Shangpin home with Li Lianzhu furniture custom leader is about to prepare for listing

Sitting on the opposite side of the reporter, Li Lianzhu, polo shirt, suit pants, temperament and calm, 6 years of teaching career seems to portray a teacher's face. But Li Lianzhu smiled and denied this. He believes that 20 years of entrepreneurial experience has already kept him away from the image of teachers. He is more willing to define himself as a businessman.

It is undeniable that the study and teaching of mechanical engineering still imported the blood of engineering students into his bone marrow. He is practical and focused. In the context of the embarrassment of the software industry, it is 20 years, and it is the first place in the industry.

In addition, he also has a rather open mind. He has a divergent thinking around the decoration software, extending the website and furniture customization, as well as the furniture factory three companies.

In order to get a better business model, he is not afraid to ask for all kinds of venture capital; and for the industry and his own better development, he is not afraid to cultivate strong opponents.

After getting the investment to develop fully, he wanted to distribute the Shangpin home to the capital market. What he has to do now is to further improve the nine-year-old Shangpin home.

Shangpin Home Match + Xinju Net

Beishangguang, Nanjing, and Foshan are directly operated stores, and other places are franchise stores.

"There are a lot of scholars who come here to study, including some academicians, professionals, many people who don't believe in our customization. They say that one or two can be done. Large-scale customization is not established. We didn't think of it before, but now Really."

In 2013, it was 9 years since Li Lianzhu founded Shangpin. He has challenged the traditional furniture industry with a new business model and has become the industry benchmark. Although in the early days, his idea was not optimistic, and he himself used a lot of thoughts to explore and perfect.

On the 3rd floor of Dongbao Building, No. 767 Dongfeng East Road, Guangzhou, Shangpin House was the first offline store of Xinju. The Financial Weekly reporter saw Li Lianzhu.

Xinju.com is the official online store for Shangpin Home, but it has a different marketing system than Shangpin. The layout here is quite similar to IKEA. The furniture is displayed in different sections such as office, living room and bedroom. Even the design of the product label is the same as that of IKEA, but it is different from IKEA in that each piece of furniture is marked with “ customizable".

“This is where we are more proud.” Li Lianzhu pointed to the low-profile cabinet with a wall-mounted design at the corner of the bedroom area, telling reporters, “What we are doing is to let the original decoration company play at your home, making it smoky and not environmentally friendly. These things are all done in a large industrialized production line. The materials are also environmentally friendly. You only need to come once and confirm the plan with us. Then you can wait at home. After one or two days, even half a day, you can pack them. Check in."

"Don't underestimate such things, I will let you do one thing, but if I get hundreds or even thousands of pieces every day across the country, various types of different cabinets, mechanized large production, which was impossible in the past. "And this is the custom of the Shangpin home delivery.

It takes about 20 days for a customer to go from the storefront of the Shangpin home to the furniture installation. “There is not much time in the factory, mainly because of transportation time.” Li Lianzhu introduced.

In the immediate vicinity of the exhibition area is the design area. “Every store has such a design center, and the plan is made. Customers can also come to see the plan.”

In addition, it is the office area of ​​the marketing team, and the new home team in the entire Guangzhou area is here. The office area is divided into different teams, and the names of various teams are taken. The internal competition is strong.

Compared with the online marketing of Xinju.com, the development of Shangpin Home Furnishing Store has become a scale. According to Li Lianzhu, the Shangpin home distribution channel is divided into direct and affiliated. Beishangguang, Nanjing, and Foshan are direct-operated stores. Other places are franchise stores. Up to now, there are more than 30 directly-operated stores and 700-800 franchise stores.

The proportion of franchise stores is so high that Li Lianzhu has to pay attention to the operation of franchise stores.

"Most of the market now is that the franchise store is actually a dealer. You hang my brand and take my goods. But we have been working hard to run this form of franchise store." Shangpin home is involved in the daily operation and management of franchisees. The store manager is trained and evaluated, and even the store design is also made by Shangpin.

“There are shops, guidance, and regional managers to manage daily operations. The new store manager has to train for three months and has meetings every month. We have 20 regions, each week is fixed for one week, and all the franchisees should be concentrated in one city. At the meeting, the bosses on our side will go over and open the monthly consultation meeting. I have not heard of any company in the industry that we are doing like us."

