What Are They Doing in Ceramic’s Off-season?

21 Aug 2015/CTW


The season from June to August is traditionally considered as the off-season in ceramic industry.    Undoubtedly, the distributor is facing the biggest impact from the disappointing ceramic market. This time, Mr. CTW went to several cities in main production areas to find out what the distributors did to get through this difficult situation.


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Chongqing-Saying Goodbye without Choice


Bayi Building Materials Market is the center of ceramic wholesale and retail in Chongqing. Mr. CTW made an interview with one of the distributors in Bayi market. This distributor calculated their profits in recent three months and showed the details in the following. The total sales in April, May and June is RMB 116,000 which is about RMB 38,666.67 per month. The gross profit for them is usually 30% of the total sale, which means the total gross profit is RMB 34,800 and average gross margin is RMB 11,600 per month.However, excluding the basic cost of the store, it is calculated that the average profit is RMB -8,300. That’s means in these three months, even if this distributor is not that bad in sales, he’s losing over RMB 25,000 in a quarter.


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Mr. Liu Dengyuan, from Arrow Ceramics in Chongqing, said, “It’s more difficult to find distributors than last year. From the beginning of 2015, I didn’t find any distributor or agent come to us.” The distributors are facing the contraction of the demand which brings problems like serious competition in ceramic market and higher cost in operating . More and more distributors are pushed to quit under the pressure from the stagnant market.


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Nanning-Finding A Way Out by Old Method


If Chongqing’s situation looks like a knock-out competition, Nanning’s would more like a promotion party.


It’s a slack season in these months, but some of the Nanning distributors do not agree. For them, no matter the order is large or small, making the deal is king.


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Guanzhu Ceramics just finished its promotional signing ceremony in the end of May, which invited many celebrities to join the event, and has already put the next signing ceremony in schedule of this month. Coincidentally, Kinsyoma Ceramic, who finished the signing ceremony last month, also decided to organize the next one at the same time. For this, the staff from Guanzhu replied, “In off-season, no promotion activity, no order.”


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Beijing-Thinking Reversely to Open New Store


Beijing’s summer is not as hot as Guangdong’s, but people still don’t want to go out under the hot sun. It directly affects customers volume in the building material market.


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However, different people have different attitudes towards the ceramic’s off-season. Mr. Li Xiaohu, the GM of Meishanboya Building Material Company, chose to be the agent of Florina’s cement tile and Elevenmosaic’s artistic tile, and he opened the new store in the end of June.


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In this harsh situation, opening a new store sounds a little bit crazy. But according to Li’s introduction, before he made this decision, he had done a lot of research and spent a long time on searching for products. So, as what he said, his new store is focusing on the products with special design, and the market feedback is not bad.


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Li shows his positive view to the future of his new store because he believes that the generation after 80s is becoming the main customer force and the cement tile greatly caters to their aesthetic. They are building up new favor different from the traditional design and product, so Li also tries to catch up with them to get into the new consumer group.


This is the 161th issue

Editor: Amie




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