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Since China agreed to join the WTO, the Chinese furniture market  has blossomed, especially with the booming real estate industry. Chinese people put incredible amounts of thought into the appearance of their homes as it is regarded as their shelter and harbor. Even though the price of a 100 square-meter room may cost Chinese consumers more than 3 million RMB in most areas of Beijing(北京), Chinese people still covet a nice living space to call their home. As a result, the furniture market is flourishing but the competition within the industry is stiff.

China’s unique taste in furniture

Frankly speaking, Chinese people tend to have a preference for rosewood because of its high price. They associate this price with high quality and high social status. A recent survey carried out by China Social Survey Institute (SSIC)  investigated 1000 people in Beijing(北京), Tianjin(天津), Shanghai(上海) and Wuhan(武汉) and took 960 samples back. The survey showed that, Chinese people cared about the quality of furniture most, followed by price, brand name, appearance and functionality. 43% of the informants were fond of wooden furniture, 30% liked panel furniture and 27% liked iron or bamboo furniture. When it comes to the brand name, 52% prefered domestic brands, while 49% preferred foreign-funded enterprises and 5% preferred imported ones. In terms of purchasing location, 73% of the informants go to Furniture, 15% go to a big furniture supermarket such as B&Q and IKEA, while 12% buy it directly from the manufacture. However, these people complain about low-level design.

Chinese Top 10 Furniture brands：Quanyou(全友), QM(曲美),  Red Apple (红苹果), Lianbang(联邦), IKEA(宜家), M&Z(掌上明珠), Huari(华日), Royal(皇朝), Huafeng(华丰) and Shuangye(双叶)

The furniture market requires a lot on marketing segmentation and research because the tastes of customers directly determine their purchasing power.  Those Chinese brands would like to exploit more lines to satisfy those mature customer needs.   Take China’s biggest civil furniture enterprise Quanyou(全友) which runs research and development, production and sales. The enterprise was founded in 1986 and now it expanding to 30 branches, more than 20 overseas offices and over 3000 specialty shops. Their products are popular all over the world and exported to Western countries and South East Asia. Owning 3 research and development center in Chengdu(成都), Shenzhen(深圳) and Milan, Quanyou shapes a team of more than 200 designers from China, Italy, Germany and Denmark.

Misconduct of international brands in China：DaVinci (达芬奇)

With the intention to take advantage of Chinese consumers’ craze towards foreign brands, DaVinci (达芬奇) initially stated that its furniture was imported from Italy. In actuality, its furniture was produced in Dongguan(东莞) in Guangdong(广东) province and lied to their customers by concealing their raw material of furniture. This unethical misconduct was reported by CCTV on July, 2011 and caused problems for the Chinese furniture market. 

More on China market research and Daxue Consulting Research in China

Sources:

New York Times

Forbes

Euromonitor

PDF by Italian Trade Commission 

Picture:

Panzhuang Xiuhua