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the trend has changed so fast that home bloggers who were still promoting small kitchen appliances a few years ago have begun to do "rankings of useless kitchen appliances":

5 of the most useless small kitchen appliances. they are nothing but good-looking. once you buy them, you will want to throw them away!

it’s not just the air fryer that has been criticized for a long time as a “big dust collector”. victims of various posts and comment areas have not spared every named small household appliance:

"it takes a long time to fry eggs in the breakfast machine. in this time, a basket of eggs is fried. i need to get up at least half an hour early to make breakfast."

"the wall breaker was so loud that i was afraid that my neighbors would call the police."

once upon a time, in the overwhelming vlogs such as "live well alone" and "a exquisite girl's day after get off work", the most common scene was the blogger quietly cooking alone.

small kitchen appliances such as air fryers, egg cookers, wall breakers, health pots, etc. are all attractive in price and appearance. paying for them seems to be buying your own quiet and stable life.

as a result, within two years, the entire small kitchen appliance category became the hardest hit area for second-hand sales, and the air fryer even topped xianyu’s annual “top ten useless products” list.

labeled with labels such as "only used once", "95% new" and "low price transfer", it is still difficult to resell, because reselling small kitchen appliances is also a red ocean.

from being popular all over the internet to quickly becoming outdated, why did small kitchen appliances fall out of favor so quickly?

01

let consumers and brands

the "iq tax" that everyone regrets?

young people's disenchantment with small household appliances is like discovering that underneath the "hardcover circle of friends" is nothing more than a "rough life."

the vlog life of an exquisite home blogger whose happiness is enhanced by small kitchen appliances is completely different from the messy life she leads.

on the note tag complaining about waste small appliances, #iqtax is the hardest hit area, and many "victims" in the comment area complained about themselves.spent money on the knife handle。

the most expensive fruit juice machine costs more than 3,000 yuan. it takes two minutes to drink juice and 20 minutes to clean the machine. in this time, three apples are finished;

the knife sterilizing machine can sterilize knives and chopping boards, but as long as they match the size, it cannot fit even one millimeter more;

cooking machines, aka blenders, and manual washing and chopping of vegetables are also indispensable. the machine looks very hard, but in fact it does half the result with half the effort. when frying a fish, it can only fry half of it. the fish and people are speechless;

ice cream machine, start working hard for an hour, and see the result of two balls...

no matter how good i was in praising you at the beginning, i am scolding you as hard as i am now.the dream of "exquisite life is not that expensive" has been awakened. a monthly salary of three thousand makes people realize that "some exquisite things are not necessary."。

even on second-hand trading platforms, small appliances are unique. it’s a blessing to find ordinary appliances at 90% new, but “brand new” and “brand new unopened” small kitchen appliances abound.

you can’t sell second-hand ones, let alone first-hand ones.

at the end of last month, bear electric, the "number one creative small home appliance company", released its 2024 semi-annual report. the company's operating income in the first half of the year was 2.131 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 8.97%; the net profit attributable to shareholders of the listed company was 161 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 32.01%. .

according to data from aowei cloud, in the first half of 2024, the overall retail sales of domestic small kitchen appliances was 26.1 billion yuan, a decrease of 5.4% compared with the same period last year, and the retail volume was 130 million units, a year-on-year increase of only 0.4%.

from leading companies to the industry as a whole, small kitchen appliances are not doing well, and it's not just this year. in fact, starting from 2021, industry data has not been very good.

at that time, the industry thought that sales were just too good in 2020, and the base was too high, resulting in a decline in revenue in 2021, and there would be room for growth in the future. but now three years have passed and i have discovered that small kitchen appliances have never gotten up after falling.

not only do consumers regret buying it, but even brands regret selling it.

fang hongbo, chairman of midea electric, once said at the group’s 2022 annual shareholders’ meeting: “small home appliances are a mistake midea made. these products are updated and iterated quickly and have a short life cycle. they can be said to be short-lived and disappear in a year or two.”

