The rise of interior design in China

China has a long and profound history of home décor, and the modern home décor market in China is a fusion of traditional Chinese furniture with ancient roots and simple modern décor and furniture. The craft of interior design in China encompasses various prototypes of; lighting, statues, wall-décor, furniture, flooring and flowers using attractive colours such as red and gold which portray status and power. The home décor market in China can be traced back to the Eastern Zhou period (770B.C. – 221B.C.) where Chinese developed long, narrow tables to hold musical instruments or to display items of wealth and beauty such as jade, porcelain or flower arrangements.

Ancient roots of interior design in China

The architecture of interior design in China began with lanterns and furniture demonstrating the power and status of Chinese elite, since the Han Dynasty (25–220 AD) and Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD). Furniture height rose according to the “elevated to a position” of one’s status in society. The furniture makers of the Tang Dynasty began using high round and yoke back chairs for the wealthy elite. Lanterns are widely known to most of the Chinese people as the symbols of festival, worship and peace. They can be made from wood, bamboo, wood, rattan, created with silk or paper and being decorated with Chinese calligraphy, embroidery, painting and cut paper.

The era of modern interior design in China

In recent years, China became a fast growing economy with GDP of $14.22 trillion with the population of almost 1.4 billion and average growth rate of 9.5 as well as high level of urbanisation. With this, people become more fascinated with luxury and fashion. In 2018, the interior design market in China was estimated at $740 billion (RMB 5 trillion), according to a study by Yicai 2018, and that market keeps rising and evolving both online and physical stores. Home décor market in China seems to be one of the fastest growing businesses in the region with a high consumption power. Both domestic and international companies are now establishing more offices and showrooms in the cities such as Beijing, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Guangzhou.

China’s interior design industry has incredible variety to fit the tastes of types of consumers. This not only includes different economic class of people, but also includes office design projects in business districts across China. Customers can be small companies, which seek to minimize their spending on office interior design thus not requiring high quality expensive furniture or lighting, while multinational corporations, for whom office design is crucial for meeting clients and partners, may ask for luxury European furniture with high quality lighting. Interior design companies in China can be divided into lighting, flooring, doors, furniture and wall murals companies.

Chinese interior design: global recognition

The interior design market in China is booming due to the rapid growth of the national economy as well as the industrial development and governmental policies. The interior design market in China is now witnessing an inconsistent demand, which extensively provides a remarkable opportunity for home décor market in China. In 2015, China occupied 34.64% of the revenue market. It is followed by Europe and North America, which respectively have around 27.52% and 17.08% of the global total industry. Other countries have a small amount of revenue. Despite the fact that the global interior design market is saturated, Chinese interior design is playing a pivotal role with an outstanding market share which has to do more or less with Chinese consumption power. Below are some interior design companies in China that are seems to be the main players in the market; China State Construction Engineering Corporation, Gold Mantis Construction Decoration, Shenzhen Grandland Decoration Group, Shenzhen Hongtao Decoration and Zhejiang Yasha Decoration, which enjoy only 1.6% of market revenue of which Gold Mantis accounted for 0.7% in 2013

Market segmentation in the home décor market in China

The furniture market in China

Furniture is an important part of the Chinese interior design market and culture. According to Mr. Xu Xiangnan, Chairman of China National Furniture Association

“The furniture industry is not just a traditional industry but also an evergreen industry. It is closely related to people’s wellbeing and socio-economic stability”.

In 2018, there were 6,300 scaled furniture companies in China, with a total market size of 701 billion rmb.

In recent years, the furniture market in China is persistently growing to become the largest in the world with a value of US$ 114 billion, accounting for 61% of the total Asian and Pacific market. Furniture market in China shows a strong potential for further growth.

