20th anniversary of Louvre: lighting up the path of progress with innovation

　　For the furnishing industry, furnishing brands and malls sprang up, flourished and were eliminated cruelly successively in the past two decades. Tens of thousands of furnishing enterprises underwent the painful process from a gold rush to a reshuffle, and few of them have survived to date. Louvre Furnishings Group born in 2000 and located in Lecong, Shunde is one of survivors. From a pure furnishing circulation platform to a global furnishings conglomerate integrating creative design, furniture R&D, mall operations, five-star hotel operations, commerce, and tourism, the Group underwent five iterations in business model, each of which accompanied with new breakthroughs and advances.

　　Much-anticipated birth that changed the market pattern

　　Lecong furniture rose during the reform and opening up. In 2000, the domestic furniture market was highly competitive and varied greatly in quality, and there was no large-scale, high-class and highly specialized furniture mall to lead Chinese furniture consumption. Then, the Lecong International Furniture Exhibition Center – Louvre’s first-generation branded furnishing mall – rose to the occasion like a fresh breeze in the domestic furniture market where the good and bad were intermingled. This majestic and imposing 183,000-square-meter furnishing building was the largest furnishing mall in terms of single building area in the world, and gathered over 1,000 domestic Tier-1 furniture brands. It caused a sensation in the industry at the time of opening, and became a compelling new star in the Chinese furnishing industry. It took the Lecong furniture market to a rapid development stage based on brand operations, and established Lecong’s prominent global position as the “Furniture Trading Captial Of China”.

　　　　Introducing international major brands and becoming internationalized

　　In addition to highly integrating domestic Tier-1 furnishing brands, a high-end furniture mall should also be able to fit in with world-class furnishing cultures. In 2008, the Lecong International Furniture Exhibition Center was renamed as the Louvre International Furniture Exhibition Center, and Louvre Casa was founded, which introduced European Tier-1 furniture brands leading globally in both quality and design, brought a higher-end lifestyle to domestic high-end consumers, and exhibited worldwide home cultures. With the opening of Louvre Casa, Louvre became one of the first Chinese pioneers and pathfinders in furniture import, and a window for furniture of China going abroad and those from other parts of the world coming in. This was the second iteration of Louvre in business model – upgrading to an international furniture brand mall comprehensively with overwhelming capacity in pooling and integrating resources in the industry.

　　　　Pioneering the combination of tourism and shopping

　　We pursue innovation and development constantly. When the richness of products at the mall is enough to meet the furnishing shopping demand of customers, Louvre has to innovate constantly as a leader in the domestic furnishing circulation sector toward better shopping experiences. Louvre has made all-round improvement to the shopping environment based on the highest standards in every aspect from facilities to services. Except shopping, customers can have enjoyment in the Palace of All Nations where kites can be flown, the Golden Hall reviving the brilliant Renaissance, the Accessory and Lamp Center of Avenue des Champs-Élysées style, the fantastic Secret Garden, the colorful Rainbow Corridor, the uniquely designed Favela chair here…… You will enjoy a colorful global furnishing culture tour here. Louvre has brought refreshing shopping experiences to customers by combining tourism with shopping organically. It became the first furnishing mall awarded as a state-level AAAA scenic spot of China in 2012, and has now upgraded to a third iteration - an international furnishing shopping and tourism complex, and opened up a new pattern of commercial tourism in China.

　　Overwhelming traditional patterns and setting international trends

　　While improving customers’ shopping experiences, Louvre ever pursuing innovation realized early on that an ordinary furniture mall displaying products only for sale faced more and more limitations, and could not meet people’s demand for a nice home life. In order to provide customers with deeper and broader furnishing shopping experiences, Louvre launched a super-five-star hotel home experience hotel –Sofitel Foshan– the only one of its kind around the world in 2017 after three years of design and seven years of construction. The hotel has a wide range of facilities, including delicacies prepared by chefs from six countries, a sky bar, an outdoor garden, a sky lawn, a spa, and a fitness club. The guestrooms are available in four styles, 30 layouts and over 100 spatial designs. “What is seen is what for sale,” so that furnishing shopping is no longer a pure furniture mall shopping experience, but an immersive home experience full of lifestyle changes and a favorable home product shopping enjoyment at the same time. This “enjoyable shopping” pattern that combines food and enjoyment with home art experiences overthrows the industry tradition, and turns Louvre into an experiential international furnishing mall, realizing the fourth iteration in business model.

　　　Dual-drive development strategy taking the industry to a new height

　　The composition of home elements has shifted from the realization of individual functions to the meeting of spiritual needs, which reflects the progress of the furnishing industry and the improvement of people’s living standard. With such improvement, people’s needs for beauty are becoming more diversified and richer. Louvre has begun to explore a high level of fusion between artistic design and home culture, and turn artistic aesthetics into a usual form of daily life. In 2019, Louvre proposed a development strategy driven by the high-end furnishing art center and urban design center. The high-end home art center is a high-end commercial home complex focused on differentiation and segmentation in culture, art, design and innovation, with the aim of providing a new “living” landmark for urban development. The urban design center provides one-stop high-end ultimate services to consumers by integrating interior design, smart life and product creativity.

　　After three years of strict site selection, the Louvre Furnishings Art Center was finally located on the central axis of Guangzhou International Finance Town. As the first commercial complex with external presence of Louvre Furnishings Group, the Louvre Furnishings Art Center is focused on differentiation in artistic characteristics, and is designed by an Italian design master to integrate art into all aspects of architecture, so as to give customers impressive artistic and shopping enjoyment by enjoying modern art while buying furnishings. The opening of the Louvre Furnishings Art Center marks the fifth iteration of Louvre in business model into a global home art center. This first home-themed commerce, trade and art complex for life, design and art in the industry can be regarded as a new home art landmark in Guangzhou or even southern China that sets trends again!　　

　　It can be seen from the five iterations of Louvre that Louvre has shifted from a research-oriented home product creator to a sedulous home culture disseminator, and from a branded furnishing mall to a global home art center. In the past two decades, Louvre has been exploring a development path for the Chinese furnishing industry with a foresight, innovative thinking and boldness, and making breakthroughs in both facilities and services. In its business transformation and upgrading process, Louvre created business miracles successively, reached an incomparable brand height, and remained at the cutting edge of the times.

　　We expect Louvre Furnishings Group to keep communicating new forms of home life, and lead the future of the furnishing industry to a new age as an explorer and trendsetter! It is also expected to create its own legend and glory in the history of Chinese furnishings! Louvre’s business development is an iterative and self-challenging process, just like one’s growth process. At the 20th anniversary of the Group, Louvre will start the Desert Walk with Big Names & Dark Horse Sports Second Desert Thousand-entrepreneur Challenge together with one thousand entrepreneurs on September 11. A group of people will walk slowly in a magnificent golden desert backdrop, and enjoy a good time under the starry sky at night. They will keep challenging themselves in this quest. Let’s see how the invited famous entrepreneurs will make sparks of innovation with Louvre and what dimension of thinking will be created.