Li Ning and his entire design sales team. The young man riding a bicycle in the middle is the founder of the company Li Ning.
Promotional advertising for furniture on the Made.com website.
Promotional advertising for furniture on the Made.com website.
For the British, buying furniture is a bit of a miserable thing. In order to save money, many well-known large furniture manufacturers such as IKEA usually arrange the storefronts in the suburbs of the city. Consumers not only have to endure an horrible drive for an hour or two, but also have to worry about finding a parking space. The always elegant British people often groan and complain.
Orange-like armchair, £399; honeycomb-shaped bookshelf, £250; chain-shaped coffee table, £399; wavy storage shelf, £49... Recently, a furniture company without a facade and warehouse, but furniture The store opened to the door of “every British home†and attracted the attention of many consumers.
The furniture dealer named Made.com has sent a number of sleek furniture designs on the official website, allowing netizens to vote for the next furniture produced. Consumers can purchase furniture from their manufacturers directly without leaving their homes. Surprisingly, such an avant-garde furniture store owner was actually Li Ning, a 29-year-old Chinese native of Foshan.
Big difference, big business
　　 When talking about why he founded a network furniture company, Li Ning recalled his experience of buying furniture many years ago.
"That time, I wanted to add a leather sofa. I was in a high-end sofa designed by a famous designer," he said. "When I heard that sofa worth 3,000 pounds, this crazy price surprised me."
Just as he made up his mind to save money, a childhood playmate called him. This friend has just taken over the furniture production factory of his parents, and this factory is the manufacturer of this sofa.
A friend told Li Ning that the ex-factory price of this expensive sofa is actually only £250. He bought a sofa directly from a friend and saved £2,750. This experience has given him a strong interest in the furniture market.
“A piece of furniture goes from the factory to the consumer's home. There are many middlemen involved in the middle, and the price of furniture is constantly being raised.†The keen business sense makes Li Ning aware of a business opportunity.
So he began to imagine whether consumers could be directly linked to furniture manufacturers. He said: "This should be a good business."
In his view, since the well-known brands such as IKEA led the furniture market, the furniture market has been lacking in reform and innovation for more than 50 years. It is time for someone to "give this pool of stagnant water."
In recent years, with the development of the Internet, e-commerce has been pervasive, and many industries have been covered with the Internet. Li Ning said: "The furniture industry is one of the few industries that the Internet has not yet touched. I hope that I can change this situation." In the summer of 2010, Li Ning founded Made.com.
"Democratic Design"
The use of this website is very simple, customers only need to register an account, they can participate in voting and order.
Compared with traditional companies, the biggest feature of Made.com is that the products produced by the company are all determined by the customer. Every month, the company will publish a batch of new sample maps on the website, allowing netizens to vote. Products with high votes will be included in the product library and open to customers.
For example, a chair designed by Swedish designer Salumenson, after viewing the design sample, customers can choose to like or dislike, and can also judge the price and design of the product separately. The score is 5 star.
At the same time, customers can also state in detail why they like the product. The website regularly publishes the top five most popular products of the month.
Large financial companies with strong financial resources will hire their own buyers to travel to furniture fairs around the world to buy designs. Li Ning said: "We can't afford such huge expenses. Therefore, we simply give design choices to consumers and let them choose the furniture they need. We call it democratic design."
In fact, the business model of Made.com, which is voted by consumers and chooses products to be put into production, is called “crowd procurementâ€. This model has created many successful business cases since its birth in 2006.
Without intermediate dealers
According to Li Ning, after customers choose their favorite products, they can place orders directly online. “Consumers are required to pay a certain amount of advance payment after ordering, and each transaction will take no more than 10 days from the time the order is placed to the time of receipt.â€
After receiving the order, the product enters the production process, and each week Li Ning will summarize the orders and deliver them to the manufacturer, according to the quantity and type required.
After the production of the product is completed, the company's quality supervisor will check the product. Next, the packaged product is shipped by sea to the UK. During the period, customers can also view the route of cargo transportation through the website and track the goods. After the goods arrive, the company will negotiate with the customer and deliver the goods to the door.
"In London, where there is a lot of money, in this way, we do not need a warehouse, which greatly saves costs." Li Ning said.
He calculated the account. If the customer buys a piece of furniture from a physical store, the people involved include producers, importers, freighters, wholesalers, retailers, etc., and consumers may have to pay £2,000 for this. But if you buy directly from Made.com, you only need £550.
He believes that the company's advantage lies in kicking out various middlemen. “Reducing costs and providing original furniture to customers at reasonable prices.†It is the business philosophy that the company determined when it was first created.
This novel concept has successfully attracted the attention of investor Brent Hobman. Li Ning said: "I met with Hobman through a friend and told him the creativity of the network furniture company."
Hobman also runs a furniture company, and he realizes that this novel form has broad prospects and he has quickly allocated a portion of his investment fund to Li Ning.
Social networking site advertising
Although it was favored by investors, in the creative capital of London, the new company that was born every day was a lot of hair. In the first two weeks, the market was flat, and he was really sweating. At that time, they could only receive one or two orders a day.
So Li Ning decided to advertise on the social network "Facebook" and "Twitter". “People started talking about us on the Internet. Suddenly one day, things changed dramatically, and orders flooded like tides.†Li Ning excitedly recalled.
After a year of development, now more than 500,000 people visit the made.com website every month. They can sell a container of furniture every day, worth 25,000 pounds. Li Ning himself has become the darling of the media.
In Li Ning's view, London's consumers are better at accepting new things, and London is an international city where businessmen from all over the world gather to share resources and information and stay in touch. This year, Li Ning plans to continue to expand its business overseas, bringing this novel model to more countries.
But he also admitted that his roots are still in China. When the global economy is sluggish, it can help Chinese manufacturers to export and make him proud.
Li Ning said: "I am looking forward to more and better designers in China. One day, their works will also go to thousands of households in the UK."
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