High end cabinet has become trendy in custmization in China

 Summary: In the past two years the Chinese high-end home customization market are updating rapidly, but custom cabinet maker like Casa Custom is achieving outstanding performance. This article is talking about why the market changed and a new trend for cabinet makers in China.

The real estate market has been cooling for more than a year due to the recurring epidemic in China, shrinking demand for housing, short-term policy adjustments, and other factors. Data shows 1,116 high-end projects from January to July 2022, down 41.1% year-on-year; the number of finishing sets was 834,700, down 47.8% year-on-year. Among them, 181 new projects were opened in July, down 32.2% year-on-year; the number of high-end sets was 134,500, down 38.2% year-on-year, and the market has yet to usher in a rebound. High end cabinet is an essential home living product, so let's see how it performs in the high-end market by Casa Custom.

1. New cities have higher demand

Kitchen cabinets as a standard product in the high-end market, the configuration rate of 98.3%, supporting the statistic, down 41.6%; scale 820,300 sets, down 48.1%. From the perspective of the regional market, East China is still the main force, with a market share of 41.2%, 488 finishing projects, and a scale of 338,200 sets. From the city level, it was mainly concentrated in the new cities, with a scale of 286,100 units and a market share of 34.9%, such as Chengdu, Hangzhou, and Nanjing, where the demand was high.

2. Branding trend highlighted Casa Custom user development counter-trend growth

In the high-end market, cabinets are mainly based on custom made kitchen cabinets brands, and the market share of cabinets from January to July 2022 was 34.6%, down 7.8 percentage points year-on-year, with the brand subscription effect weakening significantly and the branding trend coming to the fore. In addition to the subscription, the refined market on the TOP brands share a total of 68.2%, brand concentration is significant like Casa Custom and other brands in the forefront, and brand share has increased to a certain extent, the brand competition is intense. 

3. Consumer groups change and demand brings change to the home furnishing market

As the home furnishing consumer group shifts to the post-90s, post-95s, and even post-00s, the term "high-end home furnishing" has started to appear frequently in their minds, and while the consumer group is changing, the mainstream consumer concept is also changing. The new generation of consumers has new requirements for home furnishing products in terms of design, material texture, space layout, and sense of use, and the traditional model has failed to meet consumer needs. Of course, "high quality" is not the same as "expensive", it means being able to fit in with consumers to the highest degree. Therefore, it is a new challenge for the custom cabinet maker to meet the individual needs of a new generation of consumers, and it also brings new opportunities for designers, producers, technology, and even the entire industry chain.

4. More aesthetically pleasing

Visual value is the first element when consumers choose a product, if the appearance is not even looked at, then there is simply no desire to continue to understand the next. Visual value is mainly reflected in the design, in the custom industry early products meet the immediate needs of the main, and the benchmark product design has three lines.

 

4.1 The first is the finished furniture in how to do, finished furniture is suite thinking, more focus on the living room, dining room expression, wardrobe category is just one of the many product categories, in the proportion of attention is far less than the tv cabinet for living room or sofa.

4.2 The second is the import brand in how to do, in the early entry into the market of custom brands focus on sliding door wardrobe, nowadays the mainstream of the flat door wardrobe is almost invisible.

After the high-end customized market slowly surfaced in 2016, the face value of the custom industry is very obvious, the simplest observation is that from the original melamine impregnated decorative panel-based door panels to the application of multi-materials such as panel, wood, leather, etc., these multi-material interventions make the product appearance of the effect of expression richer.

4.3 Therefore, the first change brought to the industry by "High-end" is the face value, and it is foreseeable that this change will continue to heat up.

 

5. Improved quality with more durability and convenience

After the first look at the product, the next understanding experience will start from the quality, to see if it meets their expectations, for consumers to customize the quality of the industry is not only functional, durability, and other aspects, for professionals, the quality will include process details experience.

 

5.1 First of all, look at the functionality, that is, what consumers think is convenient.

If someone researches the performance of Hettich, Blum, SALICE, and other hardware brands, it will be found that in recent years they should have had relatively good growth in the market, once there may have been a state of oversupply.

The same situation also occurs in the supply chain of imported and domestic hardware, storage function parts, lighting, electrical appliances, etc. The industry is paying more attention to the application of these key accessories from a research and development point of view to choose, these in meeting the higher functional needs of consumers.

5.2 Next, look at the durability aspects, including but not limited to wear resistance, ease to clean, environmental protection, etc.

The industry supply chain manufacturers have developed high gloss, matt, super matt, anti-metallic, stonelike, and skin-feel products that completely overturn traditional perceptions from the perspective of the sense of touch, and also have a significant increase in durability.

5.3 Finally, the craftsmanship details, which are the points that professionals will focus on, such as cutting boards, sealing edges, construction methods, etc.

These process details and the upgrade of production equipment, and process standards have a very big relationship, from making products to making good products this is an important iteration of business growth, from the workshop to professional factory this road major custom manufacturers have gone through.

The aforementioned functionality, durability, and craftsmanship details are all related to the birth of the "High-end" market, where "High-end" brands like Casa Custom have taken the lead in choosing industry-leading supply chains and craftsmanship levels as their quality standards in order to be more competitive in the industry. The 'high-fashion' brands were the first to choose industry-leading supply chains and craftsmanship as their quality standard in order to be more competitive in the industry.

Other mass-customization brands either launched high-fashion collections or quickly followed these supply chain references, especially the production end of the upgrade has raised the quality of products in the customization industry by a large update.

There should be no end to the quality improvement of custom made kitchen cabinets driven by high-end customization, including the application of cabinet appliances, lighting systems, and many other quality upgrades that are far from the ceiling of the industry, and even the popularity is not enough.

6. Systematic thinking: From product to lifestyle

"High-end" is not considered to be a product, since ancient times there has been "high-end", only in a specific context about "high-end" should be slightly equal to “high-quality non-prefabricated customization in large scale production”, it is a product of an industrialized system.

Before the birth of "High-end", the research and development on customization were mainly based on the perception of single items in individual spaces such as cabinets, wardrobes, cloakrooms, bookcases, and living room cabinets, meeting the storage needs of each space for different items.

After the birth of "High-end", the logic of custom product development has changed, in addition to single products, more consideration will be given to the space, and lifestyle needs, so there are mattresses, sofas, and other home furnishings interventions, these supporting products, on the one hand, is the shop to expand the value of the customer, on the other hand, is not a guide to the lifestyle?

The systemic nature of "High-end" also includes product development, product design, production process, installation, and other aspects of research, such as product development & design, earlier research and development is mainly to push the cabinet, wardrobe products, product release will be given to the shop's design standards, Casa Custom has seen a number of brands of design standards are not perfect so that the design standards of many brands are not perfect, and designers always have such and such problems when designing products for end customers.

After the emergence of the "High-end" market, each brand's documentation and support is more complete, possibly because of the brand's self-upgrading, but also most likely because the "High-end" competition makes the brand pay more attention. And Casa Custom is working in this way.