Nordic Make ordinary furniture into luxury
picture from Hastens' official Weibo
text｜Special author of "Financial" Lin Yuanlu
Edited by Yule
in the past two days The "screaming voices" of Wang Xiaofei and Da S on the Internet have attracted many people to watch. Unexpectedly, the sky-high mattress of Da S's family became popular unexpectedly. Although Big S has returned the mattress completely, this wave of popularity has not ended.
Taipei S Hotel, reporters watched the mattress returned by Da S to Wang Xiaofei. (Photo: United News Network)
On the evening of November 23, countless media were stationed in the S Hotel under Wang Xiaofei's name just to record the process of staff destroying this mattress worth RMB 2 million. At the same time, Wang Xiaofei was also joking on Weibo to burn the mattress.
However, the Swedish brand , which sold 2 million mattresses to Wang Xiaofei, directly "slapped the face from the air". The brand’s official microblog forwarded a video of testing the flame retardancy of its own mattresses, as if hinting: “I’m sorry, I can’t burn it.”
picture screened from Hastens's official Weibo
There are sharp-eyed Taiwanese media found that the mattress was not from Hastens, but a British brand priced at around 20,000 yuan. But what is certain is that if it weren't for Wang Xiaofei, many people might not know that Nordic people can make a mattress into a luxury, and the price is equivalent to three apartments in a small county town.
Haisichuan has a mattress that can be exchanged for 3 suites in your hometown. (Photo: HiShiteng)
In Northern Europe, HiShiteng is not the only brand that sells furniture to sky-high prices. .4 million yuan egg chairs and trash cans that start at 2,000 yuan are all from several Scandinavian countries. Where did Nordic dominance in the field of high-end furniture come from?
Haisiten, where is the sacred?
At the end of March 2021, the Korean girl group BLACKPINK member Jennie just posted a "boudoir selfie" online, and sharp-eyed netizens discovered that Jennie's pillow mattress was from Hasiten.
In fact, from Putin to C Ronaldo , from Angelina Jolie to Brad Pitt , from Little Little Little to Schwarzenegger , many celebrities who we can call their names are all loyal fans of Heisten.
You heard it right. Hesten, known as the "Hermes in the mattress industry", has always been the first choice for all political and business celebrities and celebrity artists. Before Wang Xiaofei, Heisten has always been a beneficiary of the "celebrity effect".
So, why can a mattress be sold for millions of yuan?
Obviously, mattresses that can be sold at this price in are no longer in the category of daily necessities, but are luxury goods - the cost-effectiveness is very low, but someone is willing to buy it. Like Hermes and LV, all luxury goods have similar pricing logic.
First of all, it emphasizes high-end materials and purely handmade production technology. Hesten claims that he uses pure natural materials, in addition to the more ordinary wool, cotton and linen, there are also expensive ray skins and ponytail hair .
st staff showed ponytail hair, this material is the main filling for the mattress of the marshnet mattress. (Photo: Hysteteng)
The so-called ponytail hair is the long hair fiber on the ponytail. It has the advantages of strong tensile force, wear and moisture resistance, high strength, and high elasticity. Therefore, many textiles, musical instruments and even expensive brushes are made of ponytail hair. Hesiten was originally a company that made a fortune in horse harnesses, so they made full use of the characteristics of ponytail hair to make the mattress more hygroscopic and sweat-free.However, although the horsetail hair is good, the yield is rare: a horse can only cut its ponytail once a year, and there are very few top-notch ponytail hairs that can be regarded by the Silkworm.
As for the second reason to sell at a high price, it is "high-end customization".
Recently there is such gossip on the Internet: First, the softness of the mattress is tailored to the spine of Big S, and second, Wang Xiaofei can check the mattress usage records and the user's physiological status through the mobile app. After queries, we found that these gossips were some exaggerated, especially the "mobile app query usage records" are completely fabricated.
However, Hashiteng does have the story of "tailoring": Hashiteng's "store sleep experts" will let customers experience different styles of bedding and understand the customer's sleeping posture so that the customer's spine remains straight when sleeping. When the construction officially begins, Hystetun will "deeply customize" in terms of sizes, fabrics, bed legs, accessories, etc., so that both the "big S" and "Jennie" can have a safe sleep.
According to Hesiten, each mattress must be made by hand after more than 300 hours after the customer places an order, and the construction period is at least two and a half months. Regardless of whether there are exaggerated elements or not, this " craftsman spirit " can indeed arouse the appetite of customers.
The third luxury property is scarcity. Like many super sports cars and precious watches, this scarcity comes from the purely hand-made production capacity limitations, as well as artificial designs such as limited edition models. For example, the brand's collection of Shenghui Bed (Grand Vividus) series has a limited production capacity of 80 sets per year, and the production process is strictly confidential. Only eight craftsmen in the world are qualified to participate in the production.
Finally, every "top luxury" is indispensable, and Hystin is no exception. According to its official website, this family business was founded in 1852 and has been passed down to the sixth generation. "Every generation has gone through difficult challenges and has contributed to shaping the Hyosilicon brand." Naturally, it has endorsed for the current high price.
