The electric beds produced by Shuford Company cover 75% of the U.S. market, but domestic sales of its own trademark brands are not smooth.

Newly married Ms. Dai is choosing a double bed. She saw a smart electric bed on the Internet with very novel functions: the angle of the head and foot of the bed can be adjusted, and it also has a one-click anti-snoring function. She turned to her lover for advice, and her lover only asked: What brand of Sofelier? . ?Ms. Dai had never heard of this brand before, so she stumbled over her words. My lover hesitated: How about buying a famous brand? The big brand may have better quality. ?

Ms. Dai didn’t know that the manufacturer of the smart electric bed, Shuford Electric Bed Co., Ltd., was not a “nobody” in the industry. ?We are the earliest and currently the largest American electric bed manufacturer in China. Tang Guohai, chairman of Shuford Electric Bed Co., Ltd., said that the company cooperates with the top four mattress manufacturers in the United States, covering 75% of the electric bed market in the United States.

However, with the same variety and quality, it is difficult to promote the self-owned brand Soferil in China.

The marketing link has stuck the company

For the same standard electric bed, overseas orders have doubled, but domestic promotion has been slow to start. We do OEM, but In recent years, we have been working hard to build our own brand. ?Zha Xin, deputy general manager of Soferel China Company, was once full of confidence in its own brand.

Confidence first comes from technical advantages. Shuford's cooperation with the top four mattress manufacturers in the United States includes not only simple OEM, but also ODM (Original Design Manufacturing). Zha Xin said: "Some styles, from design, research and development to manufacturing, are all completed by us independently. We have completely independent intellectual property rights, and many technologies have reached the international advanced level." Sophie Lille also applies these techniques. ?

For example, a self-owned brand will launch a smart electric bed with independent intellectual property rights in September this year, demonstrating its technical strength. ?The new electric bed can monitor breathing, heartbeat, etc. with high accuracy. ?Zha Xin said,?We have also upgraded the one-click anti-snoring function. As long as it senses the user's snoring, the smart electric bed will automatically raise the back angle to make the user breathe more smoothly, thus achieving the anti-snoring effect. When the snoring stops, it will It will automatically return to its original position, and the whole process changes very gently and will not affect the user's sleep. ?The quality of private label and OEM products is exactly the same. The overseas sales of electric beds manufactured by Shuford this year have doubled compared with last year, which can prove that the quality of our products is recognized by the market. ?Zha Xin said.

In order to make domestic consumers more assured of product quality, the company also provides generous after-sales policies for its own brands: the entire bed enjoys a 2-year warranty, and the mattress warranty period is as long as 20 years.

However, the same electric bed is produced to the same standards, and overseas orders have doubled. However, the domestic promotion of Sophie Lil's own brand has been relatively slow. The company analyzed the reasons one by one and believed that the key was that the brand was not promoted, especially the marketing link that became a bottleneck. ?

Good promotion tools are also expensive

Prime time advertisements on national TV stations can easily cost tens of millions of dollars

Currently, the private brand of electric beds has not been promoted. ?, there are certain objective reasons.

Beds are durable consumer goods. Consumers purchase them infrequently, so it is difficult to build a brand through word-of-mouth in a short period of time. Electric beds are a new thing for Chinese consumers, and the market has not yet been developed. Big international brands have their own halo, so it is much more difficult for private brands to attract attention. In the past two years, there have been many new categories of beds, such as spring beds, memory foam beds, latex mattresses, etc. The product updates are too fast and it is difficult for consumers to distinguish between them. Many people simply choose the good-looking and cheap ones. ?Zha Xin feels that selling private label products in China is more difficult than opening up the US market.

The fastest way to let more Chinese consumers know about electric beds is to advertise more. But advertising costs are expensive, and prime-time ads on national television stations often cost tens of millions of dollars. Shuford tried to run a long-term advertisement for the Sophirell brand on a local TV station, but there was no significant change in sales in local stores.

The birth and development of new advertising models in the past two years have given companies like Shuford more choices. Currently, Shuford is researching new media advertising. ?The aroma of wine cannot be hidden in deep alleys. Most of our consumers are young people. We are also thinking about what kind of advertising is most acceptable to young people.

Zha Xin said that he does not rule out trying self-media advertising or new media advertising in the future. It is still being explored. He also hopes that related industries can become more developed and standardized to provide more support for the manufacturing industry, especially new brands. ?

Never give up on building your own brand

The inherent rules of the store are not conducive to the promotion of new brands, and counterfeiting has the greatest impact on corporate brand creation

It is not easy to create a domestic brand, but Shuford didn't give up. ?Creating a brand is the only way for enterprises to increase the added value of their products. ?Zha Xin said that although overseas business is much easier than building a domestic brand, Shuford is still willing to invest more energy in building a brand and believes that this will definitely make the company stronger.

It is generally believed that expanding channels and opening more stores is an effective way to create a brand. At first, Shuford planned to take a shortcut: open as many stores as possible in well-known furniture stores, and use the popularity of the stores to accelerate the promotion of the Sophie Lil brand. However, Zha Xin soon discovered that domestic furniture stores have their own inherent rules: You don’t have to spend money to rent a good location. Stores often only reserve good locations for mature brands. It is difficult to rent a good location for a new category and brand like Soferil. In different locations of the store, the flow of people varies greatly, and the effect of brand promotion and product sales naturally vary greatly. ?

In order to promote its own brand, Shuford also opened a Sophie Lil's store online. However, electric bed products have certain special characteristics. On the one hand, the product is heavy and the transportation and installation costs are high. On the other hand, consumers still prefer to try out the bed before buying it. Only text and picture descriptions cannot make consumers fully appreciate it. Benefits of Sophie Lil Electric Bed. ?The online store currently mainly plays a role in brand promotion, allowing consumers to have one more way to access our electric beds. ?Zha Xin said that the main force in smart electric bed sales is still physical stores.

At present, Soferil is actively participating in various exhibitions to attract investment, and on the other hand, she is accelerating the opening of stores. ?The progress is pretty good, and many young people have become our users. ?Zha Xin said that physical stores are not only corporate signs and sales platforms, but also a window for communication between companies and consumers. ?We developed the intelligent anti-snoring function based on consumer feedback. ?The biggest headache now is counterfeiting. ?Zha Xin said that small workshops are not run in a standardized manner and do not need to invest in research and development. The price of similar products can be much lower than that of Sophie Lier. When industry standards are unclear and consumers cannot tell the difference in product quality for a while, counterfeit products have a great impact on Sofielle's sales and reputation. ?The cost of counterfeiting rights protection is high, the litigation cycle is long, and the enforcement of judgments is difficult, leaving companies very helpless. ?Zha Xin said that if the country introduces more effective measures in terms of electric bed category standards and intellectual property protection, companies will be able to create brands more smoothly. Trademark brand