Shulou(Shulou.com)12/24 Report--

There has been a lot of discussion about "quality consumption" in recent years, but I am only impressed by the idea that when parents get confused about what you buy, it largely means that your life has improved in quality.

This sounds unorthodox, but it is not without reason.

In fact, quality consumption is never a new concept: like the "old three pieces" of bicycles, watches and radios married in the 1980s, the "new three pieces" of refrigerators, color TV sets and washing machines in the 1990s, to microwave ovens, DVD and VCRs that are popular after the millennium. It can be said that every era has its own consumption symbol. The so-called upgrading of quality is nothing more than an "intergenerational upgrade" of people's consumption habits and concepts.

But did you find it? The initiators and definitions of consumption trends in different times are often young people: just as their parents have boiled eggs all their lives, but now young people are willing to pay for the "egg cooker." the older generation shakes the milk powder by hand, but the new parents will specially buy milk shakers and milk warmers.

In other words, the definition of quality depends on how contemporary young people consume. Whether from rigid demand to improvement, or from functional satisfaction to both appearance and quality, the wave after wave of young people determines the round after round of consumption and lifestyle changes. From this, we can also draw a conclusion: to seize the young people is to seize the trend of the times, but also to seize new increments and new opportunities. This is a definite business future.

Bear Electric is a good example.

1. Little Bear Electric Appliance was born young

In 2006, Li Yifeng founded Little Bear Electric Appliances in Shunde, Guangdong. In that year, the domestic home appliance industry has shown a trend of competition, Haier, Midea, Gree, Skyworth, Hisense, TCL and Changhong are fighting in the field of "white + black" electricity. Under the heavy gunfire, what was placed in front of Li Yifeng was a difficult copy: with 200000, survive and break out.

In a rented house, he spent four months designing his first product, the yogurt machine. We also know the next story, Little Bear not only achieved sales of millions of yogurt machines in the first year, but also achieved a continuous sales growth rate of more than 100% in 2007-09.

All accidents are inevitable. In retrospect, the success of Little Bear Electric Appliances occupies the geographical location, weather, people and these three major elements.

The reason for the "location" is that Xiao Xiong has chosen the right way to enter the game. At that time, the big brands of home appliances were focusing on black and white electricity, thinking that large household appliances were "big business", and their attention was also focused on the pursuit of durability and practicality, while the market for small household appliances, which belong to the category of life optimization, was relatively empty. As a result, the retail sales of consumer goods in China in 2006 created the highest value since 1997, and the improved consumer demand broke out, and the field of small household appliances has become one of the important ways of "fine" consumption.

And Little Bear Electric, as the first batch of domestic enterprises, naturally "took off": at that time, the basic needs of yogurt consumers could be met, but there was only one choice, that is, to buy finished products. And Little Bear Electric gives them the second possibility to realize "yogurt freedom" with a more affordable and reassuring yogurt machine.

The reason for "Timeless" is that Little Bear Electric Appliances has seized the first round of e-commerce dividends in China. At that time, Taobao was just on the rise, and many big manufacturers still held a conservative and wait-and-see attitude towards online sales, but Little Bear realized that "the market is changing, consumers are changing, and business models are changing." This also creates conditions for its first-mover layout and misplaced competition.

Then Little Bear plunged into the line and came face to face with the first batch of Internet users, that is, the post-80s generation who are more receptive to new things. Fresh categories, creative designs, and fine functional zones have ignited the consumption genes of this generation, and achieved a huge amount of touch, transformation and geometric growth through the magical Internet. Xiao Xiong's egg cooker, electric stew cup and electric steamer have become the first batch of "network celebrities" products in the real sense.

The popularity of emerging consumer groups is also the key to the creation of "human harmony" by Little Bear Electric Appliance. As the economy continues to improve, the younger generation's acceptance and inclusion of new brands and categories are increasing, and personalized and diversified life propositions continue to heat up. Consumer demand began to shift from large household appliances with strong rigid demand to "small and beautiful" household appliances. These subdivided needs, which are cold and minority for traditional large household appliance brands, have begun to gather sand into towers and armpits, while the popular Little Bear Appliance has also become a "good heart" for young people, taking over the growth opportunities given by the times.

It is not difficult to find that the above three elements have a common core, young people. It can be said that small household appliances are specially born for the upgrading of quality consumption and quality of life, while Little Bear Appliances, from the first day of starting a business, chose to go with "young people".

2. Not only innovation, but also creation

If Little Bear gets up, stands up and stands firm, it is to keep up with and lead the tide of young people's quality consumption. Then the differentiation advantage and brand moat it constructs comes from the modern form of quality upgrading-rational consumption.

From 2019 to 2021, the small home appliance market has ushered in an unprecedented outbreak period. But at the same time, this period of time is also the beginning of the polarization of small household appliance brands: at first, the "home economy" side caught fire with interest in e-commerce, but also let the outside world see the potential and possibility of small household appliances, players flocked to; but two years later, the inherent demand is rapidly saturated, emerging demand is green, and the hot field of small household appliances suddenly cools down.

Like a toppled domino, a chain reaction followed.

After two years of barbaric growth, many enterprises that come after profit and make a profit continue to intensify the homogenization of the industry with the innovation of "squeezing toothpaste". At the same time, under the consumption trend of increasing rationality and pragmatism, users pursue "worth it" even more, which makes too many ordinary small household appliances put on the second-hand shelves, and many enterprises break their arms to survive.

However, the large-scale reshuffle and clearance of the industry also means to eliminate and preserve the market. Xiao Xiong Electric not only stayed, but also completed the deep excavation and high construction of the brand moat at this stage. Why can you do that? The key lies in two aspects.

