After the Lunar New Year, many home building materials stores chose to open early. As logistics gradually recovers, many building materials companies operating ceramic tiles have officially resumed business around the eighth day of the Lunar New Year. It has been two weeks since the terminal sales staff started working. What will the market situation be like in early spring?
Zhongtaojun conducted online interviews with home building materials stores, ceramic tile dealers, and store shopping guides across the country, and found that most people are full of confidence and expectations for the market prospects at the beginning of this year, and the terminal market is showing a trend of "spring preparations." Busy" scene. After communicating with these people, Zhongtaojun summarized the opportunities and challenges faced by ceramic tile sales during the spring period, and shared their coping strategies and inspiration.
Opportunity: The peak season for home improvement consumption begins early
After New Year's Day and before the Spring Festival, the sales situation of home building materials terminals is not optimistic. Some media reported that a merchant in a home furnishing store in Hunan closed less than 10 orders in January. "It has been like this since January. Less than 10 orders have been opened, and the number of visits has dropped by half compared to December last year." Ms. Chen, the person in charge of the Galaxy Carpet Store, revealed: "January has always been the off-season, and decorations are usually done at this time. There are very few customers and the transaction volume is even lower.” Mr. Jin, who runs a ceramic tile business in a store in Changsha, said: “Most of the orders we received in January 2021 were for basic ceramic tiles in the store, and the unit values were relatively high. Low, the average single value of ceramic tiles for the whole house is only about 10,000 yuan.”
It can be seen that the market suffered a small wave of cold wave before the Lunar New Year; thankfully, since the resumption of work at the beginning of the new year, the market has shown obvious signs of recovery. Zhongtaojun learned that in the past week, the purchasing volume of the national building materials market has been on the rise. The flow and popularity of major home furnishing stores have also gradually returned, and home improvement companies are speeding up to enter the stage of concentrated start and resumption of work.
A few days ago, staff at a Red Star Macalline mall in Jiangsu reported to Zhongtaojun that the sales of basic building materials products including ceramic tiles, floors, latex paints and various types of boards in their mall have increased significantly recently. Some well-known The brand's integrated kitchen and integrated bathroom products are basically ordered every day.
In addition, a dealer in Shandong who represents a high-end ceramic tile brand told Zhongtaojun that the current store orders are close to the same period in previous years, and far exceed the same period last year. “ The number of orders is growing every week now. According to tradition, the peak consumption season does not start until around May Day. This year it is estimated that it will come earlier. "In order to cater to this home decoration consumption boom, Shanxi Shuozhou Wells Ceramics held the first alliance event of the new year on February 28, which gained a lot of popularity.
Challenge: Visiting customers seem to have done enough homework
Opportunities and challenges always coexist. If you want to seize the business opportunities, the sales staff in the store must pass the professional skills assessment. The public's general impression of salespeople is that they are eloquent, have high emotional intelligence, and have strong appeal; however, when faced with "overly sober" consumers, even gold medal shopping guides/kings of signing orders will be embarrassed.
“Selling ceramic tiles is becoming more and more difficult.” Ms. Gao has been engaged in ceramic tile sales for more than ten years. In 2017, she began to work as a store manager for a first-line brand in Jinan Red Star Macalline. During the exchange, Zhongtaojun revealed: "Nowadays, there are fewer customers buying building materials than the three stores. Some of them even bring a 'strategist' with them to the store. They dare not receive customers unless they improve their business capabilities."
Ms. Zhang, another shopping guide in a ceramic tile store, feels the same way: “Nowadays, customers react very calmly to events and discounts. They are so calm that they don’t want unnecessary things no matter how cheap they are. And when it comes to discounts and discounts, During discounts, some customers will ask you to promise the lowest price (guaranteed price), otherwise they will not be interested in this activity at all. ”
In fact, with the openness and transparency of online information, consumers who go to the building materials market today are basically prepared and have done enough homework in advance. This type of people have their own clear judgments when choosing products. Of course, the deposits paid in advance are getting smaller and smaller. It can be said that consumption in the entire ceramic tile end market is becoming more rational and professional.
