselves should be cautious. It is best to accumulate certain experience and resources before considering acting as an agent for ceramic brands. The second is to join differentiated specialty brands, such as some powerful cross-border brands or specialty category brands, which are on the rise and have strong investment support, so there is a certain opportunity space.
According to public information, White Rabbit Ceramics, a leading company in the field of "exterior wall tiles + mosaics", entered the indoor wall and floor tile track this year. Build a full-category matrix and implement a rejuvenation strategy. Whether it is the way of shaping trendy brands, the products closely following the fashionable home aesthetics, or the launch of the cartoon image of the super IP energy rabbit in marketing, it will bring a cool new experience to the market. This type of brand's approach of breaking through the traditional model has the potential to attract the recognition of 400 million young customers at the terminal.
Some of the dealers that Dacai Research has contacted have done well even in the face of brutal market competition precisely because they represent specialty brands or brands with strong foundations, and they have the confidence to continue moving forward.
Track 2: Supported by engineering channel advantages, empowering dealers
Judging from the situation in 2020, the growth rate of the engineering channels of many ceramic companies, including listed companies, has remained at around 30%. There have even been companies with engineering channels accounting for as much as 50%, and 70 of the top 100 real estate companies can cooperate. %above.
Objectively speaking, engineering channels such as real estate decoration are very difficult to crack, which extremely tests the operating capabilities of manufacturers. If the manufacturer has the ability and experience to provide systematic empowerment to the channel, then the success rate of the engineering dealer will be much greater. This kind of ceramic brand will be the winner in the futureIt is worthy of dealers’ special inspection.
We have noticed that some brands have fully promoted the omni-channel layout of "retail + engineering" as the main line, supplemented by decoration, designers, and e-commerce O2O, with White Rabbit Ceramics For example, with 22 years of operating experience and resources in engineering channels, on the one hand, it has established a mature system for bidding, products, production scheduling, delivery, and tracking, etc., to integrate this capabilities to dealers; on the other hand, it jointly develops projects with regional engineering dealers to empower the rise of a number of new big businessmen.
It is understood that White Rabbit Ceramics's list of cooperative customers includes Poly, Agile, Evergrande, China Overseas, Country Garden, The resources and long-term accumulated operating capabilities of top 100 real estate companies such as CITIC Real Estate, Yanlord Land, Fangyuan, R&F, Xiangjiang, Sino-Ocean, Lange, and Aoyuan are expected to provide quite effective support to dealers.
Track 3: Brand and product solutions for new consumer groups
The maturity of 400 million young consumer groups is becoming the main force in the construction ceramics consumer market. This group has distinctive characteristics, such as enjoying the compound dividends of globalization, the Internet, generally better family conditions, putting forward higher requirements for the living environment, and showing personalized characteristics.
Specifically, they pursue good looks, like national trends, pay more attention to health, etc.; are willing to pay for their interests to meet a personalized and creative lifestyle; desire convenience; are deeply influenced by short videos, opinion leaders, social media, etc.; and will pay attention to brands Values etc.
New mainstream consumer groups and new consumption trends are reflected in categories such as wall and floor tiles, White Rabbit Tiles gives Complete answer:
1. Brand rejuvenation: cool personality, international fashion, and incorporating sunny and friendly design elements to impress the new generation. It also launched the trendy IP Energy Rabbit that meets the aesthetics of young people, creating memory points and establishing close connections with consumers.
2. Product trendiness: The all-round product system of "wall and floor tiles + mosaics + exterior wall tiles" meets the convenient needs of one-stop shopping. Trendy products such as rock slabs and marble tiles are created to meet the needs of individualization and trendiness. The specific performance is the application of trendy colors such as Pantone's 2021 popular color of the year, extreme gray, to create a textured home atmosphere; the use of gold large sizes such as 900x1800mm, upper walls and lower floors create an open space pattern, in line withCurrent home aesthetic.
3. The space is high-looking: the interior decoration with a combination of wall and floor tiles + mosaic has a more diverse appearance and more appealing visual effects, meeting the expectations of the new generation of customers for the home environment. From the perspective of home consumption preferences, appearance has become a key factor affecting decision-making. White Rabbit Ceramics combines the current popular The design aesthetics and appearance route enhance product competitiveness and become a hot spot for home consumption among young users.
Damai Research believes that this type of brand and product solutions for new consumer groups have the ability to seize new business opportunities in the architectural ceramics industry and open up future growth space.