“The franchise stores are franchisees investing in their own. The franchise fee we collect is very small, almost symbolic. Finally, it is also used in the training of them.” The design and training provided by Shangpin Home for the franchisees are Free, "Some people say that we call "semi-direct management" management."

Software company started

"We do the home delivery, which is done to sell software."

The mass customization of Shangpin Homestead is bound to have strong software support. But this is the easiest thing for Li Lianzhu. Because he is a software servant.

In 1994, Li Lianzhu and Zhou Shuyi founded Yuanfang Software. Before that, they worked as teachers in South China Institute of Technology for six or seven years. "I teach machinery, he teaches computers."

"What we did at the beginning was the decoration software. After the decoration software was done, we found that the furniture industry also used our software, and we started to make furniture software. Now the country is making board furniture, whether it is office or civilian, percent Seven or eighty are using our software."

With the development, Yuanfang Software began to favor the front end of home design software, from the software facing the designer to the software facing the consumer. “Selling furniture allows consumers to see the results, they will be more assured.” Therefore, furniture manufacturers and the federal and other major brands have chosen the software of the round side, the front-end sales are better.

In the 1990s, the software industry was characterized by a press conference at the hotel. All the conferences of Yuanfang Software were held in the banquet hall of the Garden Hotel in Guangzhou. As the first company in China's software industry to use CDs as a demonstration disc, Li Lianzhu engaged in various demonstrations, promotion and release in the hotel. It was very novel at the time. Yuanfang also allows small companies to act as agents. “We do a good job in the market all over the country, and there are agents in foreign countries. There are more than 20 countries in the European and American markets.”

"If there is no pirated market in China, I don't have to do a homestay." Speaking of piracy, Li Lianzhu laughed. “In China, the piracy market is too embarrassing. Every time a version of the software was made, piracy began to appear one year later, and my new version has been developed. Later, the cycle became shorter, and pirated cracks were cracked in half a year. We were also forced. To do the upgrade, the pirate crack is getting faster and faster, and it will be cracked in two months. Can the software not be upgraded in two months? This is the difficulty."

"We did the home delivery, just to sell the software." At first, based on the pressure, Li Lianzhu made a software sample shop, but did not expect it to be unacceptable.

"Before we made software and sold it to the furniture factory. They said it was not good. We said that the boss didn't pay attention to it, and the designer didn't understand it. Later, after making furniture, I would find that the original software is actually quite bad." Home delivery, Yuanfang software also knows how to get away from the engineer's thinking, to meet the needs of customers, the software is also more user-friendly and customized.

Li Lianzhu smiled. "We used to sell software and chased people outside. After doing the home supply, many people called me to ask for software. Can you offer a discount?"

Under the demonstration of Shangpin's home delivery, the sales volume of Yuanfang Software also began to increase. "The software that has been used for ten years is about 30 million sales. After doing the products, the sales are growing every year, and now it can be nearly 60 million." Li Lianzhu believes that the biggest value of Shangpin’s home is, let People see the value of software.

Until now, Yuanfang Software is still a big industry that Li Lianzhu can't give up. As for Shangpin's home delivery, he doesn't think he is a transformation. He said, "I am a new company. The transformation actually has nothing to do with me. I It's not traditional furniture. I used to be software. Now the software is still the main force." The tone is still the love of software.

Wind pump boost

"The price is good, the agreement is signed, and my heart is even more excited. Call everyone, do a big job."

From the beginning to do research and development, to do the channel to do the market, and now to do the brand, Li Lianzhu admits that this is a process of learning slowly. “It’s a little hard to do a home sale, and I paid a lot of tuition at the beginning.”

In 2006, Shang Pin Zhai went out of Guangzhou and went to Beijing and Shanghai.

Li Lianzhu transferred directly from Yuanfang Software's branch office in Beijing and Shanghai, and opened it for two or three stores a year. "At that time, I did direct business and invested money in it." At that time, Shangpin’s home delivery was not financed, and there was not much liquidity. “Another gathering in the furniture industry, I chatted and found out that although we deal with the furniture industry, we did not understand it.”

It turns out that Guangdong is a major furniture province in the country. There are many furniture companies and furniture brands. There are also many stores across the country, but most of their stores in Beijing and Shanghai are not direct stores. On the other hand, Li Lianzhu’s description is “ignorance and fearlessness”.