Office furniture has played a vital role in the interior design market in China, and now the country is the leading office furniture manufacturer and exporter at a global level, with production exceeds US$ 16 billion in 2018, increasing by 10% on average in the last decade and representing 30% of the world office furniture output. For office furniture, the interior design market in China has increased drastically from 24% in 2009 to 36% in 2018 (USD 4.0 billion) of the global exports is the main supplier for the United States, Japan, France, the United Kingdom and Japan among others. The United States alone which seems to be the main customer, represent $1.3 billion about 33% of the whole Chinese office exports.

The following companies are the major key players in that market making it highly saturated and competitive; Lizhiyanghang, Paiger, UE Furniture, Wosen, Victory, Henglin Chairs, CR Logic, Saosen, Diou, Green Link, Sunon, Lamex, Jinwei, Mingli, Xinnou and Shengao with Sunon and Lamex. However, home décor market in China is significantly growing due to high luxury demand from Chinese customers, the presence of Furniture store market is growing fast in China with leading European and Chinese brands such as IKEA Group, Jinan Fangzhen Furniture Co. Ltd, Kinhom Group, Shenzhen Hoba Home Furnishings Chain, Yuexing Group. These four companies share most of the market.

Lighting market in China

Lighting has a long traditional and cultural background in home décor market in China since during Han Dynasty (25–220 AD), lighting market in China was famous to the rest of wold. Currently, China’s lighting industry has been developing rapidly and the country has become a world-leading lighting producer and consumer. Lighting market in China can be grouped into; Light emitting diodes (LEDs) with the output value of RMB636.8 billion in 2017, up 21% from 2016, and is expected to show an annual growth rate of about 18% in 2018-2020 and is set to break the RMB 1 trillion by 2020. compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs), electrodeless discharge lamps (EDLs) and organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs) are major products in the mainland lighting market with rapid market grew from USD530 million in 2011 to USD6.23 billion in 2016, representing an annual growth rate of 63.8%, and is expected to reach USD65 billion by 2023. Lighting market in China consists of a lot of manufacturing and selling companies including AD Lighting, Beghelli, Civilight, Cooper, Cree, CX Lighting, Crestron, Dahom,Davinci,Dongsheng, DZ-YC, Eglo, Elec-Tech, ESN Lighting, ET Lighting, Fagerhult,Feelux, FSL,Greeble, Huari, Huati, , Huayi Group, HuaYu Lighting, Ikea, JK Lighting, Jiufo, Kingsun, Koizumi, Meses, Nanker, Neo-Neon, Neonlite-Megaman, NVC, Okes, Olympia, Opple, Pak Electrical, Philips, Plusrite, Tao Light, TCL Light, TCPShanghai, Top Century, Top Lighting, Topstar, TopTech lighting, Toshiba, Tospo, Touve-Gangfeng, Unilumin, Violet Lighting, Yajiang, Yaming, Yankon, Youyao, Zhongfa, Zhongyu, Zhongzhen, Zumtobel. However, leading players in the market, which control considerable part of lighting industry, are Neo-Neon Group, NVC Lighting Technology Corporation, Opple Lighting Co. Ltd, Penglei Energy Saving Component Factory, Zhejiang Yankon Group Co. Ltd, with some companies being international while others being domestic.

Art market in China and the door market in Chinese interior design

Rapid Urbanization and home renovation seems to be the leading factor that influences the Chinese art market. It’s predicted that by the year 2030, China will add 310 million urban residents and the urbanization level will reach 70%. In 2017, the demand for doors in China rose to 8.5% amounted for RMB194.5 billion. Due to the huge demand for interior design market in China, wood doors have dominated the market for Chinese interior design with RMB 150billion sales in a 2017. Non-residential has the highest demand than residential. Also, due to the robust increases in construction activity, spurred by rapid progress in industrialization and subsequent rising personal incomes, the north western region has the highest demand for home décor market in China.

Flooring market in China

With increase in urbanisation and rising in personal incomes of the customers, the interior design market in China is growing rapidly with the high demand for floor coverings which is forecast to rise to 4% per year to 5.2 billion sq m in 2020. Ceramic tile is used for interior design in China more frequent than any other flooring material, Non-resilient flooring was the most popular floor covering of interior design in China which has 85% demand. Carpets and rugs represented 8% of floor covering demand in China in 2015, with resilient flooring accounting for the remaining 7%. The, Power Dekor, Nature, Anxin (ARK), Vohringer, Shiyou (Sunyard), Der, Sino-Maple, Krono and Rhineshine are some major key players in flooring industry.

