2023 is a critical year for development, and the most beautiful time of the year is the month of April. As the major door and window brands and home furnishing industry exhibitions were held from March to April, the "blooming flowers" gradually came to an end in mid-April. Through direct visits to various exhibition sites, countless new brands, new products, new techniques, and new ideas were showcased. This not only reflects the vitality of the entire industry but also reveals the future development trends for the door and window industry and home furnishing brands.
Through an understanding of the 2023 China International Building and Decoration Fair (Shanghai), the 51st China International Furniture Fair (Guangzhou), Guangzhou Customization Exhibition, and the 21st China (Fengchi) Aluminum Door and Window Building Decoration Exhibition, it is not difficult to discover common trends shown at each exhibition. While each exhibition had different participating enterprises, brands, and products, some common trends were present, and overall trends could be observed. In 2023, the overall trends in the door and window industry and home furnishing industry were as follows: emphasis on design communication, low carbon health as a priority, accelerated digital construction, emergence of smart homes, focus on high-end markets, and frequency of brand and product alignment.
Trend 1: Emphasis on design communication
In the entire door and window home furnishing industry, the "design" has greatly improved from previous simple hard advertising propaganda. From artistry, concept, creativity, copywriting, and presentation, efforts have been made to show a greater diversity of forms. As the overall aesthetic concept of door and window home furnishing has improved, and new generations of consumers have emerged, more and more consumers will appreciate and evaluate the brand's exhibition hall, brand, product, art design, and creative concepts from a design perspective. This is because door and window home furnishing design is an important part of the entire industry chain and a fusion of functionality and aesthetics, products, and aesthetics. Good design is a visual and sensory enjoyment for consumers, and this is why many businesses put effort into design.
Apart from new directions shown in the design aspect, communication also takes many forms. From traditional flat material publicity, on-site promotion, promotional posters, training materials, field promotion, video promotion, there are also various forms of online live broadcasts, celebrity exploration shops, short video communication, consumer interaction, etc. In addition, the market demand for design has upgraded from previous free drawings and single design modes to "full case delivery" and "full case design," which fits the user experience better, better displays the overall space design concept, and does not limit itself to single products. Instead, it integrates the overall brand into a more complete and comprehensive layout, including the overall storefront visual, video, animation rendering, customer maintenance, online marketing, and media promotion. In particular, it is found that many businesses have significantly increased their online layout and promotion proportion.
Trend 2: Low-carbon and Health Comes First
Over the past two years, it has become clear that "low-carbon environmental protection, energy-saving, and health" are the inevitable trends in consumption. From large-scale goals such as carbon neutrality to small-scale household energy conservation and low-carbon living, these are all trends that consumers pursue in their green and healthy lifestyles. Under this trend, related products will inevitably be favored, making energy conservation, environmental protection, and low-carbon themes increasingly common among exhibitors and new products. Of course, this is an inevitable trend.
In terms of health, for both the body and the natural environment, environmental protection and health have always been the basic requirements of doors, windows, and home furnishings. For example, formaldehyde-free boards and harmless paint surfaces have more complete solutions from production and manufacturing to material surfaces, core parts, and long-term use. This also indicates that consumers' demands for low-carbon environmental protection, energy conservation, and health will only become higher in the future. Related demands will become more and more numerous, and the solutions will also become increasingly perfect.
Trend 3: Accelerated Digital Construction
Digital construction presents significant opportunities and challenges to traditional business models. The digital enterprise process focuses more on customer orientation, integrates into the ecosystem, and can provide more forward-looking decision support for enterprises through intelligent data analysis, as well as more accurately meet customers' personalized needs.
As consumption upgrades, future home decoration will need to provide more time-saving, effortless, and personalized solutions in addition to high quality, high aesthetic value, safety, and environmental protection. Therefore, companies must turn to digital construction to meet these needs. At the exhibition, some large brands have already begun to showcase the results of this digital transformation.
By utilizing new media, AI technology, cloud data construction, and upgrading strategically, category integration, omni-channel, multi-category, matrix promotion, and multi-brand will break boundaries and collaboratively build competitive advantages. At the same time, optimizing delivery solutions, finished products + customization, improving production processes, production integration, home integration, design integration, service integration, and one-stop delivery will also be trends in the future.
Trend 4: Emergence of Smart Homes
Under the development and promotion of the digital economy and related technologies, including AI, the commercial use of 5G, the extensive application of the Internet of Things, smart homes have matured from a conceptual stage to become a hot industry. The smart home door and window industry has experienced high heat, from consumption concepts to technological support and national policies, the popularity of smart homes has become a trend. At the same time, it has also created conditions for making homes "smart." The classification of smart products will become more detailed, and the types of products involved will also be more extensive.
Currently, at recent exhibitions, there has been a surge in smart home products, such as smart opening door and window systems, remote control, automatic control, automatic adjustment, and one-button control systems, smart sleep systems, and whole-house ecological intelligence, all guided by smart living and smart home experiences. According to professional institutions' calculations and statistics, China's smart economy's overall market size is expected to reach trillions of yuan. As people's living standards improve, and modern technology and artificial intelligence systems (such as AI/ChatGPT and other such intelligent systems) become more popular, people's demand for high-quality products will also become increasingly high. Therefore, intelligent products are also considered by the industry as having a bright future and market prospects.
Trend 5: Focus on the High-end Market
With the trend of dual improvement in consumer ability and aesthetics, the market is inevitably trending towards high-end. At the Guangzhou Expo, the popularity of minimalist and luxurious customized products targeting the high-end market has been on the rise, while products that used to be low-priced and cost-effective are relatively weaker. The consumer group pays more attention to design sense, experiential sense, detail presentation, color visual effects, bold, young, and diverse design aesthetics. "High-end and systematic" has also become one of the high-frequency words in 2023. Some domestic products are gradually being favored, rather than simply defined as high-end imports. As the consumer group changes, rational consumption and a focus on taste are also a trend in the high-end market. For example, when it comes to aluminum alloy casement window products, although ordinary broken bridge aluminum can achieve a very low price, the focus is on injection-sealed window products, and the focus is on air tightness, water tightness, sound insulation, and other effects.
Trend 6: Brand and Product are Coordinated
For products, it is not just single product construction, but businesses also pay more attention to brand operation. The market develops in an orderly manner, and products are continuously produced, which is also a strategic plan for most brands. They change their development direction from creating explosive products to overall brand building; let the brand and product develop synchronously, improve production, ensure raw materials, upgrade services, and strengthen internal construction. This way, brand and product can develop synchronously, maintain a healthy operation, and avoid the disconnection of various links, which is also a development trend of future brands.
Inclusion
Through various signs revealed during the 2023 door and window home industry exhibition, the above six trends can be observed. It is believed that by following the market trend, seizing opportunities, deeply exploring pain points, and creating perfect solutions with new ideas and perspectives, brands can be empowered to reach new heights.