Response: Reject routines and win with service
“As customers become more professional, we have to be more professional than them. Playing tricks won’t work.” A dealer of New Zhongyuan Ceramics said in an interview with Zhongtaojun. Ms. Su, the person in charge of Xiamen Marco Polo Ceramics, said: “We will improve the service quality of terminal sales staff by conducting professional knowledge training, practice and service skills training from time to time. In addition, we also often organize sales staff to bring cleaning tools and gifts to customers. Return visit."
In order to provide consumers with more professional services and integrate service work into every link of "pre-sales, sales and after-sales", Marco Polo Ceramics planned the "Thanksgiving Service Month" activity. During the renovation process, the store's design team needs to go deep into the customer's home and closely follow up on every aspect from wall renovation, water and electricity positioning, layout design, to ceramic tile plan design and paving guidance. After the paving is completed, the after-sales service team needs to provide return visits to customers to inspect the paving effect and assist customers in matching soft furnishings.
A brand that also wins with service is Mona Lisa Tiles. Recently, Mona Lisa Tile launched the "Smile Service Day" activity. In addition to free reservations, professional shopping guides, design services, after-sales processing and cutting, product distribution, returns and exchanges, stores must also provide customers with experiences such as whole-house cleaning services, further enabling customers to move in with their bags. desire.
A considerate and worry-free home decoration experience is the key for consumers to remember a brand and establish a good impression. It can be seen that to deal with increasingly rational consumers, we must not only improve the professionalism of sales staff, but the best way is to impress them with sincere service.
Inspiration: Management is sometimes more important than brand strength
Having said all that, what’s the secret to dealers’ ever-growing performance? Is the brand chosen well? Is the channel doing well? Or is the team well built? Did the event go well?
According to incomplete statistics, at least hundreds of home furnishing, building materials, and decoration companies launched marketing activities in February, including offline promotions, live broadcasts, production of promotional videos, placement of targeted advertisements, use of satellite TV programs, etc.; As for the specific measures to convert orders into orders, most of them are flash sales, free order bonuses, free gifts, hot discounts, packages, coupons, large-amount coupons, event cards with various benefits, etc. 315 is coming soon, and it is expected that more brands will lead dealers across the country to launch a market offensive to compete for the first round of spring benefits. However, no matter how clever the strategic design provided by the headquarters, the implementation of the event will still be inseparable from the efficient execution and execution of the dealers. Effectively attract customers.
Nowadays, even the brand alliances organized in terminal home building materials stores gradually attach more importance to the execution and innovation assessment of cooperative merchants than to brand awareness. Mr. Wang, who sells ceramic tiles in a store in Shandong, said: "Inter-industry (alliances) must be able to help each other to complete orders, so this alliance is valuable." He told Zhongtaojun: "Doing cross-industry activities this year is different from previous ones.It’s the same. After the new year, we chose to cooperate with some brands that are more dynamic here, instead of blindly pursuing brands that are famous enough. Everyone came up with some popular products to offer discounts, and after planning, they trained and held meetings with the execution team every day, striving to win 315. ”
We often say "choice is greater than effort", and I believe that every agent also has this mentality when choosing a ceramic tile brand. After all, finding a brand is like finding a partner. People want to find one with better conditions, which is completely understandable. However, making the right choice does not require effort. Only by keeping up with consumption upgrades and changes in consumption patterns in a timely manner and broadening channels suitable for their own development over time can operators have the opportunity to obtain new growth points, and performance is the best proof.
Chain stores such as Red Star Macalline and Easyhome have always had a habit of announcing the performance rankings of each category in the mall this month. Recently, Zhongtaojun learned about the Juranzhijia Shishi Store, Red Star Macalline Xinzhou Store, Red Star Macalline Huangwu Store, Juranzhijia Huanghua Store, and Juranzhijia Spring Store, and found that the sales volume of these shopping malls Brands such as Bighorn Deer, Romario, Elizabeth, Owen Lai, Garcia, and Douglas appeared in the top three positions. Here I borrow the perspective of a dealer born after 1985: "Brand strength is just a ticket. How fast and far you can run on the track still depends on the dealer's operation and management."
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What kind of dealers do you think can survive better this spring? What kind of dealers will stay in the cold winter of 2020? Comments welcome.
