As the saying goes, choice is more important than hard work. When a dealer chooses a good brand, the investment of time, money, energy, etc. can be rewarded, and long-term development can only be achieved if the operation is profitable. It can be said that a good brand basically determines 80% of the fate of the dealer.
Currently, the building ceramics industry is experiencing unprecedented changes. Crisis and opportunities coexist in the ceramic tile market. Dealers who choose a good brand can remain invincible in the turbulent times of the industry. Zhang Daxiu, a ceramics man from Rugao, Jiangsu, who has 18 years of experience in ceramic tile store management, has a deep understanding of this.
▲Zhang Daxiu, dealer of Samit Tile Jiangsu Rugao
In 2004, China's real estate industry accelerated its development, people's housing conditions improved greatly, and real estate market demand rose steadily. It was at this time that Zhang Daxiu saw business opportunities in the decoration market. "At that time, every household needed to buy a house and decorate it. I thought this industry had great investment prospects." So she chose to open a store and start a ceramic tile business. That’s 18 years.
For many years, Zhang Daxiu has been deeply involved in the Rugao ceramic tile retail market, with channels covering wholesale, communities, home improvement companies, bricklayers, old customer introductions and door-to-door stores. He also represents a second-tier ceramic tile brand. However, as market consumption upgrades and retail channels are diverted, it becomes increasingly difficult for ceramic tile stores to attract door-to-door customers. At the same time, store operating costs are increasing, and Zhang Daxiu is troubled by the difficulty of business growth. However, as a ceramics person who has been fighting on the front line of the market, Zhang Daxiu clearly felt that this was a change in market demand caused by changes in consumer subjects. She quickly found the reason and made adjustments.
Zhang Daxiu believes that there are two most important reasons why ceramic tile stores have difficulty gaining customers. One is that the brand is not famous enough, and the other is that the products are not attractive enough. Therefore, she wants to change to a ceramic tile brand that is recognized by the local market, has a certain reputation, has competitive products, and can keep up with the trend through updates. After various market investigations, she believed that Samit tiles met her needs better than other brands, but an in-depth investigation of the brand headquarters was still needed. So she went to Foshan during the 2022 Foshan Ceramics Expo in early July. After visiting and learning about Samit's brand and showroom products, she signed a contract directly to become a dealer of Samit tiles in Jiangsu Rugao.
Samit Tile Jiangsu Rugao Flagship Store
Signed with Zhang Daxiu for two monthsLater, the Samit Rugao flagship store located in Building 3 of Yifeng International Trade City in Rugao, Jiangsu officially opened. Zhang Daxiu said that Samit has a certain influence across the country. The new opening of Samit store in Rugao has aroused great repercussions in the Rugao market, attracting many new and old customers nearby to experience the store. At the same time, it also cooperates with local The home decoration company signed many orders. Half a month after opening, Rugao Samit has signed more than 20 orders, and the unit value has increased by up to 4 times compared to the past.
Compared with before changing brands, Zhang Daxiu’s ceramic tile business has improved significantly and is also expanding further. It can be seen how important it is for dealers to choose a good brand. So, how do ceramic tile dealers choose the right brand? Combining Zhang Daxiu’s successful experience, the reporter summarized four aspects that ceramic tile dealers should consider when choosing a brand.
01 The brand has a certain degree of popularity
"Should ceramic tile dealers build brands?" is already a commonplace topic. In fact, no matter what industry you are in, if you want your business to do well, grow bigger, and become famous, brand building is very important. Today's consumers are increasingly pursuing quality and are quite rational in their consumption. For the ceramic tile industry that they are unfamiliar with, they are more willing to choose brands with a certain reputation. For dealers, choosing a brand with a certain degree of popularity can not only facilitate sales negotiations and improve performance faster, but another important reason is that well-known brands are more reliable.
Zhang Daxiu told reporters that when choosing a brand, she must personally visit the corporate headquarters to understand the strength of the brand/company. Samit is a brand under the "Ceramic Aircraft Carrier" New Pearl Group. New Pearl's strength in the industry is obvious to all. She focused on understanding Samit's brand image, positioning, products and other comprehensive strength performance.
Samit is positioned as a design tile brand in the ceramic industry. In recent years, it has successfully established a youthful and international brand image through IP cross-border marketing. Its products are very popular among consumer groups and designers in the 80s and 90s. At the same time, Samit attaches great importance to brand building, and has reasonable plans throughout the year in terms of offline advertising, participating in home furnishing exhibitions, or new media content output such as Xiaohongshu. The promotion of the entire brand is continuous and diverse. This shows that Samit's brand power is very strong and is on a steady upward trend.
For ceramic tile dealers, choosing a company with a strong brand will naturally have higher market competitiveness. Such a brandIt will make dealers feel very reliable and have no worries.
02 Brand product research and development to meet customer needs
Resellers who represent well-known brands usually just make it easier for consumers to accept, which means lowering customer acquisition costs. However, in today's increasingly fierce market competition, if dealers want to succeed, products are the core factor for sustained profitability. one.