“The first tuition fee was paid in Shanghai.” Shangpin’s house was set on the sixth floor of Shanghai Hongxing Meikailong, which required more than 400 square meters. It opened the first big store in Shanghai. “After opening the store, I found no people on the sixth floor. We are very confident and hard at ourselves, but we have worked very hard." Less than half a year after the opening, Red Star Macalline had to be transformed, and Li Lianzhu’s first store in Shanghai was demolished. "My first lesson, you don't understand the city, don't understand the industry." This is around 2006.

Shang Pin’s first store in Beijing was also affected by Waterloo. “It’s very difficult to manage directly from different places. We didn’t think it was when we used to do software.”

Why Li Lianzhu is so optimistic about the business model of Shangpin's home delivery, and is willing to make a desperate attempt, a large part of the reason comes from the push of VC.

As early as 2000, because Yuanfang was well-known in the decoration industry and had many customers, Li Lianzhu wanted to be a portal for the decoration industry. He took four or fifty people and specialized in this website. After four months, 72 websites were created.

The platform of the 72 websites is very good. A decoration program was co-operated with Southern Commercial TV (now Southern TV) and broadcasted at 7:30 every Thursday night. The content is accompanied by the photographer to the audience of the selected audience to talk about the decoration, the designer came back to use the computer to do the simulation, and designed into an animation, to the next week, the head of the household, the designer and the host to talk about this program, and broadcast live. . “The interaction is very strong, and I won the second prize of Guangdong News in the same year.” This program has been working for a year and a half.

72 are the predecessors of the new home network

In 2006, Xinju.com was established, but Li Lianzhu did not give up the dream of the portal. He made a three-dimensional image of the entire Guangzhou property, with a renovation plan. Users can enter the specific suite to view. Li Lianzhu thought about the profit point. "Three-dimensional images can be walked in the room, there are advertising spots on the wall, and a lot of games have been done."

He took this plan to find a VC, but chatted and chatted, and the VC cast a look at the Shangpin home that had just started. "After all, the program was turned away, and the combination of Shangpin home and network began." This deep talk also conceived the way of joining, network management, and promotion methods, so that Li Lianzhu saw the prospect of customization.

"The price is good, the agreement is signed, my heart is more excited, more energetic, call everyone, we must do a big job." While Li Lianzhu was in full swing, he encountered the financial crisis of 2008, the other party did not.

"I don't want to blame others. The truth is, we are already moving in this direction. I have always been a style, and this road is not the way to go. I have no other way out." After that, Li Lianzhu also actively touched the VC, he I believe that the process of talking to an investment company is also a process of continuous learning. “You can constantly correct your business model.”

One day in March 2009, Wang Yang came to inspect in the morning. In the afternoon, Li Lianzhu went to Shenzhen and signed an agreement with Dachen. 60 million yuan of investment, accounting for 20% of the shares.

Beijing sales will exceed Guangdong

The core competitiveness is "I can't do it at the current stage, I am doing better than others."

After the early setbacks, after slowly exploring, Shangpin's business in Beijing and Shanghai has gradually developed.

In Li Lianzhu's view, the Beijing and Shanghai markets are quite attractive. "The Beijing market is at least three times that of Guangzhou, and Shanghai is two or three times that of Guangzhou. Now Shangpin is 70-80% growth in Beijing and Shanghai. This year's sales. The strongest is still Guangdong, and it is estimated to be Beijing next year." Even if the number of stores in Guangzhou is twice that of Beijing.

There are many employees in Shangpin, and Li Lianzhu said that he did not count, "should be quite a lot." Currently, he manages a total of four companies, including Shangpin Home, Xinju.com, Yuanfang Software and Weishang Furniture. Every company has a general manager who is directly responsible for the business. "Our CEOs meet together every month."

He is very optimistic about his team and thinks that they are learning to grow very fast. "Now the team, the CEO is from my software company, and the general manager of Shangpin is the former Guangdong manager of Yuanfang."

Located in Foshan, Weishang Furniture is a production company of Shangpin Home Furnishing and the rear of Shangpin. Li Lianzhu said, "There is no airborne soldier in my factory, all of which are sent by software companies."

At present, Weishang Furniture has three factories with an area of ​​less than 100,000 square meters and more than 2,000 people.

