The post-95 white-collar Ouyang spent Saturday like this: in the morning, he made a convenient and exquisite nutritious breakfast with a sandwich machine and coffee machine; At noon, make a plate of fried chicken legs and chicken nuggets with an air fryer, and then match it with a cup of freshly squeezed orange juice; At night, operate the floor sweeping robot to clean the room, and then cook a pot of red jujube ginger tea in a health pot

Now many young people are like this on weekends, and the household appliances they use also go into thousands of households with the product characteristics of "small and beautiful" and become indispensable assistants for home and office.

The outbreak of small household appliances is not an accident, but the result of many tuyeres.

01 booming market
With the development of society, the rise of single economy, lazy economy and house economy has become the basis of the popularity of small household appliances. Under the influence of the epidemic, small household appliances have cut into every corner of family life. From portable breakfast machines to multi-functional frying pans, and then to the floor washing machines recommended by the whole network recently, the small household appliance market has exploded frequently.

Public data show that in the first half of this year, the overall scale of China's small household appliance market grew rapidly, with retail sales exceeding 25 billion yuan and sales reaching 119 million units. Among them, cleaning appliances continued to maintain a strong growth momentum, with the market scale reaching 13.6 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 40.2%. Most of the people willing to pay for small appliances are young people.

All along, young consumers have a high degree of acceptance of emerging things. The small household appliance market attracts consumers through novel and personalized products, which is greatly different from the stereotyped traditional household appliances. Coupled with the concepts of personalized customization and intelligent manufacturing, it has completely captured the hearts of young people.

From the market data in recent years, small household appliances are one of the few categories in the whole household appliance industry that can maintain stable growth, and the reason for the booming market of small household appliances is also inseparable from the penetration rate and the external environment.

The survey shows that the number of small household appliances in the United States is 31.5, ranking first in the world; The number of small household appliances in Britain, Australia, Germany and France is between 20-30, all at a high level; The number of small household appliances owned by Chinese families is only 9.5, which still has a large space for popularization compared with European and American countries.

Secondly, in the first half of 2021, China's economy continued to recover growth, with GDP growing by 12.7% year-on-year; From January to June, the total retail sales of social consumer goods increased by 23% year-on-year, the growth rate of residents' disposable income increased significantly, and the consumption potential is expected to accelerate. With the continuous growth of consumer demand and the accelerated transformation and upgrading of consumption structure, the small household appliance market is expected to show an upward trend.

From January to February 2020, the registered number of small household electrical appliance enterprises in China was about 12000, and from May to October 2020, the registered number reached 114000, with an average monthly increase of about twice that at the beginning of 2020. However, more than half of the new small household appliance enterprises focus on brand operation, not original manufacturing. Therefore, there are many problems in small household appliances, and over design and safety make complaints about netizens.

02 love marketing
The reporter of business found that many small household appliance brands save the cost of offline operation, specialize in online channels, and vigorously promote them through social networking, e-commerce, live broadcasting and other platforms. Little red book, micro-blog, jitter and other traffic platforms have been broken tiktok about the topic of "small household appliances". Video of all kinds of evaluation and goods is everywhere.

Traditional household appliance brands are facing the migration of mainstream consumer groups from the Post-70s and 80s to the post-90s and 00s, and media access channels are also migrating from traditional media to new media, which is also a part that must be occupied in the process of small household appliances change.

Generally speaking, there are three main steps in the marketing of small household appliances:
First, KOL launch to create regular popular models. In terms of the launch strategy of Xiaohong book, cooperate with bloggers from multiple levels, attract consumers' attention and discussion through the grass planting of star bloggers, and then use the evaluation of head and waist experts to achieve real grass planting and guide consumers to buy. In addition to the star KOL's ability to "plant grass" and "bring goods", plain people's sharing is also the favorite content of xiaohongshu user group. After purchasing, plain people will share the product use experience on xiaohongshu, forming secondary communication and sound volume superposition.

The second is to popularize knowledge and establish a professional image. Whether it tiktok appliances, or small appliances for big appliances, will be ready for some dry cargo contents to be released in micro-blog, jowl, and know how. This not only obtains the blessing of short video traffic, but also meets the needs of multi scene reading.

Finally, they will release multi-dimensional notes on home appliance maintenance and cleaning. Using such high-quality and high-frequency content to undertake and retain more public domain traffic to the private domain pool can also obtain traffic continuously at a lower cost.

