Commentary: Jingdong Mall Price War is a shame for China's home appliance industry

Out of the mix, always have to return, e-commerce company Jingdong Mall CEO Liu Qiang East is no exception.

The “e-commerce home appliance price war” dominated by Liu Qiang’s hands, under the guise of “consumer interests”, has openly attacked the upgrading and transformation of China’s home appliance industry by “low-cost” measures. The ultimate goal is to snatch competitors Suning and Gome in the retail market share of home appliances, but it hurts the overall interests of consumers, home appliance manufacturers and the entire Chinese home appliance industry.

At present, the "home appliance price war" initiated by Jingdong Mall has triggered public eyeballs. At the same time, problems such as "out of stock, shortage of goods, price drop before going up," have caused public questioning. In the author's opinion, this behavior of Jingdong Mall is undoubtedly an open "humiliation" and "reverse action" for the Chinese home appliance industry that has been trying to get rid of "price war" for more than a decade. Looking at Liu Qiangdong’s series of actions including “playing Suning headquarters”, “slowing Suning stock prices”, and “openly criticizing and provoking opponents,” this has completely broken through the bottom line of the company’s business competition, reflecting the electricity supplier industry’s The chaotic competition has also led to a series of systemic crises such as corporate management, senior management, and the quality of employees behind the “barbaric” expansion of Jingdong Mall.

Jingdong Mall is using the power of “E-Commerce” as a new channel force and has no scruples about the “from price to value”, “from low-end to high-end”, “from concept to quality” that Chinese home appliance companies are actively promoting. The series of transformation achievements, such as “Returning to China,” carried out the most stupid, lowest-level impacts, and did not take into account the long-term development of the entire Chinese home appliance industry. This also reflected that e-commerce companies are in this “material desire” business era. You can "arbitrary" for profit.

In this process of “home appliance price war” dominated by Jingdong Mall, Liu Qiangdong always claimed “zero profit” sales, breaking the high profits of home appliance vendors such as Gome and Suning, and safeguarding the interests of consumers. In fact, Liu Qiangdong, a businessman, bears the commercial responsibility of risk investors for Jingdong Mall’s rapid “bigger and stronger, listed circulation, and investment appreciation”. It merely advocates for the purpose of “maintaining the interest of the entire people”, openly infringes on the right to know of consumers, destroys the order of normal operation of home appliances, and divides the interests of upstream household appliances companies. Because so far, Liu Qiang Dong also failed to publish a home appliance sales contract, so that consumers can see clearly the purchase price of Jingdong Mall zero profit in the end is how much?

More than 10 years ago, after experiencing the price war that lasted for many years, the Chinese home appliance industry has remained at the stage of simple processing and manufacturing. It lacks sufficient profit and strength to innovate new products and technologies, making the entire Chinese home appliance industry a global one. The supporting role of the market and production factories can only earn the leanest profits in the smile curve. In recent years, driven by a large number of leading home appliance companies such as Haier, Midea, Changhong, and Hisense, Chinese companies have begun to abandon their price wars and moved to a value war driven by core technological innovations. Jingdong Mall's "home appliance price war" is undoubtedly the most disdainful "indifferent" to the current marketing innovation path that Chinese home appliance marketers are struggling to explore. It also fully exposes the e-commerce business's use of Internet technology to activate the traditional industry's marketing process." Simple "and ignorance", this will directly bring the future development and marketing of e-commerce companies into "misguided" and "dead end".

Liu Qiang East is not the godfather of China E-Commerce, Jingdong Mall is also difficult to become China's leading e-commerce business leader. Jingdong Mall’s commercial behavior at the expense of “business reputation, development space, and brand reputation” of overdraft companies will not only gain recognition from home appliance companies, but will also conflict with the business values ​​of home appliance owners and the operating environment of the entire home appliance industry. And the business environment is causing damage.

In any commercial society, the ultimate beneficiaries of price wars are never consumers, but are the initiators of price wars. Because they often use "low prices" as bait, misleading consumers' purchasing behavior and ultimately achieving the maximization of business goals. Because Liu Qiang East is not a philanthropist, Jingdong Mall is not a public benefit enterprise.