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China is producing and consuming the largest amount of lighters in the world

Lighter production in China

China is now the largest lighter producer in the world. The annual production of lighters has exceeded 15 billion items in 2017. Almost 70% of the world’s annual lighter production is contributed by Chinese producers from 2014-2017. Chinese-produced lighters also occupy 67% of the number of lighters sold globally. Since 2016, with this large production volume, China exports more than 6 billion lighters per year worth 165 million US dollars and it now shares the world’s 45% lighters market with the global market demands for lighters ranging around 20 billion items annually.

Number of China’s exported lighter from 2014-2017

China has an enormous consumption of lighters

Smoking is still the major purpose of lighters in China. Smokers are the main consumers of lighters in the Chinese market. China is the largest tobacco producer and consumer around the globe and it has 300 million tobacco users. tobacco users, known as the ‘smoking population’, occupy 23.70% of the total population in China. In 2017, China has witnessed a resurgence in tobacco consumption, with a 7.36% increase in normal cigarettes and 16.76% in luxurious tobacco products. Though China has published a series of regulations to reduce the smoking behavior and smoking population and witnessed a sharp decrease in tobacco sales during 2015-2016.

Chinese Tobacco sales from 2015-2018 and the smoking population in China 2017

The tobacco sales have restarted its increase since 2018 and continue this growing trend into 2018 with estimated sales around 47.5 billion boxes of tobacco products. As a result, large tobacco consumption leads to large lighters demand in China.

Lighters for daily usage (normally the low-end kerosene plastic-made lighters) are one of the major types of lighters consumed by regular tobacco users.

Chinese consumers use lighters as gifts

Other than being used for daily smoking, consumers also consider lighters as precious gifts, these mostly happen when purchasing luxurious imported lighters such as Dunhill or Zippo lighters. These international brands are regarded as more suitable as presents rather than daily usage.

Baidu Index shows that the search intensity of ‘lighters’ reaches its highest point in February 2018 when it was the Spring festival in the Chinese lunar calendar, which means the beginning of a new Chinese lunar year. More people (including non-smokers) consider lighters as festival gifts other than its main function as daily used equipment. Another Baidu Index keyword analysis shows that the search intensity of ‘lighter brand’ reached its peak during the Chinese Valentine’s Day. Branded lighters (mostly luxurious or more-costly than normal plastic-made kerosene lighters)are now being considered as a new gift option for women’s beloved husbands and boyfriends no matter those men are smokers or not.

Baidu Index on keywords ‘lighters’ and ‘lighter brands’ shows that lighters may be one of the festival gift choices in China now

 Branded lighters vs Non branded lighters in the Chinese market

Chinese consumers now separate lighters by their function. Daily usage lighters are normally made of plastic and using electronic means or kerosene as the main lighting technique. While high-end branded lighters such as Zippo can be seen as a gift during festival seasons, mainly due to its high added value from better design, craftsmanship, quality and original lighting experience by using the flint as the lighting technique.

Baidu Index keyword search intensity on words that represent normal plastic-made lighters for daily usages shows a totally opposite pattern with branded lighters during non-festival and festival days.

Baidu Index keyword ‘kerosene lighter’ and ‘electronic lighter’ shows low search intensities during festival seasons

Semantic analysis showing the searching trends lead by different keywords – ‘lighter’ for normal lighters and ‘lighter brands’ for branded lighters

The search intensity for keyword ‘kerosene lighters’, which stands for normal plastic-made kerosene lighters reached its lowest during the week of Chinese Spring Festival. The search intensity for keyword ‘electronic lighters’, which stands for another type of low-end daily using lighters also reached its lowest during the Spring Festival season as well as the Chinese National Day holiday season at the beginning of October 2018.

