The home building materials industry is now trapped in a vicious cycle of low-price competition. Before being dragged down by low prices, there is actually a way to survive.
Have you ever had this experience: a customer comes into the store, shows you the online quotation with his mobile phone, and says, “They are half cheaper than you.”
When you explained that the quality was different, he said, “Aren’t they all floorboards?”
You showed him a sample for comparison, and he waved his hand and said, “It’s almost OK.”
Finally, if you sell, you will feel aggrieved; if you don’t sell, if the next door sells, customers will still think you are bad.
What’s worse is that after you sell the goods, a few months later customers come to your door and say that the floors are warped, the walls are cracked, and the cabinets are deformed.
If you go and check, it is indeed a material problem, and what you buy is obviously a genuine product from a major manufacturer, and the purchase price is higher than other people’s retail prices.
The result is that you have done your job, lost your money, and lost your reputation.
This is the strange circle of the building materials industry: those who work honestly will be squeezed out of food by those who play tricks; those who play tricks will change one batch after another.
Bad money drives out good money, the industry becomes more and more complicated, and the more practitioners work, the more tired they become.
So, what is the problem?
The first is information asymmetry.
You know the material formula, standards, and processes, but the customer doesn’t.
In their eyes, the products all look the same and can only be compared by price.
You are reasonable, but they think you are lying.
There are nearly 10,000 products in the industry, and most consumers know nothing about it. If you say your product is good, they will ask why it is more expensive than others.
Secondly, there is serious homogeneity.
The ceramic tiles all look similar, the latex paints are all claimed to be environmentally friendly, and the boards are all said to be E0 grade.
You think you have a competitive advantage, but in fact you have no moat at all.
Furthermore, there are loopholes in supervision.
The cost of counterfeiting is low and the profit is high.
Unscrupulous merchants use real packaging to sell inferior materials, and sell recycled aluminum and inferior plastic boards in live broadcasts. If something goes wrong, they will change brands and continue to do the same.
There are tens of thousands of complaints, and countless more who have not complained.
It’s difficult for consumers to protect their rights. They can only admit their failure and try another brand next time, but they won’t tell you.
Finally, it will be difficult for compliant companies.
You invest in R&D, carry out green production, package installation, and do after-sales, and the cost is there.
The purchase price of roadside guerrillas is lower than yours, and the selling price is lower than yours. You can’t compete with them at all.
The designers you trained are poached, and the new products you introduce will be copied tomorrow.
Good companies are forced into a corner, have no money to upgrade, and their development space is getting narrower and narrower.
How to break the situation?
There are four paths to choose from.
The first one is to make your product “visible difference”.
Don’t tell customers the formula, let them see the results.
For example, if the ceramic tiles are wear-resistant, show them the scratch with a key; if the boards are environmentally friendly, show them the test report.
Let customers see “what’s valuable” with their own eyes instead of just saying it with their mouths.
If “what you see is what you get” is achieved and customers believe it, the price will be easier to negotiate.
Article 2: Change from selling goods to selling plans.
What the customer wants is not a bag of putty or a tile, but a crack-free wall and a non-slip and wear-resistant floor.
If you sell materials, they find it expensive; if you sell a “ten-year non-shedding plan”, they are willing to pay for it.
By packaging design, auxiliary materials, construction, and after-sales, customers can worry less and you can make more money.
Article 3: Keep an eye on two rising markets.
Renovation of existing houses will account for more than 48% in 2026, and 80% of households have plans to renovate.
Kitchen and bathroom renovation, partial quick installation, and environmentally friendly coatings are in great demand.
If you run three households in one community, you will be busy for three months.
The scale of age-appropriate building materials may exceed 150 billion in five years.
Anti-slip tiles, barrier-free handrails, smart toilets, sensor night lights – these are not “improvements”, but “rigid needs”.
Because the cost of a fall for an old man is 10,000 times higher than installing a set of handrails.
Article 4: Do thorough business in the same city.
Stop counting on the natural flow of customers in the store.
Open a Douyin or video account and film your process of solving problems.
How to choose materials, how to avoid pitfalls, how to accept, tell me what you know.
Turn you into “the person who knows the most about decoration within three kilometers”.
When a customer sees you and thinks you are reliable, he sends a private message to make an appointment at the store and the deal is completed.
Build trust online and complete the experience offline. This is now the cheapest way to acquire customers.
Finally, let me tell you something from the bottom of my heart: low prices are the poison of doing business.
If you take a sip, your thirst will be quenched; if you drink it for a year, your life will be cut off.
If you lower the price below the cost line, you will not win the market. You will only lose quality, reputation, and your future.
It’s not that customers don’t have money, they just don’t dare to spend money.
They are afraid of being cheated, so they choose cheap ones.
If you let them know that you are reliable, they will be willing to pay a few hundred dollars more.
If you want to make money, first get out of the quagmire of low prices.
Make a difference in your products, package your services into solutions, fully understand the renovation needs of old communities, and build a solid private domain in the same city.
The building materials industry will not disappear, but it will definitely eliminate a group of people.
Those who are eliminated are not those who do small business, but those who are still fooling themselves with the same old tricks.
Are you still using low prices to grab orders, or are you starting to use value to retain people?
Have you ever been hit by a price war that made you doubt your life?
Is there a lot of bad money driving out good money around you?
You might as well chat in the comment area.