this year, midea's small home appliances were shut down and more than 900 skus were transferred, resulting in an overall loss of more than 20 million yuan.

although small kitchen appliances are so annoying now, when they became popular, they were like the next star on the circuit.

on the one hand, there is the rise of online marketing - in 2020, many young people started living at home, and traffic poured into major apps. many brands have begun to use online as their main sales channel, and their marketing budgets have been heavily tilted. xiaohongshu's grass planting and live broadcasts are booming.

on this basis, small kitchen appliances seem to be the chosen ones that are stacked with the three buffs of "stay-at-home economy", "lazy economy" and "single economy".

with its low price, good looks and practicality, amway became one of the biggest internet celebrity products of the year under the overwhelming popularity of home bloggers and anchors.

but in just two years, it has gone from "kitchen artifact" to "kitchen waste". isn't it too fast?

02

young people who should use it are too lazy to use it,

really refined middle class people can’t look down upon them

there is a reason why things are hard to sell.

on the one hand, the kitchen appliance category has experienced a concentrated demand explosion in the past three years; on the other hand, the replacement cycle of electrical products is generally 2-4 years, and the current products have not yet reached the replacement period, so the replacement demand is also relatively sluggish. .

having said that, the sales performance of large kitchen appliances is still better than that of small appliances, although the replacement period of the former is longer.

and even in the subcategory of small home appliances, there are some that perform well. according to aowei cloud data, in the first half of 2024, the retail sales of soymilk machines, electric stew pots, and coffee machines increased significantly year-on-year, reaching 38.6%, 14.6%, and 12.9% respectively.

time will tell the market whether the product itself is "really useful" or "pseudo-demand".

@ salt and pepper skin shrimp

judging from the feedback from a large number of consumers, a considerable number of small kitchen appliances are “good-looking but useless”. in addition to the cooking machines, breakfast machines, and wall breakers mentioned above, there are also cutting board sterilizers, fruit and vegetable washing machines, dumpling machine, noodle machine...

small kitchen appliances have a single function but a lot of imagination.the richness of categories far exceeds the daily practical needs of ordinary people., there may be 20 products competing for the list of "five wastes of small kitchen appliances".

take bear electric, which specializes in small kitchen appliances, as an example. in 2022, it has more than 60 product categories and more than 500 skus, many of which you may have never heard of.

recent screenshots of little bear electric organ network

as the industry leader, xiaoxiong electric has always been known for its "emphasis on marketing and light on r&d", and has always adopted a strategy of exchanging traffic for sales.the "casting a wide net" style of marketing hot-selling internet celebrity products aims to run in small steps and iterate quickly, and promote whichever product becomes popular.

its main customer group is also young people under the age of 30. they are more willing to try new things and are more likely to pay for "lifestyle".

however, with the changes in the economic environment and social concepts in the past two years, "non-essential" consumption has decreased significantly, and the real lazy people have resumed the lifestyle of directly ordering takeout, and whoever has time will order five for a meal. small appliances with different functions.

the paradox is obvious. small kitchen appliances are mainly targeted at "lazy people". in fact, only "hard-working people" can make so many categories work one by one and insist on using them.

for people who spend time setting up mobile phones and setting up lights to shoot vlogs while living alone, small household appliances will contribute to their exquisite off-duty life, but they will only add to the "unrefined" lives of most otakus and otakus.

another important reason is that the reason why small household appliances can attract young people with their "inexpensiveness" is at the expense of product functions.

when small kitchen appliances are the hottest, the "2020 small home appliances industry brand marketing insight report" released by questmobile shows that small home appliances have become a new category for many young and female consumer groups to improve their quality of life, and "easy to use and not expensive" is part of this the most obvious consumption preference of the crowd.

but it turns out that "easy to use" and "inexpensive" are difficult to coexist in kitchen appliances.

from an industry perspective, small kitchen appliances are not the product of technological upgrades.

on the contrary, its production model is generally oem.the brand chooses a very mature technology in the industry, only performs a single function, and reduces costs through mass production. the only upgrade is "appearance"。

