All signs now show that although small home appliances are small, the market is not small at all. Whether it is the export situation or the booming domestic sales, the small home appliance industry has completely started the "explosive order" mode. However, behind the prosperous market, there is embarrassment that makes people happy and worrying. This can't help but make people think about it. What happened to the small home appliance market?

Hot market sales

According to third-party statistics, overseas demand for small home appliances has increased significantly. In the first half of this year, my country's exports of electric frying pans, bread machines, and juicers increased by 62.9%, 34.7%, and 12.1%, respectively. As for the performance of the small home appliance market in the second half of this year, it can even be described as hot. Individual single products are in great demand in the European and American markets, such as coffee machines with a year-on-year growth of at least 20%.

In addition, according to customs data, in the past six months, my country's monthly export value of microwave ovens has all ranked among the top ten monthly export values, and monthly historical records were set in April, July and August.

On the whole, China's home appliance exports have shown tenacious resilience in the face of the impact of the global epidemic, and export growth is indeed reasonable. In a substantive sense, the export growth of small household appliances is affected by the objective environment, but also driven by internal factors. After some discussion, we believe that the export growth of small household appliances is mainly due to three reasons:

Naturally, the first to bear the brunt is the boosting role of the "home economy". We all know that under the influence of the new crown pneumonia epidemic, the normal life order of human beings has been pressed the pause button, and as people stay at home more time, this directly increases the frequency of use of home appliances, thus driving small home appliances overseas. The increase in demand.

In addition, it is worth mentioning that from the perspective of order structure, the impact of the "home economy" on products is also slightly different. Let's take the example of small bakery appliances, in which the orders for ovens and bread machines are higher than other products.

Secondly, the booming of China's small home appliance export market is closely related to the major strategic achievements of the domestic epidemic prevention and control war zone. We all know that the new crown pneumonia epidemic broke out in China in the first quarter. At this time, China’s economic activities were deeply affected, and trade and economic activities were almost at a standstill. As the epidemic in China was brought under control in the second quarter, my country’s economic activities gradually recovered. While the situation in China is improving, overseas epidemics are spreading around the world. From the postponement of orders to the restoration of orders, to the skyrocketing of overseas orders, China's exports of small home appliances will show a V-shaped reversal in 2020.

Of course, here is also inseparable from the country's measures to stabilize trade. When the epidemic situation in China is under effective control, the state calls on qualified companies to resume work and production as soon as possible. In this special period of the epidemic, as the upstream and downstream manufacturing industries return to normal rhythm, the advantages of the industrial chain are further highlighted. At the same time, various national ministries and commissions have formulated a series of trade stabilization measures in response to the severe export situation, adopted various trade facilitation measures to help enterprises further improve export efficiency, and stably provide consumers of various countries with various home appliances.

Finally, during the epidemic period, some overseas electrical appliance manufacturers had to temporarily close their production bases, resulting in a shortage of production capacity, which also provided more opportunities for China's home appliance exports.

In fact, today's small home appliance market is not just as simple as the strong demand for overseas orders, it also presents a good situation in the form of domestic sales. According to third-party statistics, on the first day of Double Eleven, Huawei, Midea, Haier and other brands sold on the Tmall platform had transactions exceeding 100 million yuan within one minute of the event. In addition, a total of 1,142 small home appliance brands recorded a 1,000% year-on-year increase in sales. Among them, Cobos and its small home appliance brand Tianke exceeded 100 million in sales, an increase of 3000% year-on-year. JD.com's full-day turnover on November 1 increased by over 90% year-on-year, and core categories such as 3C home appliances continued to lead the industry. Thirty minutes before November 1, the turnover of Cobos sweeping robots increased by more than 300% year-on-year. In addition, the daily turnover of personal care small appliances increased by 180% year-on-year.

It is an indisputable fact that the market for small household appliances is booming, and both domestic sales and exports are eye-catching.

Brand competition is fierce

Behind the hot market of small home appliances, it also indicates that the brand competition on the small home appliance track has also entered a fierce stage.

According to relevant data from Tianyan Check, in January-February this year, the number of small household appliance companies registered was only over 12,000. In the following two months, the number of small household appliance companies registered a short-term blowout, and the number of small household appliances company registrations increased sharply from March to April. To 36,000 (all enterprise status). As of November 1, 2020, my country has added 150,000 small household appliances related enterprises this year.

In fact, this is also easy to understand. Everyone has seen the business opportunities in the small home appliance market. In addition, the small home appliance industry itself has a relatively low technical threshold, so it is really not surprising that it is a brainstorm. However, the market cake itself is so big, there are more people who are worried about it, and it is normal for the market structure to change.

