Last time I talked about special price bricks, this time I will talk about imported bricks.
In the early years, Chinese people pursued foreign products for two reasons: first, some domestic merchants were really unscrupulous, and second, the quality of foreign products was really excellent. At that time, "imported goods = luxury goods" became a consensus.
Buying imported goods is undoubtedly a very honorable thing. Thanks to the development of domestic productivity, this "trend" has changed in recent years.
Especially since 2020, due to governments’ improper response to the epidemic, the market share of imported bricks in China has plummeted. Some people in the industry joked: "Only companies with no money make imported bricks, while those who want to make a lot of money make domestic bricks."
Three dilemmas of imported bricks
What is the reason for this joke? There are three difficulties faced by imported tiles: first, high prices, second, slow growth in market share, and third, domestic tiles passing off as imported tiles.
Of these three problems, viewers can ignore the first two. The last one is closely related to everyone: domestic tiles pretending to be imported tiles. This means that what you may buy at a price 10 times higher than domestic tiles is not the imported tiles you want, but domestically produced tiles. This is very distressing, old man.
The root cause of these three problems is price. Due to the existence of tariffs, value-added tax, and the operating costs of agents, the price of imported bricks that viewers can see will not be less than 1,000 yuan per piece. However, at this price, you can buy better domestic bricks and enjoy more considerate after-sales service. So, for a relatively affordable price, where can the market competitiveness of imported bricks come from?
So in the mid- to low-end market, imported bricks cannot compete with domestic bricks. At present, domestic imported bricks mainly come from Italy, Spain and India. The first two basically focus on the high-end market, while in the mid-to-low-end market, only India's "slate" has been popular for a period of time in the past two years. The main reason for its market popularity is the low price and the lack of demand for slate in China at that time. There is no awareness.
But when domestic manufacturers began to enter the field of slate, and with the establishment and expansion of production lines, Indian slate was "cut down". Regardless of quality or price, there is no market for Indian slate in front of domestic products.competitive.
Imported bricks are popular in high-end and finally high-end
However, in the high-end market, price is no longer the main factor that customers consider. Imported bricks can still occupy a place with their technology, brand influence and "imported" reputation.
As a boss who specializes in imported bricks said: "Now we only make rock slabs with special craftsmanship. I would rather sell them more expensively and take a differentiated route. It doesn't matter if the quantity is smaller." As for how expensive this price can be Woolen cloth? The author saw it once on Douyin. Audiences can imagine the price: 190,000 yuan per piece. This is only the cost of materials and does not include the processing costs of materials - the processing costs of imported bricks are much higher than those of domestic bricks.
Imported bricks are equivalent to luxury goods, but they are not what most of us need, but are only "commodities" that serve a very small number of people.
Of course, success is as bad as failure. The reason for the slow increase in market share is this: although the consumer groups targeted by imported bricks have abundant spending power, they are limited in number after all. In addition, ceramic tiles are not fast-moving consumer goods after all, and their purchase cycle is basically more than 5 years. This also results in a relatively low ceiling for the imported brick market.
According to industry data, the total annual sales of imported bricks is roughly around 1 billion, and the sales of 1 billion may only be the performance of leading domestic companies in less than 2 months. Because of this, the joke above came into being.
Are imported bricks worth pursuing?
Can ordinary people buy imported bricks? You can buy it, but the chances are that the products you buy are domestic "OEM" products, or "fake products" that look fake. This is the third problem with imported bricks: fakes.
Chinese people are all face-saving after all. In order to look good, they pursue imported bricks, but they cannot afford genuine imported bricks. If an "imported brick" with an affordable price appears at this time, how many people in the audience do you think will resist buying it? As for whether this brick is really imported, does it matter? Not to mention that customers don’t have the ability to tell whether bricks are imported.
ViewGentlemen would like to ask if there is any way to tell whether this brick is an imported brick? This is something that most people in the industry who don’t specialize in imported bricks wouldn’t be able to tell. Of course, the quality of ceramic tiles can still be seen.
As mentioned at the beginning of the article, "import" = "face-saving". In this regard, practitioners in the ceramic industry feel aggrieved. Domestic products are no worse than foreign products, but no one thinks that domestic products are equal to face. This is also the reason why some domestic ceramic tiles are pretending to be imported ceramic tiles.
Seeing this, the audience knows what the author wants to say, right? Yes, if you don’t have a mine at home, don’t pursue imported bricks. Don’t domestic ceramic tiles smell good?