Further semantic analysis from Baidu Index of different keywords related to lighters shows a segmented trend towards different positioned lighter products and brands. A normal keyword ‘lighter’ is highly related to different types of normal lighters such as gas lighters and windproof lighters. While the special keyword ‘lighter brands’ related to differently branded lighters which have higher retailing prices with an international background such as Zippo and S.T Dupont.

Consumption trends in Chinese lighters market

Social Media Content analysis:

Chinese consumers now rely heavily on domestic social media when picking their own lighters. Zhihu, Weibo and Wechat are the major sources for opinions sharing and brand introduction.

Zhihu.com

Zhihu, as a Q&A social media, has gathered more than 100 million topics under numerous topics. Under the topic of choosing lighters, answers focus more on lighter brands introduction and recommendation. Mostly international brands are being recommended and picked such as Clippers, Zippo and Dunhill.

Weibo

Weibo is another major social media primarily for opinion sharing, businesses do marketing campaign on Weibo to attract followers and hence the brand recognition and reputation among Chinese Internet user population. Key opinion leaders (KOLs) are the major methods of promoting one brand.

‘I have dreamed to have a Zippo lighter since I was a kid. Because it’s cool and has a strong personality. Thanks to Zippo China for offering me a surprise today. Mazzi, who is a master of art from Italy, designed this lighter for me.’ by Yu Han, Famous Chinese pop dancer promoting Zippo lighters on his personal Weibo account. This post has 8,416 likes and 28,317 shares

Weibo lottery is another popular mean for a marketing campaign on Chinese social media. Domestic brand Zengaz teamed up with Ziyannet.com (an entertainment media) together held an online Weibo lottery and this post received 107 likes and 315 reposts.

Wechat

Don’t let your lighter expose you as having bad taste. Whether you smoke or not, a lighter is the alternative on men’s gifts list. After all, it has a special position among men’s fashion accessories. Men buy lighters for themselves and as gifts, not only for their practicability and value but also to show their styles and taste.
This article has 7,700 views and 20 likes.

Wechat, the biggest online communication tool has its own social media function. Wechat articles are published by public accounts that users can follow. These articles can be on various topics including lighters. Articles on lighters mainly focus on how to pick your own lighters that fit your tastes and introduction and recommendations of differently branded lighters.

‘\and Ziyannet.com wake your football dream. Now follow @ZENGAZ and @Ziyannet.com and share with 1 friend, forecasting the champion of the world cup! On 14th, 21st, 28th of June and 5th, 12th of July, we will pick 1 person each day to receive a gift about World cup for free

Products authentication and validation, lighter brands (mainly international brands) introduction and promotion, these are topics mostly seen from the analysis of social media contents. On the other hand, e-commerce platforms customers praise for the good quality and great craftsmanship incorporated in those products. Hence a comprehensive analysis of the lighter products sold online is another convenient way to verify the consumer trends on lighter in China.

Customers from e-commerce platforms praise for good qualities and great good design while criticizing poorly manufactured products.

The international brands are facing strong competition from local brands, or even local manufacturers not branding their product and pricing at a low-level not matchable and exhibiting strong ties with their local distribution networks – Thibaud Andre, Research Director of Daxue Consulting

Competition landscape by product types and brands’ e-commerce presence

Analyzing the sales performances of different brands within different types of lighters is a major way to see through the chaotic lighters market phenomenon and to discover the true competition landscape and consumption trends hidden behind the scenes. Also, the e-commerce presence of different brands can be seen as if the brands’ holders are adapting relatively cutting-edge sales strategies within the Chinese market. After all, e-commerce is now the largest and most straightforward retail channel for almost all the products, especially for daily consumer goods such as lighters.

