Just Do It Yourself with Hand Tools January 31, 2008
Posted by wenbi in : Tools , add a commentIn recent months, the sluggishness in house prices, and consumer confidence, hammered by ongoing mortgage market crisis especially in the US and the UK, has taken a toll on home improvement expenditures. Although the US government manages to restore consumer confidence and revive the overall housing market by announcing a plan to freeze rates on certain adjustable-rate sub-prime mortgages, the homeowner spending for home improvement and remodeling activities will be thereby influenced with a certain ripple effect.
A Mild Upturn in Home Improvement
By a survey, in the US, homeowner remodeling spending for 2007 dragged and is projected to be 2.3% lower than 2006 while homeowners become increasingly jittered about falling house prices and a slowing economy. They spent nearly $233 billion on home remodeling in 2007, marking a modest 1.9% increase from the record $228 billion spent in 2006. The growth is bolstered by a lag time of three to six months when remodeling activity follows home building. Homeowners can¡¦t delay a major repair like a leaky roof or a broken faucet after the houses are purchased. In 1997, the home improvement marketplace was estimated to be a $135 billion industry. However, that number has increased to $185 billion in 2007. Some economists predict that remodeling activity in 2008 is expected to grow by 2.8% and may reach another record-breaking year by 2009.
DIY Tools Smile with Growing Female Users
As mounting new houses are built, here come in a renewed passion for do-it-yourself (DIY) projects. As we¡¦ve mentioned before, it is women that drive 75% of the home improvement purchasing decisions in a household. The trend of single women purchasing homes is one of the most notable in real estate market. They regard their houses as valuable long-term investments, which require upkeep and renovations. Instead of hiring a worker to replace a faucet or put up drywall, most female homeowners prefer to do it themselves and save money. We are seeing increasing female shoppers to join the queues in front of home centers. More and more women are getting stuck into DIY than ever before. According to a survey, as purchasing holiday gifts, 48% of U.S. women choose home improvement items, such as hand tools, compared to 39% prefer apparels or jewelry. Now more end-consumers, either male or female, are tackling the work themselves and enjoying doing their own home repairs and renovations. Meanwhile, tool suppliers are adding more features and functions to their products, brainstorming new ideas to make DIY tools more comfortable, easier to use, efficient and safer and aiming for greater productivity, higher quality work and less stress on the users. Experts expect that a real estate slump would reduce the purchase power of professional tool users, but the DIY market would remain higher growth as ever.
Go Home and Do It Yourself
“Homing” trend is still on the move. People is poised to make their home a warm and cozy place furnished with recreational equipments and ambience-oriented materials such as decorations, a flat-screen TV integrated in a piece of furniture, printed screens or elegant lighting fixtures that are inevitable to the taste and quality of modern lifestyle. In the other hand, Always, things in home will break and need repair. And quick, inexpensive and user-friendly DIY tools not only fix the problem, but also add the beauty of a home. Beside the price, DIY tool quality is increasingly promoted to value-added professional tool grades and comes with growing focus on ergonomic, intelligent and long durability designs.
Hand Tools- Practice Makes Perfect
DIY projects by hand tools are often time-consuming. But many of the tasks are traditionally done exclusively with hand tools as much more efficiently and quickly than with power tools. DIYers believe doing your own home improvement projects gives them all the control, and can ensure the project turns out exactly as you want it only for pennies on the dollar. They also have fun and enjoy a sense of achievement when their projects are finished by continuous practices and improving skills. Nowadays, there are so many reference resources available for the do-it-yourselfers, including popular print and web-based resources and classes at home improvement stores. Apart from an increasing use on home improvement projects, vehicle average lifespan is longer also promote the sales of hand tools in automobile after-sales market. Electronic products forging tools are in great demand, especially adjustable wrenches. The common problem of annoying “external rust” on tools has spurred the application of special stainless steel on tools, which is underlined by innovations such as a novel combination spanner series without galvanized surface treatment and welded fully from stainless steel screwdrivers and bits.
Power Tools- Smarter Ideas for Housing Renovation
Powered by electricity, batteries or air for use in building, construction and home improvement, power tools are can accomplish almost any task a hand tool can do and improves the speed and efficiency of the craft. The differences between DIY power tools and professional power tools are on function and design. Basically, the professional models have increased power and the ability to perform under more stress than consumer tools and can withstand heavier workloads. Power tools are big business. In the US market, the sales are predicted to surpass $11 billion by 2010 by driven by strong demands on electric saws and pneumatic nailers and cordless power tools. The technological improvement and innovation spotlight on dust collection, laser-enabled products, ergonomic enhancements, high-tech anti-theft technologies, the inclusion of lithium-ion batteries, and redesigns allowing multiple tools to share the same battery source. Advances in Lithium-Ion technology have revolutionized cordless power tools making them lighter, more powerful and more reliable.
