Year-end home textile promotions heat up; reporter store visit reminds consumers to beware of traps
News in brief (Light Textile Reporter/Zhu Fang) Compared with previous years, this winter is not too cold, but the “promotion” battle among home textile merchants is growing ever fiercer. Whether online home textile brands or brick-and-mortar home textile stores, all are uniformly offering “discount promotions,” with prices slashed to the bottom, tempting consumers.
Breaking the “rigid demand” buying mindset; online promotion prices near freezing point
Online shopping has changed our lives. Even home textile products, long recognized as “rigid demand goods,” have gradually become “fast-moving consumer goods.”
Since the online shopping carnival “Double Eleven” mega-sale, home textile brands' promotional discount activities have continued. Randomly opening the online flagship stores of major home textile brands, one can see discounts of varying degrees. Home textile brands such as Mengjie Home Textiles, Boyang Home Textiles, Shengyu Home Textiles, Nanfang Qinshi, and Veken Home Textiles all participated in the December 3 “the more you gather, the more cost-effective” event, with discounts starting at as low as 2 zhe (80% off), once again pushing home textile product prices to freezing point.
After creating the “Double Eleven” sales miracle, Taobao was again brewing a “Double Twelve” crazy big markdown, with all kinds of promotional ads surging in wave after wave. Home textile brands such as Peacebird landed on advertising platforms early for “Double Twelve,” with half-price discounts, capped at 50% off, leaving consumers unable to resist.
Exquisite and cozy pictures, tempting prices - white-collar online shopping expert Ms. Chen could never control herself whenever she saw them. She said that only after shopping for bedding online did she realize that bedding prices could be so low and that there was so much room to choose patterns and styles. Home textile brands seen in physical stores basically all have flagship stores online, making purchasing convenient. In the past, bedding was replaced only once every few years; now it is replaced every few months, almost as frequently as changing clothes.
E-commerce is too crazy; traditional shopping malls struggle to survive in the cracks with powerful discounts
From the “Double Eleven” e-commerce shopping carnival to the upcoming “Double Twelve” shopping craze, the traditional department stores squeezed in between seem to be struggling to survive in the cracks. As the first mall to offer discounts this winter, New World Mall used point redemption for coupons, with some brands discounted as low as 3 zhe (70% off), while Paris Spring even put out tempting slogans such as “three days citywide with no closing,” “spend 99, get 70 off,” and a free iPhone5 with qualifying purchases.
On November 23, New World Department Store on Nanjing Road kicked off this winter's first “mall defense battle,” using a “wedding festival” as a gimmick; the three consecutive days of discount activities attracted many citizens. According to a salesperson at the down quilt stall, on ordinary days the stall sold fewer than 10 quilts a day, but this time 400 were ordered in one day. Many customers could not rush over in time and came back to pay after making the trip. Older women insist on seeing to believe; they would rather wait several days just to watch the material being stuffed into the quilt with their own eyes.
Ten Paris Spring stores collectively began a 3-day “no closing” extravaganza on November 30, and many consumers came hours early to line up and wait for the mall to open. “I came at after 8 in the morning, hoping to get in early.” The Paris Spring Wujiaochang store opened at 12 noon last Friday; by after 10 in the morning, hundreds of people were already lined up outside waiting, and some young people took leave specifically just to join the discount excitement. Near midnight, most shops on Huaihai Road had turned off their lights, and there were not many people on the street, but Paris Spring was still brightly lit and bustling.
Are sharp price cuts due to inflated prices or excessive inventory?
Why do home textile stores frequently offer discounts, and with such force? Bedding that costs over a thousand yuan at the drop of a hat goes on discount just like that, and the discounts are so tempting - how much water is in its listed price, and what exactly is the cost?
Judging from the recent financial reports of several home textile listed companies in the mainland, home textile enterprises generally had relatively high inventory this year, and the three giants of the home textile industry, Luolai, Mengjie, and Fuanna, were likewise deeply troubled. When inventory pressure is high and capital pressure is high, it is easy to start a price war, and enterprises would rather reduce profits, with some even selling at a loss.
“A 50% discount is understandable; it may be that the product life cycle has arrived, or inventory pressure is high, but offering 2 zhe (80% off), or even 1.5 zhe (85% off), is very likely because the original price was inflated.” Regarding this situation, Manager Qu of Luolai Home Textiles said, “The current pricing in the home textile market is rather chaotic. Some enterprises mark whatever price they like, resulting in a lot of water in prices, and then they offer a super-low discount to attract customers and make them feel they got a bargain.”
An industry insider revealed that some home textile enterprises deliberately inflate prices in order to participate in mall anniversary promotions. “An ordinary pure cotton four-piece set is priced at more than 4,000 yuan, and then discounted by 2 zhe (80% off) to sell for 700 to 800 yuan. It can even then be combined with the mall's spend-and-get and spend-and-save activities. That is just ridiculous.”