Products Analysis: Kerosene lighters in the Chinese market

October 2018, among all kerosene lighters brands on Taobao/Tmall, Domestic brand Zorro was the sales Champion of the month, followed by international giants Zippo. Other domestic and international brands such as Honest and IMCO are also among the top sellers. Zorro captured the monthly sales champion for two reasons: low prices and classic Zippo design. Its top-selling product type was only 32.9 RMB compared with the similar Zippo one at 198 RMB. However, it is obvious that Zippo had reached a much higher revenue for a higher price with a considerable amount sold.

Kerosene lighter sales performances by brands on major e-commerce platforms in China

Consumers choose Zorro mainly for its classic Zippo design with much lower prices, but while this is true, the original Zippo brands do not lack much on the sales and its products can be sold at a much higher price. Authenticity may also exert some of its weights when consumer picking their own lighters.

Products Analysis: Flint lighters in the Chinese market

Among all flint lighter brands on Taobao/Tmall, Clipper is no doubt the dominant market player in this segment. There is no large price difference between domestic and international brands (they are all very low, Clipper even has the lowest price among all), and it is obvious that all starting at low prices, international brands are undoubtedly the most popular one among all market players for the good qualities and brands reputations.

Flint lighter sales performances by brands on major e-commerce platforms in China

Other brands include Nobleman, XinHai and Cricket (international). Domestic brands are not competent to their international counterparts and even the second top seller Cricket sold way more lighters than the domestic third XinHai for more than 10,000 thousand lighters.

Products Analysis: Electronic lighters in the Chinese market

Domestic brand Focus led the Taobao/Tmall sales in October 2018 with its items sold doubled those sold by the second-best seller international brand Chief. The major reason is that domestic electronic lighter producers developed their technology of production independently and the lower costs lead to a lower retail price. While international brands still tag their prices ranging above medium prices, the domestic electronic lighter brands have realized low prices with reliable qualities, thus a better market performance among all the market players.

Electronic lighter sales performances by brands on major e-commerce platforms in China

The analysis of different types of lighters shows that the price range of lighters is large on e-commerce platforms such as Tmall and JD. And prices are the major criteria for the consumer to decide what, where and when to purchase. Many Chinese brands can provide extremely cheap products with similar functions since they have a lower all-scope cost structure. International firms can effectively compete with them through quality and design if the prices are not an advantage that can be grasped by foreign competitors.

Brand analysis

Zippo:

Zippo is one of the most important lighter brands in China and its strong presence on the Internet is reflected by its well-maintained official Chinese website and other official flagship e-commerce stores on different platforms. According to the research by Daxue, the official Chinese Zippo website is the major information distribution channel for Zippo news such as new arrivals and new designs, as well as those promotional activities during Chinese events such as double 11 shopping festival, the largest annual e-commerce sales events in China. Besides its Chinese official website, Zippo also has its presence on all major e-commerce stores including Taobao/Tmall, JD.com, Kaola and Pinduoduo.

Zippo’s presence on different major Chinese e-commerce platforms

Zippo’s brand reputation mainly comes from its understanding of and respect towards Chinese culture. Based on its classic design, Zippo has incorporated the Chinese cultural elements into its products for Chinese consumers. The localized branding strategy has made Zippo the most welcomed lighter brand in China.

The presence of e-commerce leads to an important marketing role played by social media. In China, Wechat and Weibo are two major social media platforms penetrate heavily on consumers’ daily life. Zippo has an active official presence on both platforms with a considerable number of active followers.

Zippo’s Chinese social media presence – Weibo and Wechat

S.T.Dupont:

S.T.Dupont, the famous luxurious lighter brand from France, is another major lighter competitor in the high-end lighters market in China. This brand only sells high-end lighters with luxurious and delicate design, as well as the expensive price tags. S.T.Dupont has official presences on all major e-commerce platforms including an official website for releasing new arrivals and updating news about the brand. Due to its nature of being the luxury brand, its sales are relatively low on e-commerce platforms.

S.T.Dupont’s presence on different major Chinese e-commerce platforms

S.T.Dupont’s official Chinese social media presence is limited. Though official accounts both exist on Wechat and Weibo, they do not maintain the active status and compared with Zippo, the follower numbers are small with few posts.