Li Lianzhu said, "Our mass customization production is our own IT technology, combined with mechanical and Internet applications, to get this core model. For example, in our store in Inner Mongolia, the designer designed the map and formed the 3D. The documents are transmitted to the factory through the network, and after processing, they are transferred to the equipment, and the control equipment processes the sheets. "The furniture of the Shangpin home is produced in this way." The factory mainly uses CAD technology in the machinery industry.

In the future planning, Li Lianzhu wants to get rid of Auto CAD and develop his own platform.

Li Lianzhu explained, “From the research and development of front-end software to the research and development of the production process in the factory, we have opened up all the links with various software platforms or informationization. This is the whole process of informationization.”

At present, Shangpin's home has already applied for a number of patents. As to whether this technology is easy to be copied, Li Lianzhu's answer is not easy. "It takes two or three years."

In Li Lianzhu's understanding, the core competitiveness of Shangpin's home delivery is that "I can't do what I am doing at the present stage. I am doing better than others."

There are some relatively different structures on the customization, many brands can't do it, but Shangpin just happens to be the software. Li Lianzhu said that this is the "hard bone" in the industry, and Shangpin has already collapsed. Next, Shangpin Home Furnishing will also apply cloud computing to customer service. “This is to attract customers from a technical perspective.”

On the channel, starting from the first offline store of Xinju.com, Shangpin Home Furnishing will be more inclined to enter office buildings or comprehensive shopping malls and other places with more traffic, rather than being limited to building materials and furniture business circles.

On September 11th, at Wanda's annual business meeting, Shangpin Home Furnishing signed a brand strategic cooperation agreement with Wanda Group to enter Wanda Plaza in the form of “Home Customized Experience Pavilion”.

In addition, Li Lianzhu is also very concerned about logistics. Since Shangpin's home use mainly uses third-party logistics, it is easy for customers to receive goods. Therefore, Li Lianzhu also inspected the warehouses built in the field.

“We built a warehouse as a distribution center. But the changes are too fast and we are still evaluating.”

Ten questions about entrepreneurship

Li Lianzhu:

Have an opponent to go faster

1. Many of the managers of Shangpin are transferred from Yuanfang Software Co., Ltd., can IT people adapt to these management and sales work?

The people of my software company are not the R&D, but the sales, the marketing department and the sales department. Our approach to software sales is advanced in the industry.

2. Shangpin's home delivery began to make a strong brand, how to deal with new areas?

How do other companies do it, do well in our studies, hire experts, lectures, and long-term participation and evaluation of brand companies.

3. What is the current market share, and where is Shangpin’s brand positioning in the industry?

From the perspective of several hypermarkets, it is less than 10%. The brand is positioned in the middle.

4. Design software is one of the core competencies. Have you ever thought of not selling it to competitors and leaving it for yourself?

We didn't think so. First, if everyone agrees and joins your industry, the cake is bigger and you are very good. Second, we have confidence, whether it is technology or management, we are all ahead, with competitors, we can go faster.

5. Have you considered listing?

We went to report last year. We have already completed the share reform in the declaration area and hope to have good results.

6. What is your personal management style, centralized or decentralized?

First, we go from the most basic group to the store, to the department, to the company, in accordance with the Chamber of Commerce, the monthly meeting, and the weekly meeting. I basically do not participate. I attended the monthly company CEO's meeting, rated the company's work, and then everyone worked differently. It is the separation of powers.

7. According to our understanding, Shangpin Home is a dual-brand strategy. There are two brands, Shangpin and Weiyi. What is this consideration?

It was originally a design consideration. Now think about it, join and distribute can do two, so a city can have many dealers. And the two competitions are very good, very intense and competitive.

8. What is the endorsement of Zhou Xun?

It should be the year before, and signed for two years. Li Bingbing was the only one to sign.

9. What is the current size of the Shangpin home?

More than a billion yuan in sales revenue, net profit is about 100 million.

10. What is the personal pursuit at this stage? What are your hobbies?

I now think more about corporate culture and make corporate workers feel more at home. The more you want to do is to find a way to do "a few people's communism". Manufacturers can do better if they can do this. Hobbies are playing, learning, and attending classes.

Plush Toys/ Stuffed Toys

Weihai Tong Park Arts & Crafts Co.,Ltd , https://www.whtongpark.com

Posted on