As a country mainly exporting furniture,China had kept 6 years continuous increase.However,such good situation ended in 2016.In 2016,furniture exporting decreased 9.38% compared with last year.The price rise of raw material and serious competition of international market make the furniture exporting reach bottleneck.

Influence by the environment policy,the price for raw material and logistics is rising ,which leads to the rise of furniture price coupled with the south east Asian countries’ seizing the market share which belongs to China originally.Furniture industry must adjust the business strategy,innovate the product and then China furniture industry can keep steady growth.

As the representative of China traditional light industry,with the China economy entry into the New Normal and the more and more serious international competition,the furniture industry enters into bottleneck period.Facing new situation and new challenges ,all the exporting furniture factories learn from the bitter experience and are making efforts on adjusting the overseas market business strategy and innovating the products.The positive effect is emerging.

In the course of an interview with reporters, many furniture export enterprises said that reason that China furniture exports fell, on one hand is that the increasing of the raw material prices and more investment in environmental protection,which cause the rising production costs.On the other hand,the fell also reflects that the Chinese traditional furniture industry is entering into the bottleneck period, it is difficult for China traditional industry to adapt to the new changes in the international market. Now, all the exporting furniture factories learn from the bitter experience and are making efforts on adjusting the overseas market business strategy and innovating the products.The positive effect is emerging.

New normal new path

Shanghai Dandou Crafts Co., Ltd. fell more than 20% last year. Fang Yanlong, director of the company's operation, told the International Business Daily reporter that the reasons for the decline of export volume are manifold, including the external factors such as the rising of raw materials and the intensification of international market competition. However, the main reason for the company's failure is that factories can not keep pace with the times.For example, some of the company's products are not updated in a timely manner, or they are lagged behind the market change, or are not able to catch up with emerging channel such as cross-border electricity commerce. "There was a lot of changes in the market, but we didn't keep up with it in time." Fang Yanlong said.

Like the Shanghai Dandou Arts and Crafts Company, there are many furniture enterprises facing the pressure of transformation and upgrading.The Secretary General of the China Furniture Association, Tu Qi, has pointed out that the main cause of the decline in furniture exports is the rise in the exchange rate of the RMB and the increase in production costs. "Since 2014, China's highway logistics and transportation costs have risen steadily, and the logistics cost of the furniture industry has increased by 30%~50%. Last year, the price of wood also continued to rise, and the increase of sponge price in September was even up to 70%, which directly led to the up-regulation of the price of furniture products.

In addition, Vietnam and other Southeast Asian countries have also seized part of the market share which belongs to China originally, although the proportion is very small, it is in a slow rise. "It doesn't mean that China's furniture or light industrial products are facing difficulties, but the times put forward higher requirements for the industry, which is an inevitable stage of industrial development to a certain stage." Fang Yanlong believes that to develop, we must actively face and solve the current problems, and seek new ways by promoting transformation and upgrading of manufacturing industry and adapting to market changes.

Conforming To The Times And Promoting The Innovation And Integration

Combining their own reality,many furniture enterprises think that if Chinese furniture exports want to keep growth again,they need to innovate and adjust synchronously combining .

Fang Yanlong said that, in order to reverse the continuing decline in the export situation, Dandou Handicraft Company had made a comprehensive adjustment in its business thinking. From the originally only product selling to the selling of the products and soft furnishing together,which increased interaction with foreign customers.Original self centered "going out" had been changed into customer demand oriented production. The first half of this year's data showed that the enterprise had achieved preliminary results, the proportion of export decline is gradually shrinking, and the customer's response is also good.

For the future development direction of the company, Fang Yanlong said, first of all they should maintain its own characteristics and advantage and on the basis,they should expand the overall marketing scene, emphasizing the lifestyle and creating family atmosphere so that customers can feel personally the application of furniture on the scene. At the same time, we should increase the input of product design and research and development, improve the team level and the development and design ability of the company.

Ye Ke, the founder of the cross-border platform of China's light industry products, also saw the new situation that furniture industry is facing. Through cross-border electricity distribution channels, China light industrial products cross-border platform integrates 26 furniture enterprises whose main business is to export furniture.All of them participate in the overall product design, brand planning, online and offline channels, logistics and warehousing and other aspects of planning, in order to improve the status of China light industrial products in the international market."The platform combines the new foreign trade from of the cross-border e-commerce export, which makes up the disadvantages of traditional light industry enterprises in brand building and market expansion. In the past year, the export of the enterprise on the platform achieved an average growth of 20%~50%. " Ye Ke said that the furniture on the platform was mainly furniture, and the future will also involve in bags, household products and other light industrial products, so as to help more light industrial enterprises to increase exports.