Which Marketing Mix Should Haier Implement To Gain A Higher Market Share On The German White Goods Market?

In 2009, Haier was the world's leading company in the white goods market with a global share of 5.1%. Nevertheless, they were not able to gain a market share of at least 1% on the German market after having been there for 20 years. Thereby, a GTM matrix shows that Germany is the most important white goods market before the United Kingdom in Europe. With their 82 million people in 40.1 million households, Germany produced a turnover of 6.927 billion Euros in 2009. This is, with one fifth of all appliance sales, the largest market in Europe. The reason for Haier's failure in Germany is a combination of facts like their niche market strategy which was not successful and their product quality which was too low. The result of the conducted survey shows that only 3% of the respondents have heard about Haier and 79% thought it would be a company from a German speaking country which means they have no image in Germany. Still,92% of the people would purchase Chinese white goods if the quality price level would be appropriate for them. For this reason, Haier has to offer high-quality products with a five year warranty to convince the people about the high quality standard of their products. The trust should be further developed through a free of charge service hotline which is available seven days a week in order to act fast with the option of an extra service which benefits the customer even more. In order to be more attractive, Haier has to expand their product range in the solo appliance and especially in the market of build in products. Here,54% of the complete market turnover is generated and Haier does not use this product segment till now. Moreover, they should introduce the specific product lines "ECO", "Senior", and "Single" to address specific target groups. The appropriate price for their products should be a constant price in the medium till high price level. They should use bulk discounts for intermediates to stimulate sales and offering potential customers no interest install payments. In order to reach customers, the distribution network has to consist out of electronic retailers, electronic chains, and furniture markets. Thus, they have a wide network and broad geographic coverage of retailers. Additionally, they should use internet retailers and provide their own online shop. To build an image and inform the people about Haier, they need to have large advertisement campaigns with the use of TV, radio, newspapers, special magazines, internet advertisement, and the use of public relation. Additionally, they must use a German instead of an English slogan to transfer their advertising message better to the people. Moreover, they should promote their products to the trader and demonstrate their changed quality level and that they can compete with the established brands in Germany.