The 63nd Tokyo Int’l Gift Show October 31, 2007
Posted by wenbi in : Gifts , 1 comment so far |
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In a Mood to Decorate with Lightings October 18, 2007
Posted by wenbi in : Lighting , add a commentttnet.net - [2006/01/24]
Modern life is often stressful. People prefer to relax themselves by enjoying the home comfort, especially a warm candlelight meals. In the US, about 7 in every 10 households loves to use candles in their house. More designs come in Christmas figurines, musical fruit shapes, scented models, and heat-resistant wax candles with dried flowers squeezed onto the surface. Candles of red, especially natural wax color, is a come-back trend.
Decorative lighting is much a personal choice and down to individual tastes, the importance of getting the right lighting in the right place cannot be overestimated to create a cozy home atmosphere. Lighting designers and manufacturers blend fashion with function to create decorative lamps and fixtures that do more than simply illuminate. Accordingly, it¡¦s not just about ceiling lighting such as chandeliers and recessed lights, but also wall lighting, table and floor lamps in a variety of shapes, mirror lighting, theatrical lighting strips, neon lights, special pieces of art with styles and finishes to transform a room from drab to dramatic with the flick of a switch.
FASHION LIGTHING
People are accessorizing their homes just like women accessorize a dress. Consumer tend to regard decorative lightings as home-fashion accessories rather than merely lamps for illuminating purpose. They usually purchase new decorative lightings every few years to decorate their houses. Decorative lightings shed light on people¡¦s own design personalities, which are subject to change according to, or, more precisely, harmonizing to surroundings like furniture and interior designs. Popular is informal style. For example, metal and hardwood bases mingle with angular shades in glass, mica or mica-patterned fabric to recreate the clean lines. Lamps made of handcrafted paper function as room dividers. Amorphous shapes are everywhere on products made of high-grade plastic, which are mixed with versatile new materials. In addition, geometrical lines grow beloved by gift designers. Different types of finishes result in styles to any form of lightings. Some popular options are brush nickel, brush chrome, antique bronze, antique stone, brown stone and taupe finish.
HOME LIGHTING
Table lamps and floor lamps are available in a wide range styles, catering to decorating needs. An adjustable table lamp intends to offer additional light to the desk and keyboard areas. Portable Lamps provide mobile benefit whenever users want. Small specialty lamps, such as clip-on lights, uplight cans, adjustable task lights, mini-reflector spotlights, desk and piano lamps fill a variety of task and accent light needs. These lamps make use of lighting source such as incandescent, tungsten-halogen, energy-efficient compact fluorescent bulbs, LEDs, HB (high-brightness) LEDs or even OLEDs (organic LEDs). At the dressing table, an adjustable, lighted magnifying mirror will provide ideal lighting for grooming and applying makeup. In bathroom, it is indispensable to have shadow-free lighting for shaving, grooming, and applying makeup. Now, a new ¡§Intelligent¡¨ lighting systems are designed to be controlled simply through a remote-control device for greater convenience of home life.
FESTIVAL LIGHTING
Festivals and holidays are best timing for decorative lightings, which makes people feel joyful in these life¡¦s special moments. For festival moods, people decorate their houses with neon lights, tree lights, curtain lights, bulb strings, belt lights, mini bulbs and correlated lights.
With the stream of globalization, Christmas has become an international festival all over the world. In this occasion, all the sundry are giving themselves over to decorate the Christmas with Xmas trees, ornaments and gifts, especially in use of lightings. The latest Xmas trees focus on electronic function, which enables Xmas trees speaking, singing and glittering in concert with colorful light and revolving coincidently. Candles are not only for birthdays, but also for Christmas. The commonly used candles are the long & plain ones for dinner tables, while the floating and cup ones also prevail for quite a long time. Growingly welcome are exotic candles, decorated with flower-shell, featuring magical effect of colorful and transparent presentation as lighted up. Magical candles, above all, is a favorites as the cubic colorful painting of candles presents as floating cloud through candlelight.
Halloween is a festival for children, a festival more charming than Christmas. The growing popularity of Halloween brings forth an increasing amount of holiday-specific products. Pumpkin lamps are most typical ones.
Festival Moods Everywhere!
Posted by wenbi in : Festival Goods , add a commentttnet.net - [2006/01/24]
Adornments, collectibles, gifts for festivals have been traditional for hundreds of years. Festivals and holidays are best timing for promotion of gifts and decorations. The timing also helps impress consumers with their brands and features, making them feel joyful in these life’s special moments.