Through the above Internet marketing methods, small household appliances have successfully aroused the resonance of young people, cultivated consumers' awareness of the brand and won the victory of marketing.
In addition to marketing means, the best-selling of small household appliances is also closely related to the supply side and the demand side.

From the customer demand side, among all kinds of small household appliances, personalized and diversified kitchen small appliances that make life more convenient and improved small appliances focusing on environmental protection, sterilization and other health functions are more favored. The pursuit and experience of exquisite life are hidden in small household appliances, which are also opportunities for consumption upgrading.

From the supply side, small household appliances are mainly concentrated in these four categories: food cooking appliances, small cooking appliances, small home environment appliances and personal care appliances. In addition, there are good living things such as shoe dryer, yogurt machine and self heating cup. The products are full of patterns, low unit price and installation free, so as to solve the worries of consumers.

The market demand was further subdivided, the consumption upgrading trend was accelerated, and small household appliances ushered in the heyday. However, it is far from enough for small household appliances to seek to occupy the market in the long run. In the competition of homogeneous products, the key to stand out is to ensure product quality and directly meet the needs of users.

03 starts with your appearance and is loyal to the second-hand
"I bought this egg cooker in my head after reading the product drawing. After using it several times, I felt that the heating was very slow, and the eggs were always not cooked, which took too long. Now I can only sell it at half price on idle fish." the reporter of business found that many people hang out their sandwich machine, milkshake cup, juicer and other small household appliances, "ash falling small household appliances come out sincerely", At the same time, the words "brand new" and "new in the Ninth Five Year Plan" were also printed.

Many young consumers said that the online red small appliances planted on the social platform did not work as well as expected after use. They had no choice but to embark on the road of "abandoning it as a pity, leaving it useless, only online photography".
More and more small household appliances have gradually become "disposable" products, which are labeled as "flashy" by consumers. Why do small household appliances, which have been regarded as top students in the household appliance market, fall into this embarrassing situation?

The first is the low net interest rate. The data show that in recent ten years, the average gross profit margin of Gree Electric Appliance has been more than 30%, and the net profit margin has been maintained at about 12%, up to 16%. However, only a few categories in the small household appliance industry have realized a gross profit of more than 30%, and the vast majority have a gross profit margin of less than 20%.

For example, the price of Xiaoxiong electric appliance, which takes cost performance as the selling point, is often set at 50-60% of the industry price, the gross profit margin is further reduced, less than 17%, and the net profit margin hovers around 8% all year round. With low gross profit and low customer unit price, even with the sales of hundreds of millions of pieces, the market scale can not compete with "large household appliances".

Secondly, the quality is not up to standard, and the repurchase rate is low.

In August 2021, the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Market Supervision announced that the quality supervision and random inspection of small household appliances produced and sold in Beijing were carried out according to law. The results of the random inspection found that 18 groups of small household appliances did not meet the corresponding quality standards, and most of the unqualified products were popular categories such as portable juice cup, electric cup and multi-functional electric cooker.

In fact, there have been many incidents about the disqualification of wanghong small household appliances in sampling inspection and the recall of enterprises due to quality problems.

Finally, we despise the R & D side. Taking Xiaoxiong electric as an example, according to the data released by Xiaoxiong electric, the sales expenses of Xiaoxiong electric in recent three years were 286 million yuan, 396 million yuan and 440 million yuan respectively, accounting for more than 65% of the four expenses in the current period. From 2018 to 2020, the R & D expenses were 47.39 million yuan, 60.14 million yuan and 105 million yuan respectively, accounting for 2.32%, 2.85% and 2.87% of the total revenue respectively Electrical appliances have more than 500 patents, but less than 10 high-level invention patents on creativity and technology.

The way of emphasizing marketing over R & D is often related to the channel composition. From the proportion of online revenue of Xiaoxiong electric in previous periods, it can be seen that the online revenue accounted for nearly 90% in the three years from 2015 to 2017, which is overly dependent on the platform. Like the Antarctica and perfect diary, as long as the marketing is stopped, the sales volume will decline.

Some experts said that at the beginning of this year, the overall consumer demand showed signs of weakness. High-end consumer demand continued to be strong, but the consumption of the general public gradually tended to be rational. Whether from user feedback or industry data, the challenges faced by the small household appliance market may have just begun.