First, Little Bear Appliance is not only innovative products, but also innovative categories and create demand, which gives it the ability to continue to create popular styles. Different from the rigid demand and stable demand of large household appliances, the logic of small household appliances is that "supply determines demand". For example, for a long time, people had to pinch the watch, stare at the fire and guard the pot when cooking hot spring eggs. Until the advent of a timed, smaller egg cooker, it became popular.

In fact, as Henry Ford said, before the birth of the car, people only wanted a faster horse. Most of the time, it is not that users have no demand, but they do not know that "it can still be so", which requires manufacturers to discover and pay attention to this potential demand.

This is what Little Bear is doing-strengthening the rigid demand category and expanding the new category. In other words, not only innovate and iterate on products that users are familiar with, but also keep trying and creating "new species". For example, the early noodle mixer, egg cooker and even intestinal noodle machine, followed by the introduction of small bubble pots, miscellaneous grain rice cookers, that is, hot water dispensers, folding multi-function pots and so on. Nowadays, the launch mechanism of new categories has become a regular project of Little Bear Electric Appliances, and its new category sales share and market share are also rising year after year.

Second, Little Bear provides not only simple household appliances, but also partners in life, and can accompany and cure users through multiple products in different life scenarios. This ability of "scene innovation" also fully conveys Little Bear's determination to embrace, understand and accompany young people.

Who says small household appliances must be "household" appliances? When young people move from home to the countryside, Little Bear Electric Appliances has launched a series of camping scenes such as outdoor power supplies and outdoor fans; in addition, they also have mini rice cookers specially developed for the "one-person eating" scene, multi-functional milk dispensers that focus on mother and baby scenes, and miscellaneous grain rice cookers that can "eat well" without manual soaking in advance after busy work.

As Li Yifeng said: "No matter how big or small the demand is, Little Bear will try to do it as long as it exists." At present, Little Bear has independently developed more than 60 categories and more than 500 models, realizing the full-category layout, covering seven categories of living spaces such as home, office and outdoor, and building a full-scene exquisite life for young people in multi-dimensions and three-dimensions.

3. Embrace change and continuous evolution

Today, the bear is 17 years old. Its growth path seems to be as natural and smooth as getting a "script" in advance. But the reality is that the world is changing all the time, but only Li Yifeng knows how many dangerous shoals and reefs Little Bear has bypassed on the way of exploring, pursuing and becoming "young people's favorite household appliances."

He once explained that the reason why Xiao Xiong is everlasting is that "We insist on doing our own R & D and manufacturing, and slowly build our own factory. At that time, some enterprises excessively seized e-commerce opportunities without factory construction, did not build their own R & D capabilities, and dividends were easy to encounter bottlenecks."

In order to make Little Bear have the ability to resist cycles and cope with change, his strategy is to take the initiative of change in his own hands, so as to continue to evolve and flourish. From the perspective of specific actions, the strategic core of the current Xiao Bear Anchor is "boutique strategy", while facing the future, it is protected by strengthening the supply chain and ploughing "digital intelligence manufacturing".

First of all, Xiao Xiong Electric Appliances adhere to the essence of the boutique strategy is to "do is to do the best products." This includes the fine products, the fine products of research and development, the fine products of design, and so on. The 10 + design team, 60 + designers, links to global design resources and the deep cooperation of 20 + external companies all serve only one goal, that is, the "excellence" of the whole process.

Many people do not know that each division of Little Bear has a different small laboratory, testing the effect of humidifying sprayers and testing straight hairpins on wigs. The second floor of its R & D center has also specially designed a "test and evaluation center" covering an area of more than 2000 square meters to carry out various rigorous tests on parts, electronics, materials and the environment to ensure that the products are "not only easy to use, but also durable."

This multi-dimensional innovation and quality ingenuity support Little Bear's continuous insight into and meet the needs of users, which has contributed to the healthy growth of the company in the past and has become a key bargaining chip to continue to lead and maintain increment.

Secondly, the consideration of Xiao Xiong Electric Power Mathematical Intelligence Manufacturing is to "set aside redundancy for the development of enterprises." Rising in e-commerce and rooted in manufacturing is the persistence of Little Bear all the way, which not only determines the quality of products in the hands of users, but also determines the possibility of the future development of Little Bear.

In 2009, Xiao Xiong bought 20 mu of old factory buildings and rented four or five factories, expanding the "size" to tens of thousands of square meters. After 2014, Xiao Xiong Electric Appliance has developed from Le to Junan, Daliang and other places, buying factories and taking land, and continuously expanding its scale and production capacity. In the words of Li Yifeng, "my ideal land is that like playing golf, there is still room for one shot."

Now, he has not only achieved it, but also achieved the upgrading of overall efficiency and capacity space through digital means. In July this year, the second phase of Xiao Xiong's "Xiao Xiong Intelligent Home Appliance Manufacturing Base" was successfully capped. The construction of the park mainly includes two parts: digital factory and headquarters operation, with a total construction area of 170000 square meters and a total investment of more than 600 million yuan.

Today, Xiaoxiong Electric Appliance has shipped more than 40 million units a year, and has established "five intelligent manufacturing bases + parts production bases + operation bases", with more than 70 production lines and two domestic top-level automatic production lines. for enterprises to deepen and strengthen the supply chain, as well as the future capacity improvement, product development, long-term development to provide more flexibility.

Conclusion:

Li Yifeng said when Little Bear launched its new brand positioning: "No matter what stage of business development Little Bear is in, it regards young people as people who insist on reaching and serving. Youth and creativity are the core genes of Little Bear."

It is not easy for enterprises to embrace the consumption trend of young people in every era. But what is more difficult is to maintain the original intention after the dividend of the times: to make fine products, strengthen the supply chain, and continue to serve young consumers of every era through good products. This is commendable both in the past and at present.

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