In the past, the home furnishing industry, which relied on participating in overseas exhibitions to obtain design inspiration, has had to pay more attention to originality in the past two years.

Due to the impact of the epidemic, the Milan International Furniture Fair, known as the "Oscar" in the design industry, announced its "official cancellation" at the end of March.

Subsequently, news of the "cancellation" of world-renowned exhibitions such as the Hannover Industry Fair in Germany, the Moscow International Building Materials Exhibition, and the Chicago Food and Hotel Supplies Exhibition in the United States followed one after another.

Overseas exhibitions were forced to be cancelled due to the epidemic, but the butterfly effect caused has only just begun.

In the past year, many exhibition companies have suffered heavy losses. They have experienced the process of a sharp decline in overseas orders, the rise of agency exhibition business, and the shift of attention to the country.

Home furnishing companies that are closely related to exhibitions have also been unable to display new products in time because of the "cancellation" of overseas exhibitions, but on the other hand, it has temporarily eased the problem of "plagiarism" that has been criticized for many years in this industry. At a time when original design is particularly precious, companies are beginning to attach importance to the power of originality.

These "Farewell" overseas exhibitions for a year are deeply affecting the two industries of exhibition and home furnishing.

Significant reduction in orders for overseas exhibitions

Since March last year, many well-known overseas exhibitions with a history of one hundred years have been cancelled due to the spread of the COVID-19 epidemic.

When the "pause button" was pressed at the exhibition, the exhibition industry became a direct "victim". The financial report showed that the Meorient Exhibition and Zhenwei Exhibitions, which were listed on the A-share market, suffered losses last year, with net losses of 64.63 million yuan and 44.52 million yuan respectively.

David said frankly that the cancellation of overseas exhibitions and the loss of orders have a great impact on the company's operations. Therefore, in the past year, he has turned his attention to domestic exhibition orders. After a year of hard work, he finally recovered some achievements, and he felt relieved.

Similar to David's experience, Li Chen, who works for a domestic medium-sized exhibition company, said bluntly: "Last year, we suffered a particularly large loss from the epidemic. The domestic project only started in June last year, and only half a year of work a year. It is estimated that the company can only make profits and losses. "

For companies that are deeply cultivating overseas markets, the epidemic has brought a huge impact, and those companies that originally had a small business share simply divest themselves of overseas business.

Give birth to "Exhibitors on behalf" service

Since last year, Mou Jie has successively received business demands from customers for participating in exhibitions. "Even if the epidemic is affected, many customers will still participate in construction exhibitions around the world, such as sanitary ware, raw materials and other companies, they have overseas exhibition needs." Mou Jie said.

It is understood that the agency exhibition business is relatively rare in the industry, and even many people in the industry do not know it well. However, after overseas exhibitions were forced to cancel due to the epidemic last year, the agency exhibition business began to gradually rise.

“Before, the company only offered exhibitors for customers whose visas were denied in the United States. However, after the epidemic, the company provided exhibitors for all walks of life, covering countries such as Europe, America, Japan, South Korea, etc.” Mou Jie, who has many years of experience in the industry, introduced.

Different from Mou Jie’s opinion, several industry professionals said that it is rare in the industry to send a professional team to do this: “Every new product contains the company’s core technology, and exhibitors don’t know much about the company’s products. It's not appropriate to take the whole journey."

The most common way to represent the exhibition is to find local international students, translators or tour guides to collaborate to complete the exhibition’s new product display activities. "Generally speaking, the price of the exhibition is 2500 yuan/day. We will find some local students in Italy to assist in the exhibition."

In addition, some companies will arrange training activities for exhibitors in advance. "In the early stage, we will conduct online training on products. On the day of the exhibition, let them wear work clothes that represent the company's image, and then go to the scene to do some promotion and sales and other publicity work for you." Li Chen, who has been engaged in overseas business before, introduced.

However, the "new" generation exhibition business is not well accepted in enterprises. After getting to know several exhibition companies as exhibitors, some companies rejected this demand: "We are only responsible for the design and construction of the booth, and we do not provide this business." Some companies were surprised and frank after hearing this. : "We do not have this business."

Is the original best era?

