There was a word that became popular-"high-end customization" on CIFF Guangzhou this year,the word which originated from "advanced customization" in the clothing field, and represented "high-end customization" (including "advanced customization") in the custom home furniture field. Generally speaking, high-end customization is not for mass consumers, but for mid- to high-end people.
"High-end customization" is actually an old term. It originally belongs to the category of private customization and has strong high-end attributes. It's just that the custom home furniture industry in China abruptly made it a popular industry. Now, the term has been pushed back onto the hot topic of the industry.
"High-end customization" is now becoming a hot topic again, because domestic custom home furniture industry in China is currently facing a huge bottleneck of transformation and upgrading-The top brands of Chinese custom-made furniture companies are moving towards different industry ecosystems. The ordinary Chinese custom-made furniture brands maintain a relatively conservative development path in the industry, while the bottom-level Chinese custom-made furniture factories promote innovation but their influence in the market is Very small. In the face of fierce market competition, sharp decline in terminal traffic and profits, high-end customization seems to be a good option for Chinese brand furniture companies: On the one hand, many customized furniture brands hope to increase the customer unit price; on the other hand, new brands need to find their own circle of space.
In 2020, more and more Chinese custom home furniture brands are pouring into the track of "high-end customization" . This seems to be a way of "industrial upgrading". But is "high-end customization" really promising in China?
In my opinion, there are four major obstacles that need to be overcome in the development of high-end custom furniture brands in China:
First, consumers' brand awareness barriers. Small companies want to start their own brands, well-known companies want to make high-end customized brands more independent, and medium-sized companies want to upgrade and develop. These three types of companies all face a consumer's brand recognition barrier. This requires a large amount of investment from the corporate brand, and this investment may not be effective immediately. This is the biggest challenge in the transformation of high-end customized furniture brands. How to break it? It is obviously difficult to highlight high-end customization only by the construction of terminal stores, because the current offline traffic is inherently scarce.
China's customized furniture industry has experienced 20 years of development and has become civilian customization and popular customization. At this time, traditional furniture companies have to transform into high-end custom-made furniture companies, and the service may not be able to keep up, and the new furniture brands do not have much strength to build a very strong service network; large brands launch proprietary Sub-brands also face this problem. If small and medium-sized custom furniture brands want to raise the brand level, they can't be solved by changing the visual image of the store and shouting a slogan. Behind it is a comprehensive factor of business ability and strategic patience.
Third, design obstacles. Design is claimed to be the core competitiveness of the custom furniture industry, but in fact, it has become a tool of the sales department for Chinese designers. As we all know, the current customized furniture has completed the informatization upgrade in design, and the further upgrade of the customization industry is subject to these informatization companies, which means that the customized home furnishing industry needs software companies to provide platform support for its design. This greatly released the productivity of designers, and effectively promoted the prosperity of the industry. But one of its drawbacks is that custom furniture design software has become the shackles of designers. It limits their freedom and has turned design into a fool-like multiple-choice question. Customization, which was originally full of individualization, is gradually moving towards modularization, immobilization, simplification, and foolishness, which invisibly hinders the further upgrade of the customization industry in terms of design. The completion of informatization actually reduces the subjective initiative of designers, and inhibits their design ideas and creativity.
Third, design obstacles. Design is claimed to be the core competitiveness of the custom furniture industry, but in fact, it has become a tool of the sales department for Chinese designers. As we all know, the current customized furniture has completed the informatization upgrade in design, and the further upgrade of the customization industry is subject to these informatization companies, which means that the customized home furnishing industry needs software companies to provide platform support for its design. This greatly released the productivity of designers, and effectively promoted the prosperity of the industry. But one of its drawbacks is that custom furniture design software has become the shackles of designers. It limits their freedom and has turned design into a fool-like multiple-choice question. Customization, which was originally full of individualization, is gradually moving towards modularization, immobilization, simplification, and foolishness, which invisibly hinders the further upgrade of the customization industry in terms of design. The completion of informatization actually reduces the subjective initiative of designers, and inhibits their design ideas and creativity.
In my opinion, custom home furnishing companies used to be called "what you see is what you get", that is, the design that consumers see becomes the real life in the home. But the core of the custom home furnishing industry in the future lies in "what you want is what you get", that is, the beautiful picture in the minds of consumers and designers becomes the home life of consumers. This is the core that the custom home furnishing industry can regain its momentum of development. . In this process, how the designer team can play a strong leading role in serving customers is particularly critical. It was supposed to be the longest long board in the custom furniture industry to serve customers, but now it has become a collapsed part covered by design software.
Fourth, obstacles to habit. After more than 20 years of development, China's custom furniture industry has emerged as a rapidly developing industry and brought unprecedented prosperity. Most companies are on the same mass-customized track and are accustomed to such thinking and operation. The operation of high-end customization is quite unfamiliar. The easy mistake at this time is to operate a high-end customized brand with the old team and old thinking. The comfort zone is difficult to break through, and the new realm is even more difficult to enter. This is the biggest obstacle that restricts the development of high-end custom furniture brands.