In the past, the small home appliance market mainly showed the characteristics of oligopoly. Midea, Supor, and Joyoung firmly controlled the top 3 position in the market. Now, with the addition of more and more new brands, the elderly in the small home appliance market We are also beginning to face younger generations such as Cubs coming to play in the pavilion.

According to the previous report of the third quarter of 2020 issued by the old small household appliance company Supor, due to the impact of the epidemic and the implementation of the new revenue standards, Supor's revenue and net profit in the first three quarters decreased by nearly 10% year-on-year.

Unlike Supor's inability to conceal the decline, the development trend of the newcomer Cubs is also very good. According to Xiaoxiong’s recent third-quarter financial report, in the third quarter of 2020, the company achieved a net profit of 67.75 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 69.99%. Since its listing, Xiaoxiong’s revenue growth has been significantly higher than the industry’s average performance.

Obviously, this has revealed the most cruel aspect of China's small home appliances. The old industry giants are facing the kicking of new players, and under the differentiated play of emerging small home appliances brands, the waves are directly behind. It doesn't seem impossible to shoot the front waves on the beach.

However, behind the hot market, there are also many problems in the small home appliance industry, which are worthy of vigilance among established industry giants and new Internet celebrities. As the saying goes: "Success and failure are also failures." The low technical threshold of the small home appliance industry makes it easy for new players to enter this field, but the lack of core technology leads to the homogenization of products; at the same time , The small home appliance industry's model of focusing on marketing rather than research and development has brought market sales, while product quality problems have become the hardest hit area that plagues the healthy development of the small home appliance industry. In addition, the small home appliance industry still lacks a complete after-sales service system, focusing only on mass production and the pursuit of profit, while ignoring the importance of after-sales service.

Cost pressure

Although the small home appliance market seems to be booming, there are hidden bitterness behind the prosperity. This sadness is not an inevitable characteristic of prosperity itself, but the small home appliance industry, which is surrounded by prosperity, is also facing the embarrassment of cost pressure and shortage of manpower.

Let us first look at such a set of data.

At the end of March and early April this year, the price of bare copper was 39,000 yuan/ton, and on October 20 was 51,700 yuan/ton, a month-on-month increase of 32.56%; cold rail steel plates were 4,300 yuan/ton in early April and 5,300 yuan/ton on October 20, a month-on-month increase of 23.26% ; Tin steel sheet was 5000 yuan/ton in early April, 5700 yuan/ton on October 20, an increase of 14% from the previous month; at the end of March and early April this year, the price of plastic ABS 121H dropped to about 9400 yuan/ton, and the price at the end of October was 17000 yuan. /Ton, an increase of about 80% month-on-month; at the end of March, the price of plastic PP was 6,500 yuan/ton, and the price at the end of October was 8,250 yuan/ton, up 26.9% from the previous month.

This means that behind the boom in the market, the small home appliance industry is struggling under the pressure of skyrocketing orders and skyrocketing costs. In fact, in addition to the rise in the price of upstream raw materials, the problem of manpower shortage is also an urgent problem for small home appliance companies to solve.

In this regard, the person in charge of a kitchenware manufacturer in Dongguan said to the outside: "The difficulty of recruiting has become more and more obvious in the past few years. To retain people, you need to be given satisfactory wages. After the epidemic, many people choose to stay near their homes and find jobs. With the shortage of manpower and the increase in orders, many overseas customers purchased in advance for Christmas and Halloween in September this year. The production line was basically fully loaded, and sometimes it was too busy."

In addition, some people in the industry said that their net profit margin is only 4%, and some products are not yet, and the cost of exchange rate increase alone has swallowed profits. Since the price of export fans is basically set at a price in August, although their fan orders in 2021 are 50% more than in 2020, due to rising material prices, strong RMB exchange rates, rising labor costs and increased plant rents, foreign trade is now The more orders you receive, the more you lose.

What does this mean? The increase in overseas sales caused by the impact of the epidemic is a good thing for the company. Small home appliance companies can take this opportunity to explore overseas markets and channels to pave the way for subsequent export development; but what is more embarrassing now is that the small home appliance industry has a low threshold The status quo, this has led to serious product homogeneity, the market has started a price war, which one is cheaper to buy, coupled with the increase in raw material prices, labor and rental costs, and export shipping costs are not cheap, which determines the small The home appliance industry just seems to be more prosperous. Everyone doesn't make much money without changing the price.

At the end of writing, the editor wants to say that under the new crown pneumonia epidemic, my country's small home appliances have come out of their own glory, and both domestic sales and exports are eye-catching. This is clearly the best time for the small home appliance market, but if it is only to fight for sales, this is of course not advisable. . If small household electrical appliance companies want to gain more initiative in going overseas, low prices are obviously unsustainable. Only by creating their own brand characteristics and high-quality products and services can they truly become China's postcards and go global.