Since the second half of last year, smart door locks have received a lot of attention, and they have become a "net red" explosion of the smart home industry. As a result, many cross-border players are also flocking in the terminal finished product market, such as home appliance companies (Haier, Midea, Skyworth, etc.), Internet companies (Cloud, 360, etc.).
In the face of these external incomers, how do traditional lock companies deal with it?
The market that has always existed VS suddenly arrived
In the eyes of these orthodox lock companies, smart door locks are not a new concept that emerged overnight. In fact, it has always been in place. These traditional hardware components and mechanical door locks have generally started the design of smart door locks very early. And development.
According to Li Xujun, the industrial design director of Yajie, Yajie designed the first smart lock as early as 2005. However, the industry did not call it "smart lock" at the time, but called electronic lock or fingerprint lock.
Some traditional lock companies are considering the relationship between mechanical locks and smart locks from the perspective of upgrading the function of door lock products. Unfortunately, the market has not responded much. Zhu Haitao, marketing director of Sakura, said frankly, "Even in 14 or 15 years, the monthly smart lock shipments of Sakura are only a few hundred."
The sudden explosion of smart door locks should be attributed to the vigorous publicity of the smart home concept over the years. Although the smart home market itself has not experienced a spurt of growth, it has accidentally brought a smart door lock. Li Yu, general manager of Huitailong Intelligent Business Department, said frankly: "At least until last year, mainstream smart home enterprises have not paid attention to the smart door lock market, and few smart home enterprises have taken the initiative to contact us."
After years of working in their own fields, smart home players finally found a single item that can quickly impress users. Smart door locks. The convenience of removing the key and the key is easier to promote to ordinary users. The smart door lock is quickly impressing more consumers with the “subversive user experienceâ€.
From the perspective of the integrity of smart home solutions, home appliance companies expand their products from indoor (smart appliances, smart homes) to outdoor (smart door locks), and look at smart door locks with the positioning of home smart system portals, so enter this category. The emerging Internet door lock companies, which are mainly aimed at the apartment rental market, also define smart door locks as an essential standard from the perspective of the convenience of commercial operation management.
The synergy of various forces has led to a small outbreak of smart door locks in the second half of last year. This year, the number of shipments will continue to heat up. It is expected that shipments will at least double this year, exceeding 6 million units.
The confidence and confidence of traditional lock companies
Even if it became a slogan industry because of the sudden attention of all parties, these old lock companies generally said: "Thanks to these cross-border players for helping us to do marketing and marketing education, but in this market, we still have our own Unique advantage, completely not afraid of the cross-border competition of these emerging players."
According to Li Yu's analysis, at present, how smart locks promote their smart side. In fact, ordinary consumers still position it as building materials, not smart hardware or smart home products. This psychological positioning is obvious to the advantages of these traditional companies that start with hardware and building materials and mechanical locks:
First, from the perspective of sales channels, these traditional lock brands are more accessible to end consumers who need to buy a door lock. Because of the need to provide a series of services such as installation, commissioning and maintenance, the sales of online channels account for a small proportion, and the sales volume of offline channels accounts for the majority. Ordinary users have become accustomed to buying door locks to the building materials market, rather than going to the appliance store. These traditional lock brands have established online stores across the country, and are generally the largest building materials market in each city.
Secondly, consumers have psychological inertia for each brand of daily necessities. For example, consumers will recognize Haier's refrigerator washing machine, but will not recognize Haier's soya-bean milk machine. By the same token, ordinary users will recognize Haier and Midea's home appliances, and they will not necessarily recognize the door locks of Haier and Midea. Every brand entering a new market will face the problem of brand image reconstruction, even if famous brands have to face this problem. The brands such as Sakura, Yajie and Huitailong clearly have advantages in this respect.
In addition, these traditional lock brands have established good cooperative relations with local home improvement companies and Fangkai companies in various local agents and distributors. Door locks are often packaged with hardware products for home improvement companies and housing companies. These are not available to new players.
However, Li Yu also said that this hot market is still in its infancy, and welcome new players to make the cake bigger, and the size of this market is large enough to accommodate all players.
Fast-growing market tests the internal strength of the enterprise
As Li Yu said, in China, the smart door lock market is still in its infancy. The data shows that the penetration rate of smart door locks in Europe and the United States is above 50%, and the penetration rate in Japan and South Korea is as high as 70%-80%. At present, the consensus in the industry is that the domestic penetration rate is between 2% and 3%, and no more than 5%. The market development space is evident.
Like all the sudden and fast-growing Blue Ocean markets, there are many chaos in smart door locks. According to Zhu Haitao, marketing director of Sakura, the current smart door lock market is mixed, and the three factors of quality, price and after-sales service will determine the standardization of the entire market. As shipments increase, how to ensure the stability of quality, and the speed of after-sales maintenance will test each brand player.
Taking after-sales maintenance as an example, even if the failure rate of the product is maintained, when the shipment volume increases by ten or even several times, the number of failed products will increase by the same multiple, and the timeliness of maintenance should be guaranteed. It is not easy for a manufacturer. Door locks are very special products. Users have very high requirements for maintenance services. Manufacturers need to provide 24/7 maintenance service. Management and operation costs are a test.
Brands that cannot provide good after-sales service will gradually lose market word-of-mouth and brand influence will be lost. This is a problem that all smart home hardware products companies must face. They cannot cultivate strong internal strengths and can only be eliminated by industry shuffling.
According to Zhu Haitao, Sakura is exploring the store model of smart door locks. It plans to establish 100 smart door lock stores nationwide this year, hoping to establish the brand reputation of cherry blossoms in smart door locks with the terminal image of the store, and to make the cherry blossoms from one Industry brands have become a consumer brand.
Whether the sudden emergence of the smart door lock market indicates that the entire smart home industry will gradually prosper, remains to be seen. But at least it shows that consumers are willing to pay for upgraded home products that are better and more convenient.
Although the current door locks with networking functions account for less than 10% or even less of the entire smart door lock market, in the long run, smart door locks as part of a smart home system are integrated into the entire home intelligence system. Trends and inevitability.
Editor in charge: Zhao Hongli
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