@张 zhang’s pocket

moreover, most of the small kitchen appliances are electric heating products——

compared with motor products, the technical barriers are low, the room for upgrade is small, and homogeneity is serious. there is not much difference between big brands and white brands. except for the volume price, it is difficult to stand out through any innovation.

this is also an important reason why brands in the industry generally choose the fmcg approach, because it is difficult to establish core competitiveness and it depends on who can quickly seize the market.

however, electrical appliances are consumer goods and may only be replaced every few years. in addition, their functions are useless, and it is difficult to establish a virtuous cycle of word-of-mouth and repurchase.

the most troublesome part is that the category of small kitchen appliances itself conflicts with the objective conditions of chinese kitchens.

public data shows that the kitchen area of ​​chinese households is generally small, with an average of 6 square meters per person being the mainstream. to build a dojo in a snail shell,kitchen appliances with multiple functions are the future development trend。

for example, traditional big brands such as fotile, boss, and midea have launched all-in-one steaming, grilling, and frying machines. air frying is only one of the sub-functions, making it difficult to use and occupy space for small appliances that are independent of each other.

in the end, single young people who have no time to pursue a refined life cannot use small kitchen appliances; middle-class families who have the ability to live a quality life cannot afford small kitchen appliances.

03

internet celebrity products born for "marketing points",

doomed not to go far

looking back now, small kitchen appliances are actually a typical representative category created for "marketing points" in the era of internet celebrities.

its "popularity" and "popularity" are essentially the result of being driven by "content power" rather than "product power".

among the videos of growing small appliances in the kitchen, the most typical ones are "exquisite girl's day after get off work" and "single women living alone go home immersed".

following the perspective of the camera, we can see a series of behaviors of the protagonist entering the door, sorting clothes, arranging flowers, playing music, cleaning the room, cooking, and maintaining health. it is a cat-and-dog show off, invisible showing off wealth, full of a sense of ritual and atmosphere.

such videos have formed fixed shooting routines and processes. according to reports, the room is a model room specially arranged by mcn company, with at least three camera seats. a week's work is compressed into one day, and efforts are made to create a self-disciplined, independent, and life-loving personality.

the reason for their rise is also very simple——lots of advertising space。

after a series of operation procedures, every aspect of the home can be photographed, the product selection that can be implanted is extremely rich, and the moment when you can plant grass is filled with videos from beginning to end.

small kitchen appliances are the main advertisers for this type of video. based on my country’s highly developed kitchen appliance oem industry chain,brands can “tailor-make” internet celebrity products for consumers based on popular trends——

if the health-preserving content is popular, let the heroine use a health-preserving pot to make tea. if white rice is popular, i will recommend a bread machine. if baking is hot, i will use an electric oven. we can also provide various options such as log style, instagram style, minimalist style, etc. according to different home styles. .

they are also products based on demand. unlike ordinary daily necessities, small kitchen appliances are based on consumers' "imagined needs" rather than "real life pain points."

it is the home vlogs with good looks and a strong sense of ritual that make this "imagination" concrete and implement it into the mental implant that "purchasing equals improving the quality of life".

but when the time comes to 2024, too many false bubbles have been popped.

for young people who work all day and just want to lie down on the bed and do nothing when they get home, their dreams of quality life have also irreparably shattered their dreams of small kitchen appliances.

more and more people realize that the so-called "sharing a good life" is nothing more than "high-quality content output" and begin to feel rebellious against the constructed sophistication and self-discipline.

a recent popular meme on a talk show, "he's so relaxed, makes me anxious because of his relaxation," has gained widespread resonance, and the end of anxiety is selling goods in a variety of ways.

a truly tenable product should bring a better experience, not create more imagination.

there are no young people who don’t want to be people who truly love life, but after being deceived by things that don’t live up to their name, they begin to understand that real life is not under the cameras they carry.

it may be rough and awkward, but cooking a meal for yourself full of fumes is better than paying for your imagination and letting it gather real dust.