Floor hot spots show market trends

As the atmosphere surrounding Double Eleven builds up, it has quickly transformed into an e-commerce extravaganza. The impressive figures have left businesses from all sectors thrilled. Everyone is now scrambling to find opportunities, including the flooring and other home construction material industries. Some people jokingly remarked on Weibo that nowadays, what we talk about during Double Eleven is more like an electronic carnival rather than a bachelor's festival. The CCTV daily newsletter mentioned that apart from home appliances, 3C electronics, and clothing, this year's highlight was the involvement of home electrical suppliers in the e-commerce frenzy. For instance, the homepage of the US-based Lele Home Network is now brimming with excitement—offers like 5% discounts, red envelope grabs, and one-yuan spikes are everywhere. Even the official microblog of the American Music brand is promoting iPad3 giveaways. It seems everyone is eager to celebrate this grand festival! Tmall’s Double Eleven sales data revealed that the flagship stores of Jack Jones, Camel Clothing, and All Friends Home generated over 100 million yuan in sales that day. Among these, home building materials also performed admirably. On the same day, floor sales constituted a significant portion of the total revenue from home construction materials. Although home e-commerce started later than 3C electronics and clothing, it has emerged as a rising star in the e-commerce world. Brands are flexibly and comfortably engaging in promotions to capture consumer attention. Thus, for the entire flooring industry, the advent of floor e-commerce marks progress within the sector. Just a few years ago, Double Eleven was mostly about purchasing fast-moving consumer goods. Now, customers can enjoy substantial discounts on large-scale flooring products, making their dreams of a new home more attainable. Despite some achievements made by certain floor e-commerce companies during Double Eleven, the traditional flooring industry still faces challenges. However, in the latter half of 2012, under the pressure of the industry寒冬 (cold winter), the flooring industry launched a warming alliance movement, providing both companies and consumers with significant benefits. Since 2009, Nature Floor has taken the lead in collaborating with six major domestic industry giants such as European Cabinets, Dongpeng Ceramics, NVC Lighting, Red Apple Furniture, and Midea Air Conditioning. The "mutual benefit alliance" garnered significant attention from the flooring industry but hadn't found the perfect opportunity—until now. As affiliate marketing continues to exert its collective influence, at the end of 2012, with Chengchengcheng as the platform, 1,200 settled brands participated in the “2012 Grand Final Sale.” Additionally, leveraging major capital stores, Nature Flooring, Dongpeng Tiles, Moussing Cookware, and 8 other brands formed the Champion Alliance Beijing Station Super Group Purchase event. These two home marketing campaigns pushed the alliance to new heights. With ongoing exploration and advancements by various flooring companies, national policies have also improved, laying a solid foundation for the healthy growth of the flooring industry. According to news reports, to standardize domestic home furnishing industry trading standards and create a better shopping environment, China's first domestic home improvement industry standard is expected to be introduced in November 2012. Wang Min, Vice President of the China Business Federation, stated that this standard primarily addresses issues such as unsatisfactory flooring quality, imperfect service standards, poor environmental performance, unsatisfactory charging standards, and counterfeit flooring products within the domestic home improvement industry. This represents another guarantee for consumers following the state's "floor renewal" policy. At the same time, the introduction of such a system will undoubtedly expose some issues within the industry. Consumers will gain a clearer understanding of industry dynamics, forcing struggling companies to face consequences—or even potentially causing industry shuffling. Formal, consumer-friendly businesses will undoubtedly earn recognition and market share. From this perspective, under the continuous improvement of national policies, the domestic flooring industry should further diversify its product offerings. Additionally, household electrical suppliers could emerge as a new highlight in the industry. However, the exact situation remains to be seen at the end of the year.