S.T.Dupont’s Chinese social media presence – Weibo and Wechat

The delicacy in its product designs means the lighters from this brand are only suitable for collective purposes, for those who are truly lighter collectors, S.T.Dupont lighters exhibit high collective value while it is not suitable for ordinary consumers to purchase these types of lighters only for its brand value of being luxurious.

Clipper:

Clipper is a trendy brand in the international lighters market. Its trendy and lively design attracts younger consumers and thus being recognized as a fast-fashion related lighters brand. The official websites mainly update the new product designs for Chinese consumers while it has an official presence among most major e-commerce platforms except Kaola. Compared with the trendiest one Zippo, the monthly (November 2018) sales of Clipper is way lower.

Clipper’s presence on different major Chinese e-commerce platforms

Clipper’s social media presence is very weak, its official accounts on Wechat and Weibo have low activities and its followers are limited to a small number.

Clipper’s Chinese social media presence – Weibo and Wechat

Though not very active on social media, Clipper’s designs are very localized and personalized, which creates chances for reaching young customers as the new generation of consumers are more likely to purchase products with distinguishable individual styles. The localized cultural branding strategy also applies to Clipper’s products as it frequently uses elements of China such as the Great Wall and Pandas.

Baidu Index shows Zippo is still dominating the searching keywords, meaning Zippo is the dominating name of the lighters market in China. Other brands are incomparable to the name of Zippo. Wechat Index shows a similar pattern of intensity that Zippo has more than 5-fold search intensity than the second place holder S.T.Dupont.

Zippo is still the dominant brand by Baidu Index and Wechat Index

Facts about Zippo focuses on both high-end and low-end market may be the major reason why it is the biggest market player yet. Other brands do not have a matching product spectrum to compete with.

Localized branding strategy gives Clipper and Zippo a great advantage on sales volume. While Clipper only targets younger consumers, Zippos products are suitable for all age groups, therefore, giving it the best potential customer population in China. Metallic quality also gives Zippo great advantage compared with Clipper, of which most of the products are made of plastic. Overall speaking, Zippo offers the best lighters deal in the market with good quality and acceptable prices.

How important is a brand strategy in the Chinese market?

Successful branding strategies can bring huge success. Zippo utilized a unique China-only advertisement to promote its products in China on Valentine’s Day 2017. This advertisement did not sell the products themselves but the sense of romance connected to Zippo lighters. The purpose of the advertisement is to relate romantic feelings with Zippo thus enlarge the potential customers from the targeted audiences – young lovers in China.

Branding strategies also include naming the brands in Chinese name. Zippo has named some of its products as ‘Zimo自摸’, the words indicating a Mahjong player winning the game by getting the key tile himself. ‘Zimo’ has a potential meaning of being the luckiest and winning the wealth from others. Zippo’s ‘Zimo’ lighter is therefore associated with similar ideas.

S.T.Dupont named a series of its products as James Bond 007 series. ‘James Bond 詹姆斯·邦德’ is the major character from 007 series movies and has a great sense of taste, this name indicates the products and the owners also have great personal tastes.

Clipper uses ‘Suerte 好运连连’ as its products name, this name means the ‘ongoing good fortune’ and Clipper want to exhibit a sense of continuous luckiness for the potential users of clippers.

Thus, the ways of naming a lighter come from three major aspects. First, the names use words with Chinese culture background to express the meaning of good luck, wealth and best wishes. Second, buy using some names of well-known movie characters, products may give similar impressions of those movie stars. Last but not least, the direct use of patterns and images on lighters to express the meaning of product designs.

How important are offline sales for luxury lighter brands in China?[The retail distribution benefits from the great network of convenient stores in urbanized areas. Getting access to store chain assortment is the key challenge for international brands’ distribution – Thibaud Andre, Research Director of Daxue Consulting]

Take Zippo for example

By the time of 2017, Zippo had more than 1,700 authorized offline retail stores in China. It also announced the establishment of its online official flagship stores on Tmall and JD.com. In China, Zippo’s offline sales (60%) is still the major distribution channel, while its online distribution methods (40%) are the getting up quickly in recent years.

