The current situation of China's stationery industry is that manufacturing enterprises are highly concentrated in regional distribution, but the market concentration is relatively low, and product homogenization is severe. The development trend of the stationery industry: product consumption tends to be personalized; Sales tend to flatten channels and digitize commerce; The competition mode of the stationery industry will evolve from a single enterprise competition to a whole supply chain competition, with manufacturers shifting towards service providers.
1、 Market capacity and structure
The market capacity of the Chinese stationery industry (excluding office equipment and furniture) is about 150 billion yuan, equivalent to approximately 21.5 billion US dollars. The total global stationery market is about 250 billion US dollars, and the Chinese stationery market accounts for 8.6% of the total global stationery market.
In the Chinese stationery market, office consumables account for 41%, approximately 61.5 billion yuan, document processing supplies account for 13%, approximately 19.5 billion yuan, writing tools account for 10%, approximately 15 billion yuan, book and desktop supplies each account for 7%, both 10.5 billion yuan, and teaching and student supplies account for 9%, approximately 13.5 billion yuan.
The consumer market for office stationery products in China is mainly concentrated in economically developed coastal areas, with about 70% concentrated in Guangdong, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Shanghai, and Beijing. The specific distribution ratio is 17.5% in Zhejiang, 18% in Jiangsu, 7.80% in Shanghai, 12.50% in Beijing, Tianjin, and Hebei regions, 7.00% in Shandong and Henan, 5.80% in Fujian and Anhui, 5.50% in Hunan, Jiangxi, and Hubei regions, 4.50% in the three eastern provinces, and 6.90% in other regions.
There are a huge consumer group of 8 million enterprises, 200 million students, and various levels of government agencies. In recent years, the Chinese stationery market has grown rapidly at an average annual rate of 12%. It is expected that the Chinese stationery market will grow at an annual rate of 5% -10% in the future. The prospects of the Chinese stationery consumption market are very broad.
2、 Industry characteristics
There are over 100000 upstream and downstream enterprises in China's stationery industry chain, including approximately 43000 manufacturers and 30000 suppliers, with approximately 30000 retail terminals. There are very few enterprises with sales exceeding 1 billion yuan, only 5 enterprises with sales exceeding 500 million yuan, about 5% with sales exceeding 10 million yuan, and about 10% with sales exceeding a certain scale. Out of over 43000 stationery production enterprises nationwide, 70% are concentrated in Guangdong, Zhejiang, and Jiangsu regions.
Chinese stationery manufacturing enterprises are highly concentrated in regional distribution, but their market concentration is relatively low. The annual sales of the top ten stationery industry sales enterprises account for less than 10% of the total market value.
Ultimately, most Chinese stationery companies have the following symptoms:
1. There are a large number of industry enterprises, with concentrated regions and low market concentration
2. The degree of mechanization of production methods is not high, and it belongs to labor-intensive industries with low industry profit margins.
3. Chinese stationery enterprises are mostly export-oriented enterprises, which have been processing and exporting products to overseas enterprises through OEM and OEM methods for a long time. Their product added value is low, and their technological innovation and brand awareness are weak.
3、 Problems in the industry
1. Product homogenization, excessive repetition of products, resulting in resource waste and low-level excessive competition, and low industry efficiency.
2. Lack of core technology and inventions.
3. The manufacturing industry has long been centered around OEM, lacking awareness of technological innovation and brand innovation capabilities.
4. No brand with international influence has emerged.
4、 Industry development trends
1. Consumer trends: personalized, fashionable, multifunctional, and low-carbon products
In a diversified social environment, consumers' demand for stationery products will exhibit personalized characteristics. 59% of distributors hope to highlight the personalization of their products more. More than 60% of respondents said they prefer to choose personalized and fashionable stationery.
From October 2008 to October 2009, the procurement of environmentally friendly office supplies increased by 63%. Among companies with annual sales exceeding $1 billion, more than 53% of them consider office supplies when purchasing environmentally friendly products.
2. Sales model trends: channel flattening, e-commerce
(1) The trend of channel flattening
Flattening means reducing channel hierarchy and the number of distributors, developing more direct sales channels, including direct sales channels to retailers (direct supply to modern retail chains) and direct sales channels to consumers (such as e-commerce, direct stores, and direct sales), with the aim of strengthening control over retail terminals and gaining a better understanding of consumer needs.
The most significant feature of flat sales channels is that they are directly operated; The second is to shorten and broaden channels.
(2) E-commerce Trends
The number of Chinese netizens has exceeded 384 million, and the current number of online shoppers is 60 million, accounting for only 25% of netizens. However, the figures for South Korea and the United States are 57.3% and 66% respectively, indicating that China has a huge and even more astonishing group of online shoppers.
From the perspective of channel owner attributes, e-commerce can be divided into three types: retailer e-commerce, manufacturer e-commerce, and online retail (i.e. independent third-party operated e-commerce).
Retailer e-commerce: In the past few years, retail companies have been experimenting with online sales. Data shows that among the top 100 retail enterprises in China in 2009, 31 had already launched online businesses, of which nearly one-third opened in 2009 or early 2010. However, these retail enterprises are mostly in a cautious initial stage, and their online business has not formed a scale, accounting for a small proportion of overall sales revenue.
Manufacturer e-commerce: Manufacturers have also launched online sales platforms this year, especially with explosive growth in the past two years.
Online retailers: Online retail is independently owned and operated by third parties online, including B2C and C2C businesses. The annual compound growth rate of the overall sales scale of China's B2C business from 2006 to 2008 is estimated to be 50%, and it has become an important sales channel.
(3) Industry trends: competition, concentration, and supply chain competition
The phenomenon of competition and cooperation is a natural product of economic development to a certain extent, and also the ultimate result of competition to a certain extent. Competition and cooperation take win-win as the starting point, and by utilizing everyone's technology, funds, and channels to jointly build a powerful new platform, it represents the standardized requirements of technological development and market order, and has become the highest stage of competition in the stationery industry.
With the development of the industry, the trend of competition and cooperation intensifies, and the industry will inevitably move towards concentration. In the process of industry concentration, there are three major camps with the possibility of monopolizing the Chinese stationery market, namely international stationery giants, regional stationery chain institutions, and leading manufacturers of single products. These three major camps each have their own advantages, but they also face different challenges.
The competition mode of the stationery industry will evolve from a single enterprise competition to a whole supply chain competition, with manufacturers shifting towards service providers. The development trend of the stationery industry will lead to a change in production methods, an increase in mechanization, an increase in enterprise specialization, and increasingly close industry cooperation. This inevitable result is a transformation of the competition pattern. The stationery industry will evolve from competition among countless small and medium-sized manufacturers to competition among large stationery suppliers and even the entire stationery supply chain. Stationery production enterprises that only focus on a small field will inevitably be at a disadvantage in the competition, and will be replaced by a few supply chain service providers that can provide a full range of products. The one-stop service provider, with its advantages of full range, one-stop, flat, zero delivery time, and low risk, will be at a disadvantage, It will be widely welcomed by customers in various business formats.