As early as 2012, China's total luxury consumption accounted for 28% of the global share, making it the most "rich" luxury consumer country in the world. In 2008, Hystetung had entered the Chinese market. By 2021, there were more than 30 offline stores nationwide. It can be seen that "invisible Hermes" like Hystetung have also been working hard to capture more bedrooms of "invisible rich people" in recent years.
Nordic people can make IKEA and make furniture into luxury
Nordics have many furniture brands, the most well-known of which is IKEA, the world's largest furniture retailer. Now IKEA dominates the mass furniture market by relying on "Nordic design", and Nordic brands such as Hystem Teng have also performed well in the high-end field.
In fact, IKEA can go global to a certain extent and benefit from high-end brands. As early as the early days of its establishment, IKEA "gets inspiration" from some local high-end brand product lines in Nordics, and gains a foothold in the mainstream market at a lower price through "pin-making replica". Chairs like
Egg Chairs have long been popular on many e-commerce platforms in China, and such "hot designs" come from the Danish brand Republic of Fritz Hansen, founded in 1892. It is understood that the Nordic brand launched an egg chair in 1959. Even though the price is as high as 400,000 Danish kroner (about 400,000 yuan) , it can still attract robbery worldwide.
If you want an egg chair worth 400,000 yuan, you may be able to learn about this garbage can that starts at 2,000 yuan. When it comes to pedal-type trash cans, I believe everyone will not be unfamiliar with them. In fact, the world's first pedal-type trash can was released in 1959 by the Danish brand VIPP, which is also from Nordic.
VIPP invented by foot trash can (photo: VIPP)
Today we can still buy VIPP’s foot trash can online. This trash can is priced from US$350-850. Unlike the trash can that costs less than 100 yuan, this trash can is made of stainless steel from the main body, inner liner to the transmission rod, so its durability is also "highly magnificent". In addition, you don’t have to worry about too many odors coming to your nose, nor are you worried about the sound of "not elegant enough" when closing the lid, because this trash can also put a rubber ring on the top, specifically for cushioning.
In terms of design style, the "Nordic style" is also unique. Luxury brands such as LV and Hermes from Western Europe also have furniture product lines. However, also uses the mentality of being a luxury to make furniture. What Nordics think of is not all kinds of fantasy and gorgeous designs, but avoids stereotyped and serious geometric forms, while highlighting more humanistic and practical values, and relying on the "Scandinavian Design" card to gain a foothold in the high-end market.
Does China have the opportunity to overtake?
When Taobao, JD , and Pinduoduo, domestic furniture that benchmarks Nordic designs can be seen everywhere. It is not difficult to find that Nordics have the right to speak in the high-end furniture industry, which is no less than that of us in the table tennis arena.
Although Wang Xiaofei once again lets us appreciate the profound heritage of Nordic high-end furniture, we cannot ignore the fact that has completely different understandings of high-end furniture, Eastern and Western cultures.
Nordic high-end furniture often focuses on design and brand power. Oriental furniture represented by Chinese furniture wins more by materials. For example, in today's mahogany furniture market, a set of mahogany sofas of 600,000 yuan to 800,000 yuan are not uncommon. At an auction in October 2020, a four-piece set of mahogany study room started at 1.18 million yuan, and a mahogany shelf bed also reached 1.17 million yuan. Ten years ago, when the mahogany market was unprecedentedly prosperous, such prices even seemed particularly "people-friendly".
An auction in October 2020, with a four-piece set starting from 1.18 million yuan. (Photo: Suyu District People's Court of Suqian City)
It is worthy of recognition that at a time when traditional manufacturing is urgently in need of upgrading and transformation, domestic furniture is also working hard to make Chinese furniture have a place in the high-end market by giving high-end, intelligent and globalization paths.
When the Nordic high-end mattress makes local wealthy people like Wang Xiaofei reluctant to leave, the smart bed made in China is also recognized by European and American consumers.
In 2021, Qisheng Technology from Jiaxing, Zhejiang allowed its smart bed and smart electric bed products to gain one-third of the market share in the US market, and has ranked first in the US sales for ten consecutive years.
Chinese enterprise Qisheng Technology is a smart electric bed. (Photo: Qisheng Technology)
In February this year, Beijing held the Winter Olympics . Qisheng Technology has supplied 6,000 smart beds to the Winter Olympics Village. Relying on the "spontaneous delivery" of athletes from all over the world, Qisheng Technology's journey to overseas is getting smoother and smoother.
Qisheng Technology supports the Beijing Winter Olympics through its Sophielier smart electric bed and Shufude smart bed. (Photo: Qisheng Technology)
In fact, the global furniture market has maintained a strong growth momentum in recent years. Data shows that the global furniture market size will reach US$650.7 billion in 2027, an increase of US$140.9 billion compared with 2020, an increase of 27.64%.
The luxury goods industry, which is still popular in the epidemic, is also one of the best performing sub-industry: global high-end home sales reached 40 billion euros in 2021, an increase of 14% year-on-year compared with in 2020 and a growth of 7% compared with before the epidemic.
In the domestic furniture market, perhaps the coexistence of "Nordic design", "Oriental aesthetics" and "domestic black technology" will remain for a long time. But local furniture practitioners in China are also very clear about how to find a foothold and focus in the rapidly changing market environment.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-