Offline retailing – Case in Shanghai

The offline retailing is still a major chain for lighter distribution. Case analysis on Shanghai shows that the offline geographical coverage of stores that sell lighters is large. Normal tobacconists and convenient stores only sell ordinary lighters for daily usage while branded lighter stores sell international brands such as Zippo and Dunhill. Research from Baidu Map and Dianping.com shows that major sales places include a shopping mall, supermarket, convenient stores and brand specialize stores.

Geographical analysis of offline lighter sales points in Shanghai

Different in-store representation

The sales places for different lighters are drastically different and their in-store representation is also distinguished.

For high-end branded lighters such as Zippo, these products are sold in specialized and authorized retailers in shopping malls and department stores with showcases containing and displaying different types and designs for customers to choose from. These products emphasize their design and quality offline.

High-end lighters are displayed in window showcases

Low-end lighters are placed at the cashiers of convenient stores

 For low-end products sold in tobacconists, supermarkets and convenience stores, they can always be found near the cashier, positioned as an impulse or quick purchase.

The main advantage of the online retailing of lighters in China

Our research shows that, though Tmall/Taobao is larger than JD.com, the presence of different lighter brands on JD.com is way more than those on Tmall. The major reason for this is that Tmall has stricter rules for official stores opening-up with a higher deposit taken. One big advantage for online retailing is that many lighter brands do not have to have a large and effective network of offline distributors to start their business operations in China.

Number of brands presence on Tmall/Taobao and JD.com

Lighters sales by types in China

The most common type of lighters used by Chinese is gas lighters. In October 2018, only on Taobao/Tmall, the sales volume of gas lighters is twice as much as that of Kerosene lighters, makes it the largest and most popular lighter type in China.

Implications for International lighter Brands

For those international lighters brands, who want to explore the consumption potential within the Chinese market, localized branding and marketing strategies are their necessities.

First of all, international brands can utilize those cross-border e-commerce platforms such as Tmall, JD.com and Kaola mean to penetrate China’s domestic lighters market. E-commerce presence of those brands mentioned is evident when considering the best market entry opportunities for those yet to come to China.

To better understand Chinese consumers, Chinese social media such as Weibo and Wechat (perhaps Tieba) are the major channel to gather customers’ feedbacks as well as holding PR activities such as Weibo lotteries. It is also important to use individual or organizational KOLs including fashion magazines and Internet icons to elevate the sense of the presence of the brand on Chinese Internet communities.

Specialized lighters online retailer is another way to open up new distribution channels when seeking ways to penetrate the Chinese market. Online retailing is the future for lighters sales in China. Zctx.com, Tlaoda.com, Vipbinghu.com, 67a.cn and 67a.cn apps are all specialized online retailers for smoking equipment including lighters. Cooperation with these retailers can bring loyal smoking population at your doorstep and once the new lighter is accepted by the most loyal and picky customer, it is easy for you to reach others with no significant brand loyalty.

Last but not least, it is important to localize especially on the product design. Zippo and Clipper adopt successful product design just for Chinese consumers. And Zippo even made a unique advertisement only for China. Evidently, the strong online and offline market presence of Zippo lighters and its enormous annual sales are all consequences of successful localization. For those yet to enter the Chinese market, it is the best to suit consumers’ tastes in China.

Author: Jiameng Hu

Daxue Consulting can help get your lighter brand into the Chinese market

Daxue Consulting has carried out enormous projects with premium products (can be your luxury lighters brand) as well as FMCG and has experience with product launches and market entry procedures like brand naming and competitor analysis. To meet answers to all your questions do not hesitate to contact our project managers at dx@daxueconsulting.com.

This article The expanding Chinese lighters market provides diverse opportunities for international entrants | Daxue Consulting is the first one to appear on Daxue Consulting - Market Research China.