Description:
Being a manufacturer of interior clock is much more complicated than watches. For the manufacture of wall or floor models especially need ten times more material and labor, and retail prices for the “big” watch, on average, are lower than at wrist. Only a few companies manage to walk a fine line, combining quality that suits the buyer at an acceptable cost.
Historically, the major players in the interior of hours have been European, primarily German firms. No wonder the German cuckoo clocks are the same national souvenirs, as we matryoshka or shawl. This leadership is visible in Russia, where the coverage of shops and representation in trade and to this day is leading brand Hermle. However, as the saying goes, everything flows, everything changes.
Recently, European manufacturers have hours of interior permanent crisis. Prices rise, most companies have changed or the owner (as Kieninger), or have gone through bankruptcy (as Dold, Hermle), were not uncommon irregular supply of goods. The cause of the problems was the increasing cost of production. Germany has always been a country with high wages and a large tax burden, and after the changeover to the euro was simply disastrous situation: all the goods and services went up by almost half. For a while companies have been able to restrain the growth of costs through the introduction of new technologies, but all the reserves were exhausted after two years the euro against the dollar soared nearly in half. Willy-nilly, producers had to raise prices. So, last year they rose by about 9%, and this spring it was announced about the next increase – another 22%. As a result, many moves before the model went beyond the usual price segments. Financial problems led to the impoverishment of the factories range and irregular supplies. And if the retail trade has not yet had time to feel the severity of problems (for example, before it has not reached the last wave of price hike), many distributors have analyzed the situation, reduced their purchases.
Which way out there for the owner of a shop? One option is to store the offset range to more expensive goods. However, the luxury segment is not elastic, and when in Moscow there is a sufficient number of buyers of expensive models, in most provincial cities the demand for them is limited.
The second way – to find a brand that can fill the empty niche of the price. The market abhors a vacuum, and many predicted that it will be primarily Asian goods. However, the market suddenly came the Americans.
Away from the market number 1
United States – the world’s largest market and it is no wonder that this country has few powerful producers. Among them we can mention Sligh, Hentschel and, of course, Howard Miller – the world’s largest manufacturer of floor clocks, whose annual production exceeds 100 000 copies. Due to the specifics of the local market, American firms hold a very advantageous position intermediate between Chinese and European companies.
Like the Chinese, they have a huge amount of production and a corresponding low cost. But this focus on their own, highly secured and fastidious consumers causes them to produce goods of quality not inferior to European products. It is not surprising that almost appeared in Russia, quickly settled down overseas clock in our country.
The success of the American clock is clearly visible in Figure 1, which shows the dynamics of sales of Howard Miller in Moscow the interior salon hours”1C-shop”. Curve shot up skyward, even though the data cover the period until the middle of this year, that is, until the last rise in price of German goods when the price of European and American clocks was more or less comparable. And since July is expected to double network manager overseas sales of goods.
The reason for success – the best to date “price-quality”, which is very easy to demonstrate by the example of floor clocks.
So far, the most in demand in Russia was a segment of your cost to 80 000 rubles ($ 3,000) – that such a threshold are kept in mind most buyers. In this segment Howard Miller offers 16 different models (see table). If we take a range of study of German companies, it is unlikely that even counted a dozen products that fit into this price range. And the American model, comparable in price to the European, has much to gain from them in size and feature set decoration. The majority of even the cheapest of them adorned with decorative elements of the case, the clock is larger in size (and visually look more impressive), the mechanisms are more prestigious cable hanger weights, fight off, lunar calendar, and unknown to Europeans light function dial.
Market hours are very conservative, and the interior – especially. Some store owners believe that you can not touch anything in the existing order and a set of stamps. However, practice shows that the buyer is not burdened by stereotypes and often just wants to buy a good (not Chinese), the mechanical clock. And people are happy to get cheaper, but equally high quality and prestigious products from the United States.
Interior clock in some way repeat, already passed in other markets: Pre-Owned, building materials, etc., where the change in exchange rates resulted in a reorientation of imports to America. 2-3 years ago most of the cars were coming to us from Germany and neighboring countries. Today, they almost drove the cars from the U.S. that even with transportation from overseas cost 10-15% less exactly the same, but rode on European roads. Due to the low dollar sales are growing in Russia and the U.S. building materials and products of other industries. All of these markets have the greatest success of the company who first reconstructed the scheme of supply. The same can be expected and the clock: the shops that used to include other in an assortment of promising products will benefit.