Two important programs of Economic Information Broadcasting and Trading Time in CCTV2 reported respectively interviews to International Famous Furniture Fair (Dongguan), exhibitors and member enterprises of Famous Furniture Fair at the prime time at the noon and night of January 27.

According to this report, European market declined, while American and Middle East markets were in a rising stateIn addition, furniture enterprises in Dongguan were actively transforming and making an attempt to develop customized furniture, smart home, introduce new mechanical equipment and other modes in a bid to break through barriers of labor's and materials' cost raise in furniture enterprises. The so-called "tide of bankruptcy" does not occur indeed.

Present situation: The so-called "tide of bankruptcy" is unfounded.

According to the investigations of SinaHome, most of those "bankrupted enterprises" appeared in newspapers are individual workshops. Moreover, such bankruptcy case is common every year nearly; such case has not happened with those furniture enterprises above the designated size in Dongguan. Though those enterprises with sole export business suffered from difficulties, the enterprises with sound basis in domestic market developed well.

In the view of Xu Zongtong, general manager of Dongguan Famous Furnishings Expo Park, the furniture industry has stepped into an era of "billows washing beach sand", and there is much more space left for dedicated and aggressive enterprises. Those enterprises that focus on innovation, quality, design and service are better to grasp this golden opportunity to catch up vigorously, moving towards being a consumer brand from an industry brand.

It is estimated that the total output value in Dongguan was RMB 628 billion in 2015, stepping into "RMB 600 Billion Club" initially and growing 8% from the year earlier, said Xu Jianhua, municipal party secretary of Dongguan. Dongguan's industries above the designated size increased RMB 269.57 billion of value added, growing 5% from the year earlier and 0.5% from the first half year.

The distributors of Dickson Furniture all over the country achieved breakthrough performance in 2015. By introducing the brand new Dickson "home decoration 4.0" industrialized mode shops with up to 20% increasing proportion, all those distributors even increased 100%; further, more than a few shops gained over ten million yuan of sales.

DeRUCCI, a high-end mattress brand located in Houjie, Dongguan, increased 23% though it has a relatively large base, and newly founded more than 300 franchised stores at home and aboard, and possessed over 2,560 franchised stores worldwide totally in 2015. This Dongguan furniture brand has set up its franchised stores in many places, including Milan, Berlin, New York, Los Angeles, Dubai, Tokyo, etc. Besides, DeRUCCI set its foot in E-commerce in 2015, achieving more than RMB 53 million of sales in the sole "November 11".

COOMO also further enlarged its exploration in overseas market. It currently has established its stores quietly in Moore Park Supa Centa, the most successful home emporium in Australia. COOMO has been in possession of around 1,500 franchised stores in Asia and North America by far.

Chen Yuwei, marketing director of Dongguan Wanhengtong Furniture, thought that the furniture industry in Dongguan developed well as a whole, and there were many powerful enterprises. He said, such factors as improper stock structure, liquidity problems of products and shortage of funds would get small enterprises trapped in predicament when suffering from current rat race. On the contrary, those enterprises with long history and solid foundation would develop better due to fewer disturbers to break rules.  

Future:"find yourself"

Since serious homogenous phenomenon in domestic furniture industry, a variety of enterprises looked upon "price war" and "marketing war" as "a life-saving straw", and were perplexed to the future.

According to Liang Shaoxi, chairman of Dickson Furniture, the rising of the middle class and their value to home environment gave a golden opportunity to Dickson-like enterprises: "By this chance, no matter transformation and upgrading or products' added value improving through increasing design strengthen, these enterprises had better to fully learn about themselves and their advantages and disadvantages, position their goals and choose their proper road of development."

Yu Xinmiao, founder of Freedom Tower, CEO of Famous Furnishings Expo Park International Design Center, "lots of small enterprises were weak in independent design, and focused on enlarging operation scale rather than paying much attention to design and quality of products in actual operation due to many factors, including the lack of design talents, weak awareness of brand promotion, large investment in new products, long turnaround, heavy risks, etc. they did not have a complete and scientific marketing strategy," he said. While, in 2016, design enterprises would be increasing rapidly. Due to interaction of manufacturing industry and design, the enterprises were willing to spend much expense on the innovation of design and traditional products and marketing modes in a bid to fight against competition.

"Currently, the most worrying is that the environment-friendly of product itself and the plagiarism problem of product design in furniture industry," said Guo Zongping, director of Furniture Studio, Academy of Arts, Taiyuan University of Technology. Since serious homogenous low-end competition phenomena in domestic furniture industry, middle- and high-end markets were held by some international brand furniture. Making a special effort to consider R&D and promotion of brand is a must for those furniture enterprises who want to stand out in the market.

*This article was published on chinadaily.com