"Many model masters can remember at a glance, and can imitate them after taking a photo. Everyone copies them. How can there be so much originality?"

Source of the picture at the Milan Furniture Fair in 2019: Tuchong Creative In the past year, the cancellation of the industry's "weathervane" Milan Furniture Fair has caused many home furnishers to question the original ability of domestic enterprises. Some insiders even directly said: "No show in Milan under the circumstances, the original ability of Chinese home furnishing enterprises may be directly affected."

But is this really the case?

A head of foreign trade of a company that participated in the Milan Furniture Fair in 2019 said, “The impact is actually not very big. We have our own R&D team and launch many new products every year. Even last year affected by the epidemic, the company’s orders have not decreased. It’s just that the shipping time has been delayed."

Pan Jiahong, general manager of a custom home furnishing industry in Guangzhou, believes that on the one hand, the new products at the Milan Fair in 2019 are still usable. For example, the previously popular minimalism and light luxury are still accepted by the market and will not be eliminated so quickly: "On the other hand, domestic companies can follow the new product information issued by foreign brand furniture companies in their own media and channels through the internet."

But he also admitted that the Milan Home Furnishing Fair is the industry's "vane", and it will definitely have an impact on the "creation" of domestic companies: "The current originality of domestic home furnishing companies is not so optimistic, and 50-60% of companies will'learn from'foreign elements ."

At present, in terms of originality capabilities, Chinese home furnishing companies are showing a trend of polarization, with leading companies having strong design and innovation capabilities, while small and medium-sized enterprises are relatively weak. The reason is that the trial and error costs of new products and new designs are too high, so many companies do not want to invest a lot of money in research and development.

From the perspective of the distribution of the home furnishing market, the overall decentralized and low-concentration home furnishing industry is still dominated by small and medium-sized enterprises. From last year's data, China's home furnishing industry related active and surviving companies totaled 2,149,500. With a small proportion of branded companies, small, medium and micro companies have the upper hand in terms of number.

Among them, some small and medium-sized enterprises or "workshop-style" enterprises, due to lack of originality, plagiarism is still emerging.

The industry "weathervane" Milan Furniture Fair is the most ideal "reference" treasure in their hearts. "Enterprises generally send R&D and design to the exhibition, especially the Milan International Furniture Fair, where the world's new products and trends come from every year, and the categories on display are also the most concentrated." Pan Jiahong said.

Not only that, companies will also go to dealerships and specialty stores of foreign home furnishing brands to learn about the styles and workmanship of new products and so on. For some companies that cannot go directly, you can use the "personal connections" you have established in Europe to ask translators or tour guides to take pictures or learn about the market on the spot, and upload them directly online.

However, in recent years, with the unimpeded flow of information channels, many companies have explored a more "easy" way to "learn from" new products.

Zhang Biao, who has not been to Milan for several years, is the owner of a sanitary ware company in Shunde District, Foshan City. He believes that the impact on overseas exhibitions that have been cancelled since last year is limited: "Now the network information is well developed, and we can learn from foreign elements. You don’t have to go by yourself, there are a lot of information on the Internet."

On the way to "learn from" new products, many companies are struggling. However, some companies have gradually begun to "wake up": "In the past, 50% of factory products were copied from foreign works, but in fact, this is not long-term, especially in the epidemic last year. This feeling is more obvious." Zhang Biao said.

In his view, original design is particularly important. "Now our company also invites designers to do product development and design, and the originality ratio has increased to 80%."

"The cancellation of foreign exhibitions has forced domestic companies to pay more attention to originality in form." A senior interior designer who has been in business for five years told that many Chinese companies have strong original design capabilities, but for outstanding foreign design works, they will also learn from it.

Not only that, affected by the strengthening of domestic intellectual property protection, all walks of life have also become more concerned about the power of originality.

In recent years, China has successively revised the trademark law, anti-unfair competition law, patent law, copyright law, etc., and continued to improve laws and regulations related to intellectual property rights. Especially in the Civil Code that came into effect this year, the penalties for infringement of intellectual property rights are clearly marked.

"Perhaps, China's home furnishing industry is ushering in the best era of originality." The above-mentioned senior designer said with emotion.