The new channel of online marketing for the ceramic industry, the beginning of e-commerce

E-commerce or EC (English: E-Commerce) refers to electronic transaction activities and related service activities on the Internet, intranet and VANValue Added Network. It is a traditional business activity The collective term for electronic and networked links. E-commerce includes electronic currency exchange, supply chain management, electronic trading markets, network marketing, online transaction processing, electronic data interchange (EDI), inventory management and automatic data collection systems. In this process, the information technology used includes: Internet, extranet, e-mail, database, electronic catalog and mobile phone.　

　　 Jiantao e-commerce started

　　 E-commerce, a name familiar and unfamiliar to the ceramic industry. What is familiar is that most of the Taoist people have used e-commerce experience, such as: e-mail, online shopping, etc.; unfamiliar is that the entire industry is only at the level of hearing, discussing, and trying out e-commerce models. Or just think that e-commerce is network marketing, a simple channel model.

We can see that the real e-commerce is to "electronicize and network all aspects of traditional business activities." For the ceramics industry, through the network, dealers’ online orders, consumer purchases, and consumer data collection are realized. And consumption habits, and present this information directly on the production side and logistics side to complete a series of links from order placement to shipment to logistics distribution in one step.

　　 In fact, not only the ceramic industry, but also many domestic industries are still in the initial stage of e-commerce, that is, online marketing. But compared with the ceramics industry, other industries, especially furniture and electrical appliances in the same household industry chain, have taken the lead in cultivating consumers' online shopping habits.

　　 This can be seen from the current data search on Taobao, an online retail circle in Asia, that the number of furniture products reached 141,367, home appliances were 78910, and ceramic tiles were 39,164. In Taobao Mall, there are hundreds of stores opened by furniture brands, and there are only 5 ceramics, Dongpeng, Marco Polo, Jin Yi Tao, Guppy Mosaic and Shanghai Doll’s Art Bricks. The first four are all Guangdong enterprises. Among them, Dongpeng and Marco Polo, which we know well, are brand flagship stores directly opened by manufacturers, and Jin Yitao is a specialty store opened by its Beijing distributors. There are only two brands of sanitary ware, Dongpeng and Huida, and most of the rest are made by A mall set up by a trading company.

　　 At the same time, when searching for “tiles” on Taobao, only 20 brands appeared, which is far from the number of independent brands owned by China Jiantao. Although Taobao is not representative of all, its impact on the changes in Chinese shopping patterns is strong enough to explain. The level of participation on Taobao is still the same, even more so on the exclusive e-commerce website operated by the brand independently.

　　 Internet marketing is only one part of e-commerce, and the application of Internet marketing by domestic ceramic companies is still in the trial stage.

　　 Jiantao network marketing status

　　 Compared with the collective aphasia of big brands in online marketing, a large number of "individual operators" swarmed on the online platform, and various groups who used different channels to obtain products opened online stores on Taobao. The real cause of what many people in the industry say is that online marketing disrupts and disrupts market prices lies in these so-called "stretch soldiers."

From the comparison of the products in the flagship store of the brand on Taobao with the price of the ordinary Taobao store, the price of the ordinary small store is more than 50% cheaper than the price of the mall, let alone the price of the physical store. In comparison, its absolute advantage in price has become the choice of people who choose online shopping, and there has also been a phenomenon of "copycats driving out the genuine". This has also become a reason why many brands are reluctant to get involved in online sales.

　　 An industry person said that these small stores have large-brand products at preferential prices, and some of them can reach dozens of millions in a year, more than a dealer’s store. But once there is a problem, the damage to the brand image is self-evident. Therefore, it is inevitable to do some "strike hard" to prevent the chaos of the price system from hitting the enthusiasm of dealers.

　　 Although there are not many online shops independently operated by brands, the business model is not too different from other industries. Generally, there are the following models:

　　 Service type for distributors: suitable for brands with relatively complete channels and comprehensive distribution in traditional distribution. This kind of enterprise opens up the network marketing channel, the initial stage is to better serve the dealers, open up more marketing channels for them. Orders on the Internet will be allocated according to regions. For customers in Chengdu, the manufacturer will return the information to the Chengdu dealer, who will carry out distribution and after-sales service.

