Do not do offline: Internet TV can not escape the niche?

After experiencing a wave of Internetization, offline stores that were thought to be “lagging behind the times” are once again the target of TV manufacturers.

According to data from the third-party market research firm Aowei Cloud Network, the H1 TV online sales volume in 2015 was 5.28 million units, an increase of 77% year-on-year, accounting for 24% of the total channel; but at the same time, compared to the second half of last year Million sales volume rose by less than 8% month-on-month, even considering the differences in the shopping season in the first half and second half of the year, this ring growth figure was too "ugly."

An industry analyst told Netease Technology that the development of the online channel in the television industry to a certain extent, will inevitably encounter some bottlenecks, "although the acceptance of online purchase of black power is getting higher and higher, but logistics, distribution, experience and other issues are gradually Become the biggest concern of consumers, may be able to ease the re-layout line."

This is no longer a secret in the industry. According to Netease Technology, even brands such as LeTV, Xiaomi, and PPTV are currently under consideration or are considering returning to the line. The offline wars of TV makers seem to be coming. However, this time the game may not be the same as the previous stores and stores.


Online bonuses

In fact, relative to the overall downturn of the TV industry, there is still a clear dividend in maintaining online channels for growth.

Because of this, most of the traditional brands and Internet brands have high expectations on the Internet. For example, Internet brands that were formally split from Skyworth in the first half of the year have already sold more than 500,000 TVs so far this year. LeTV has allegedly sold 1.8 million units as early as last year. Its internal target is set at 3 million this year.

Although the sales volume of 3 million is not too much in the traditional TV industry, the Internet brands that have been growing for only a few years are inevitably gaining momentum for the traditional manufacturers that have a history of several decades.

But not all the good news is behind the growth. Cool opener CEO Lin Jin expressed frankly to Netease Technology, “Demand for the TV industry is declining, and online channels are growing in contrarian conditions. However, this growth rate may be slower than expected.” This also explains why online growth is increasing. Slow, but still got a good proportion in the whole channel.

Regarding the reasons for the slowdown in growth, several TV manufacturers have indicated to Netease Technology that the first- and second-tier markets covered by e-commerce channels are becoming increasingly saturated and that the third- and fourth-line and rural markets have not yet been fully developed; at the same time, both the first and second line Or three or four lines, considered to be the main force of consumption of people over the age of 30, have limited awareness of the Internet.

In addition, the relatively tedious pre-sales experience, logistics distribution, and after-sales maintenance have become the first batch of online channels for early adopters and the expansion of new users has become a “stumbling block”.

For these weaknesses, e-commerce has also made many efforts. Ovid data shows that as of the first half of this year, the number of Jingdong’s service stores nationwide reached 600, and the service range exceeded 100,000 administrative villages; the rookie network nationwide had 20,000 outlets and so on. More or less of these offline outlets will ease the difficulties of large appliances in distribution and logistics.

But this is not enough. Chang Jiang, general manager of the PPTV TV box division, said that TVs developed on-line must be re-routed to the next stage of development. "The user experience model brought by physical stores is needed for home appliances such as TVs." Distribution logistics, after-sales maintenance, relative to e-commerce, offline stores have more innate advantages.

Zhang Zhiwei, vice president of LeTV Holdings, even believes that in the future, as the trend of slowing down of online growth is intensified, the proportion of online channels eventually will hardly exceed 30%. “TV brands do not have offline stores and will certainly not become mainstream brands.”


Breaking experience shop

However, the “off-line shop” that Internet TV manufacturers clamored for was not as well-imagined.

Due to the shrinking of industrial plates and online growth, physical channels declined correspondingly, especially for large chains, which fell by 10% year-on-year in the first half of this year. Changjiang told Netease Technology that due to the more flattened online channel information, it has a great advantage in terms of price, which has caused traditional stores to lose a lot of potential users.

