A new research report by McKinsey indicates that "the future winners are not those with larger scale, but rather those who are the most agile and innovative!"

As one of the many outstanding distributors of Lees Lighting, Shi Jianhua, the general manager of Hubei Lichuan Jianhua Lighting Accessories, is undoubtedly a "most agile evolutionaryist". With 26 years of deep involvement in the lighting industry, Shi Jianhua has accurately grasped market trends and promptly adjusted business strategies. His competitiveness in the Hubei market has been increasingly prominent.

In 2024, against the backdrop of the overall slowdown in the lighting industry growth rate, with the strategic support and channel empowerment from Leesun Lighting, Shi Jianhua made a decisive move to launch the Douyin channel. He innovatively explored potential markets and achieved a breakthrough growth in the Douyin channel.

So, how did Shi Jianhua achieve a breakthrough growth in 2024? And what plans and goals does Shi Jianhua have for 2025? Coinciding with the "Raylight Lighting Spring Group Buying Event in 2025" being in full swing, Guangda Lighting conducted an interview with Shi Jianhua. In this issue, let's get closer to him together!

General Manager of Hubei Lichuan Jianhua Lighting Fixture Company

Make significant progress by leveraging the Douyin channel

In recent years, the lighting industry as a whole has shifted from an "incremental market" to a "renewal market". Physical stores are also facing the fading of the era's advantages and the reduction of natural traffic. So, for lighting distributors, where is the way out? In Shi Jianhua's view, the answer is "breaking out of the comfort zone".

In 2024, an important breakthrough made by Shi Jianhua in the Hubei market was leveraging the Douyin channel to achieve a remarkable increase in performance. "Over the past year, under the empowerment and leadership of the Raylight Lighting brand, we further expanded this new business channel on Douyin and achieved excellent results, securing several high-quality large orders."

On February 18th, at the 2025 Lighting Partners Conference of Leitech Lighting, Shi Jianhua took the stage to share his practical insights and experiences regarding the Douyin channel.

Behind the improvement of performance through Douyin channels lies the resonance between brand strategy and channel innovation. In 2024, through the empowerment of the brand headquarters, the reconstruction of the live-streaming ecosystem, and the implementation of localized operations in a coordinated manner, Shi Jianhua's stores not only broke through the bottleneck of performance growth but also further achieved an upgrade from "product sales" to "scene services".

The empowerment measures taken by Leesun Lighting in the marketing aspect on Douyin platform have been a source of confidence for Shi Jianhua. "While our distributors are actively leveraging the Douyin channel, Leesun Lighting has also provided us with comprehensive marketing resource support, including but not limited to marketing training on the Douyin platform, one-on-one follow-up services, continuous online marketing activities, and so on."

It is understood that in 2024, Lees Lighting will continue to make efforts on the Douyin platform. Leveraging the IP of the "Luminous Life Festival", it will launch a local life integrated promotion campaign on Douyin, collaborating with stores across the country. Through multi-dimensional digital marketing strategies, it has successfully gathered various types of traffic and achieved strong brand exposure, helping the Lees Lighting brand and dealers achieve a new breakthrough in end-user empowerment on the local life track of Douyin.

▲ One corner of the showroom of Hua Jian Lighting in Lichuan, Hubei Province

Persist in deeply engaging with Douyin and bridging the "last mile" issue.

During the interview, Shi Jianhua stated that the essence of the Douyin channel is to restructure the "person-product-space" link. In her opinion, the Douyin channel is based on "live streaming + short videos" as the content carrier, focusing on attracting local online customer traffic, guiding customers to redeem at offline stores, helping stores increase sales performance, and thereby achieving a double breakthrough in order volume and brand exposure.

Although deeply engaging in the Douyin channel can further enhance brand exposure and help distributors reduce acquisition costs, it is not easy to excel in the Douyin channel. "The difficulty of the Douyin channel lies in persistence. You not only have to do it, but also have to keep doing it," Shi Jianhua said frankly.

Shi Jianhua believes that as a digital channel, Douyin will gradually reduce its marginal costs as long as it keeps investing and deepening its efforts. This will enable it to gain greater competitive advantages. "In 2024, we established a fixed team for shooting and editing, created a personal image persona for the store manager, and continuously released videos for promotion, which greatly enhanced the store's influence in the local market."

▲ One corner of the showroom of Hua Jian Lighting in Lichuan, Hubei Province

The core of the dealer's transformation into the Douyin channel lies in breaking through the limitations of traditional channels. Shi Huajian said, "The Douyin platform enables us to quickly connect the 'last mile' of local consumption, forming a commercial closed loop of 'online promotion and marketing - offline verification and settlement', and at the same time, it has won the trust of a large number of customers, significantly increasing the order success rate of the stores."

For this "Rays Lighting Spring 2025 Group Buying Event", Shi Jianhua was filled with pleasant surprises. The three core product categories brought by Rays Lighting, including health home lighting fixtures, Xiaolei Yi Jia Lighting Solution, and Whole-House Intelligent Lighting and Lighting Environment Solution, all gave her a lot of amazement. "This enables us to make better efforts on the Douyin platform."

Looking ahead to 2025, Shi Jianhua remains full of confidence. "Although the industry is currently in a critical turning point, we have captured positive signals of growth from the marketing practices on the Douyin platform. This gives us more confidence for the future! As long as we closely collaborate with the brand of Lees Lighting and unite as one, we will surely usher in a time of spring blossoms and enjoy a new peak in the industry together!"