Under this model, there are two directions. One is that the products on the online store are all existing products, and the distributor can directly ship the goods after receiving the order assigned by the manufacturer, even if the price is higher than that of the physical store. Cheap, but because it is a profit-making dealer, the impact will not be great. The other is to avoid diverting customers from physical stores and develop a production line for the online store to produce network products, that is, to distribute profit to distributors and expand the product line.

　　Completely different from the previous model is that some brands do not have physical stores or have a small number of entities. These brands are directly developed by manufacturers for online marketing and become their main channels. The operating cost of this method is relatively small, and sales volume will not increase much in the initial stage. However, since the manufacturer is a supplier, there will be no confusion in the price system of multiple operations, and it has become a distinctive store. This method is more suitable for some new brands with personality and convenience for DIY or brands with few physical stores.

　　 These two models are currently the mainstream methods of several brands independently operating on Taobao. There is another model that has received much attention and welcome in other industries, that is, "Internet distributors".

　　 In July, Alibaba held the "2010 Guangzhou Internet Goods Fair" in Guangzhou, which established a platform for offline marketing of online dealers. Among them, many brands are physical distributors, but also online distributors. This also depends on the operation of the network. It is not a model that replaces traditional channels, but a form of segmentation and supplementation.

　　 Compared with the geographical separation of physical stores, online dealers can say that there is no boundary at all. Some brands have established strict price systems and supervision methods. Because the online prices are very transparent, monitoring is not difficult. Some brands also divide certain areas, but whether this is useful for borderless networks remains to be verified.

　　Online distributors are a low-cost operation method for both manufacturers and distributors. As long as strict and strict policies are formulated and supervision is in place, it is a way to be done.

　　The big conjecture of future building ceramics e-commerce

With the large-scale application of e-commerce in social life and production, the application of it in the building ceramic industry is still in the stage of exploration. Combining the existing mature models of other industries with the semi-finished characteristics of building ceramics, especially ceramic tiles, it may be useful to the building ceramic industry Make some guesses about the future model of e-commerce.

　　 The establishment of large-scale online building materials malls and the emergence of OEMs: Just like Red Star Macalline and Yuranzhijia in traditional channels, it is not impossible that specialized building materials malls appear in e-commerce. Not every brand will establish an e-commerce network, but a professional e-commerce platform with technology and promotion advantages can achieve resource integration, reduce the operating cost of brand e-commerce, and concentrate a large number of brands in more mature building materials malls for unified promotion and convergence Popularity can be regarded as a professional online building materials market. At the same time, such large-scale online building materials malls can use OEM to operate their own brands after they have established a certain degree of brand awareness. This can learn from the rules and models of OEM-owned brands in shopping channels such as Carrefour and Watsons. In the furniture industry, this kind of online shop + OEM model has emerged.

　　The second is the realization of the overall home furnishing model: For a single-brand e-commerce platform, the result of online gathering popularity is that it can realize the multi-category operation of the overall home furnishing. When a single-brand platform is recognized by consumers, it is matched with related accessories and other independent brand household products, such as tiles, bathroom, cabinets, lighting and other complete household products, which can be operated on the Internet at a lower level than the physical operation Cost realizes the brand's creation and appeal of the overall home furnishing industry. The main basis lies in the accumulation of online popularity. This has been the business model of Vancl Eslite, which has been focusing on women's clothing, children's clothing, and footwear, and Amazon.com, which has expanded from books to consumer products, from the beginning of making men's shirts.

The other model is: the attraction of e-commerce platforms lies in the use of a network to realize the integration of raw material management, production, logistics, sales, and terminal feedback, databases, dealer inventory, etc. Such integration has a great effect on brands reducing their production costs. Great promotion, while reducing the operating costs caused by information errors in their respective communications. In addition, the establishment of databases for brands and distributors to synchronize and keep abreast of consumers' consumption habits and preferences, designers' design needs, etc. has become more convenient and direct communication.

With the transformation of the main shopping habits of the new generation of building materials consumption, the gradual popularization of mobile 3G and Iphone, and the maturity of network 3D display technology, it is not difficult to imagine that one day, consumers can browse the network ceramic mall online through their mobile phones and see In the sample room, place an order after selecting a certain product, and the payment will be completed.

margins of 16.74 per cent and 119.87 respectively.