Price cuts, live streaming, focusing on sales, keeping a low profile in traditional advertising, and shouting out in live streams have increasingly become the common choice for household floor scrubber brands after 2022, thus establishing a new normal for this product category. If you're looking to buy a floor scrubber, you can first set your sights on a target, then wait for news from live streams, hoping for a possible lower price. Of course, be prepared for potential returns and rights protection afterward, as not every product is as ideal as it seems.
During the recent short holiday, I didn't have the opportunity to travel far, so I had dinner with a few old buddies. One of them mentioned to me, "It's been a while since I heard much about floor scrubbers, almost a year."
I think he may not have been paying much attention because, although the floor scrubber category hasn't been as buzzworthy in terms of volume in the past couple of years compared to around 2021, there have still been some movements when new products are released.
Another friend who couldn't stop watching short videos during dinner chimed in, "How is that possible? I just bought a floor scrubber in a live stream not long ago, let me tell you, that night, it sold like hotcakes."
Indeed, another reason my friend hadn't heard much about floor scrubbers could be due to limited information from other channels, with most updates happening in live streams. Coincidentally, he doesn't shop in live streams.
Recently, I looked at the cleaning appliance data from Ovi, and the development trend of floor scrubbers in this cycle has become quite predictable.
In the first quarter of this year, floor scrubber sales reached nearly 2.8 billion, up by 23.4%. While this growth is not the most outstanding among cleaning appliances, as it is on par with other categories including mite removers, it falls short of robot vacuum cleaners. However, the surge in sales volume is quite remarkable, exceeding 50%. Even though the market performance was lackluster in the first quarter of last year, such data was hard to come by before. Robot vacuum cleaners, once dubbed as "future products," are probably envious.
With both sales volume and revenue on the rise, the floor scrubber category is likely to continue in this trajectory for some time.
Behind the market performance trend lies the inertia of price wars. In the first quarter, the average online price of floor scrubbers was 2092 yuan, a decrease of 19.5%, while the average offline price was 3084 yuan, down by 7.3%. Some mainstream brands have reduced prices to below a thousand yuan, mostly for older models to clear inventory. However, for new models, they either maintain the same price with added features or price them lower than their predecessors.
Price competition has become a conventional strategy in the floor scrubber market and is likely to continue for a considerable period.
According to Ding Technology Network, there are four reasons for the price reductions: initially, household floor scrubbers were priced high; as production capacity and sales volume increased, costs decreased; with more competitive brands in the market, they had to compete; and expanding the consumer base, avoiding creating "flashy star products," has become a common brand consensus.
If we add one more reason, it could be that brands have cut costs in their daily publicity efforts to support price stability. When household floor scrubbers were in high demand, every product launch was a big deal, with brands competing fiercely for attention. Compared to that, except for a few products, floor scrubber brands have mostly remained "silent."
This "silence" is not stagnation but a shift in enthusiasm. In live streaming platforms, floor scrubber brands are actively selling their products with great enthusiasm. The results are impressive. If I remember correctly, in March, a live stream for the Tinkoff V5 floor scrubber sold 12,000 units in just two hours.
The new norm of "price reduction, discreet sales, and tying up with live e-commerce" has its reasons:
"Price reduction" has become the go-to strategy with more brands entering the market. When product experiences are similar, price becomes the best weapon.
"Discreet sales" may indicate that many brands lack significant innovations. In the past two years, there have been few groundbreaking new floor scrubber products, suggesting a bottleneck in technological capabilities or innovative ideas.
"Live streaming" has become a popular choice for many floor scrubber brands. It doesn't necessarily mean a shift to new channels for new products but rather a quicker way to reach potential consumers and benefit from impulsive buying. Impulse buying has benefited many small home appliance categories.
However, this new norm, especially the continuous "price reduction," may not be ideal. If product popularization is done while ensuring quality, it's acceptable. But using price reductions to promote products is usually temporary and comes with limitations in time and scale. If it turns into a pure "price war," leading to a competition of "low quality and low price," it could impact the overall value of the category and consumer experience, a common occurrence in the home appliance market.
The above new norms may end for two reasons in the future: either disruptive technologies continue to emerge as they did a few years ago, or the market reshuffling is mostly complete, and brand patterns stabilize. Currently, the hope seems to lie more in the latter. (Original article by Ding Technology Network, please indicate "Source: Ding Technology Network" when reposting.)