Different ceramic tile brands have different positionings, and the core of their product research and development will also be different. At the same time, different regional markets and different dealers face or serve different customer groups. When choosing a brand, dealers must examine the brand's product research and development capabilities in order to match their own and local market needs. As long as the product meets the customer's consumption preferences, are you still worried that the store will not have orders?
Zhang Daxiu is particularly concerned about whether brand products match local market demand. She believes that in recent years, the home decoration trend in Rugao market has undergone great changes, from the previous "black, white and gray" to the simple, light luxury and warm-toned cream style, and the age group of home decoration consumers has changed to the 80s and 90s generation. People, the mainstream specifications of ceramic tiles have changed from 800×800mm and 600×1200mm to 750×1500mm (generally used for flooring) and 600×1200mm (generally applied to walls). Some customers will also choose 900×1800mm. In addition, consumers in Rugao are more willing to spend money on decoration. As long as they like it, they can accept it even if the price is higher than expected. This consumption trend is actually quite common in second- and third-tier cities across the country.
After clarifying his local market demand, Zhang Daxiu accordingly gained an in-depth understanding of Samit's product structure. Samit has always insisted on building an international and youthful design ceramic tile brand. Its products are more biased towards global vision and fashion trends in terms of design style and expression, which are very in line with the preferences of young consumer groups; the ceramic tiles are diverse in color and not rigid. The specifications closely follow the mainstream, and the product update frequency and price positioning are very reasonable.
In comparison, Samit's brand image positioning and product development direction are very consistent with the Rugao market, or in other words, it is very consistent with the second and third tier cities across the country where consumer attitudes are gradually becoming younger.
03 The brand understands after-sales and provides sufficient support
No matter how experienced a dealer is, he or she will encounter some bottlenecks or problems in the process of operating a store and managing a team. At this time, brand support and guidance are particularly important. It is not difficult to find that excellent companies not only build good brands and control product quality, but also provide professional training guidance and event planning to dealers from time to time.
In the two months since becoming an agent for Samit, Zhang Daxiu and his team have continued to receive professional training provided by Samit's headquarters, including brand introduction, product rhetoric, sales techniques, customer maintenance, etc. According to reports, in addition, support from Summit headquarters also includes in-store guidance from training instructors, year-round event planning support, design training, video marketing such as Douyin, and dealer management training.
In addition to professional training, whether the brand's support is sufficient depends on event marketing support, rebate support, store decoration support, promotion support, etc. Zhang Daxiu said that Rugao Samit completed the preparation, planning, decoration and opening of the store in about 45 days after signing the contract, all of which relied on the strong support of Samit's headquarters.
She introduced that Rugao Samit had a very tight schedule for planning store decoration. In order not to affect the decoration progress, Samit headquarters from the regional manager to the store designer team fully cooperated and worked overtime to come up with the design plan. During the communication process, Zhang Daxiu felt several times that some of the store designs were unreasonable or inconsistent with the aesthetics of Rugao consumers. The designers at Samit headquarters responded actively and coordinated to solve the problems. In the end, with the joint efforts of both parties, Rugao Samit completed the opening of the fast decoration store in 45 days.
In addition, Zhang Daxiu is quite satisfied with the final decoration effect of the Rugao Summit store. She believes that one of the reasons for the rapid growth of store sales is the highly competitive showroom.
Compared with the "black, white and gray" modern style showrooms of other local ceramic tile brands, the Rugao Samit store stands out with its unique "Samit Blue" and its eye-catching image continues to attract customers; the product display in the store is neat and generous , the overall style is bright and warm, subverting the cold atmosphere of traditional tile stores and catering to today's young peopleconsumption habits of people and high-grade people.
The store design uses bold but appropriate colors, and the product colors, materials, and specifications are neatly arranged with natural transitions, making it easy for customers to choose at will. Several comfortable sofas are specially set up in the model display room for rest and communication, and the stocked candies and Water makes customers feel more comfortable when choosing ceramic tiles.
04 The brand and dealers have consistent goals and value matching
Both parties cooperate and like-minded people can come together. When dealers choose a brand, they must not only understand the brand's image positioning, development history, and product research and development, but also look at the brand's future development plan, corporate management level, employee enthusiasm, etc. This is to judge a brand's development potential, coordination and execution It is also an important factor in determining the long-term success of brands and dealers.
In Zhang Daxiu’s view, the Samit headquarters team is a young team full of vigor, open-minded and flexible. They have strong professionalism, high execution ability, and the entire team has rigorous management and coordination. She said that the cooperation and communication process with Summit headquarters was very smooth, and seeing such a team made her confident in the future cooperation.
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Generally speaking, successful dealers, on the one hand, are due to their outstanding talents, network resources and a certain degree of financial advantages; on the other hand, the brands they represent have strong comprehensive strength, which is something that dealers cannot decided. The latter aspect is more important for the long-term development of dealers. If you choose the right brand, you will get twice the result with half the effort; if you choose the wrong brand, you will suffer heavy losses.
At present, the ceramic tile market is declining and competition is intensifying. Dealers must be cautious and consider more when choosing brands. I wish all dealers can choose a reliable ceramic tile brand!