However, this situation is changing. After LeTV took this type of Internet TV maker into the market, the traditional party, whether it was a manufacturer or a channel provider, was trying to reach out to the Internet, which also prompted some stores to play "online and offline same price" and even "become cheaper than online". The slogan, "The channel is now becoming flat under the line," Chang Jiang believes that this trend may become even more apparent.

However, manufacturers do not seem to have enough patience to wait for the traditional store to pick up.

In Zhang Zhiwei's view, the biggest link that a physical store can make up is "experience." In the traditional offline channels, although the experience chain has always existed, the core of the channel has never been experienced. The overcrowding and continuous marketing make the sale more important than other links. "The Lepar experience store is a model that wants to change from traditional store display sales to experience display sales," he stressed.

This type of experience shop does not just add an "experience" concept. From the effect point of view, the experience store carries the traditional offline channel sales function and enhances the shopping experience of offline users; on the other hand, by weakening the “offline sales” link, the user’s purchase will no longer be limited to In stores, feed back online channels.

Chang Jiang asserted that with the increase in the number of experiential stores, the line between online and offline will gradually blur, and eventually there may be no “Internet TV” statement. “There may be only the difference between smart and non-smart in the future. Return to the experience, the Internet concept will be silenced."

This user experience includes not only products, but also experience products, distribution logistics and other links.

Lin Jin further confirmed this argument. He put it bluntly that online and offline will eventually merge with each other. "A single channel will not last forever, and it is the same for both online and offline manufacturers."

Radical and conservative

It is worth mentioning that, compared to the companies that originally had more traditional offline channels, the Internet camp represented by music was particularly aggressive for the experience store.

According to LeTV, up to now, there are 1,800 Lepar experience stores built and signed in China, and this figure is still less than 500 in March this year. According to Netease Technology, as an important strategy for LeTV this year, LeTV will perform "roadshows" on Lepar throughout the country, and LeTV will have a very impressive price tag for distributors. If the line does not sell bare metal, offline two years membership Same as the online three-year membership.

LeTV’s one-year full-screen membership fee is 490 yuan, which means Lepar dealers can benefit from at least 490 yuan for every LeTV sold. This is almost an impossible figure in previous offline channels.

Backing on Suning's PPTV TV is taking a relatively different route. According to Chang Jiang, the PPTV-55P TV released on the 29th of this month will be sold at the same time in the Suning Tesco and Suning stores, and the store will also test the water to open up the television experience area. "This year's PPTV TV is expected to have 1 million in sales, Which will occupy a certain percentage of the line."

However, in practice, the expansion of the experience store is not entirely smooth. Some people in the industry believe that although the Internet TV manufacturers' gameplay is relatively novel, the process from selling a store to experiencing a shop still needs to be explored.

Zhang Zhiwei stated that the experience store will have relatively strict criteria for "experience". "Lokoshi does not have exclusive requirements for offline stores, but all contracted stores must provide relatively independent space for LeTV." Only this point, it will shut out a lot of not too "normal" stores.

In addition, it is also a challenge for Internet companies relatively unfamiliar with offline channels to maintain a high retention rate after the expansion of stores. Lin Jin said that the shopkeepers of the offline shop can't talk about loyalty. "The biggest concern for them is whether they can make money after signing the agreement. Once the company has some product or marketing problems, the store's response may be It's a lot faster than you think."

The most important thing is that the increase in the cost of offline shop experience has caused manufacturers to worry about it. Previously, Wang Chuan, the head of Xiaomi TV, once stated that millet TV is still the main online channel due to its higher offline costs, but it is not exclusive to some lower-cost offline channels. In PPTV's view, for the sake of cost, PPTV currently has no plans to build a large-scale experience store.

This, in the traditional camp that originally had a large number of offline channel resources, does not seem to be a big problem.

Lin Jin said that based on the current status, CoolOpen will insist to only go online, but some offline partners are already being developed to display products. "It wouldn't make sense to copy another Skyworth, so we are also exploring some new games. In addition, there are about 5,000 offline channel stores in Skyworth, and we feel that Skyworth will not be vulnerable if it is rewired."

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