Christmas
With the stream of globalization, Christmas has become an international festival all over the world. In this occasion, all the sundry are giving themselves over to decorate the Christmas with Xmas trees, ornaments and gifts. Xmas Trees are most typical item as reminding of Christmas. By the survey, PVC trees are the bestseller items. Polyethylene that prevailed for quite long time now isn’t popular as ever owing to higher cost and ecological problem. However, in concerning about environmental protection, paper and rattan now serve as alternatives for consumers.
The latest design focuses on electronic function, which enables Xmas trees speaking, singing and glittering in concert with colorful light and revolving coincidently. Candles are not only for birthdays, but also for Christmas. The commonly used candles are the long & plain ones for dinner tables, while the floating and cup ones also prevail for quite a long time. Growingly welcome are exotic candles, decorated with flower-shell, featuring magical effect of colorful and transparent presentation as lighted up. Magical candles, above all, is a favorites as the cubic colorful painting of candles presents as floating cloud through candlelight.
Yet, Christmas decors and collectibles industry is no longer a seasonal business. In US, there are more than 16000 year-round specialty stores that display Christmas-related goods all year as many Christmas items fit for any festival. This principle also fits any market in the world. Furthermore, consumers tend to buy more decors than collectibles for festivals. A survey reveals that 20% among the active Collectibles consumers describe themselves as Christmas collectors, and that’s why collectibles market is moderating among collectors. In collectible world, Christmas collecting only ranks No.5 after coins, figurines & sculptures, trading cards and memorabilia & dolls.
Conventionally, the day after Thanksgiving market marked the commencement of the Christmas-decorating season. However, people today are decorating their homes for holidays, like Halloween, Easter, and Valentine’s Day. As a result, consumers are craving decorations for Christmas, but can be used year-round or for another seasons, thus makers and retailers response to this with Angles, Snowmen, Nativities, even Santa Cause dressed in non-seasonal garb to maximize the decorative value of the items they buy. The fashion trend reveals that festival goods for Christmas should emphasize on five sense to capture the mood of Christmas. They should be of harmonious sounds, decadent tastes, flamboyant decorations, savory scents and soft textures of the holiday, on account that all of these help boost sales.
Halloween
People believe that Halloween is derived from the ancient Celtic festival called Samhain. Celebrated November 1, Samhain was the New Year’s Day of the Celts. It was also a day of the dead, when it was believed that the souls of those who had died during the year were allowed access to the land of the dead. Many traditional beliefs became irrevocably linked to Samhain, such as the notion that night was the time of the wondering dead, the practice of leaving offerings of food and drink to masked and custom revelers and the lighting of bonfires. The festival related to season, as well.
Halloween is a festival for children, a festival more charming than Christmas. The growing popularity of Halloween brings forth an increasing amount of holiday-specific products. Rubber stampedes, together with Halloween-themed wood-handled stamps for example, have been arresting children’s hearts. The trick to selling these and other Halloween goods are clearly supporting them with gifts and decorative accessories. “Treat or Trick” tradition is further applied in many merchandises. For example, the fart bombs or bomb bags make some surprise for the purpose of tricking.
Valentine’s Day
Valentine a name honored with feasts on February 14th. Two stories mainly link incidents to St. Valentine’s Day. All of the seven Valentines eventually evolved into one. In 496 Pope Gelasius declared the day in honor of St. Valentine. Through the centuries the Christian holiday became a time to exchange love messages and St. Valentine became the patron saint of lovers. Lovers’ quarrels come under his jurisdiction and, naturally, he is the patron saint of engaged couples and of anyone wishing to marry. At this time of the year, people all over the world are thinking about who they would like to be their Valentine. Sugar-candied hearts reading “Be Mine” and “Hug Me” can be found around every corner. It is time for Valentine’s Day, a holiday that the amount of love you feel is reflected by the thickness of your wallet. Of course, it is great time for doing business. By the recent survey, many retailers claims that a large, percentage of shoppers hit stores at the last minutes and are willing to pay price in order not to miss the holiday. The survey issuing that average number of love-related gifts annually purchased by respondents is 2.5, because most people have someone to love and in certain instance, several to love, which only means more greenbacks burned in gift market.
Just “In” Do-it-yourself Tool Markets
Posted by wenbi in : Tools , add a commentttnet.net - [2007/02/01]
The popularity of DIY goes worldwide as we see more and more end-users love to do their own home improvement and renovations. Consumers regard it as an enjoyable pastime and encourage DIYers to brainstorm their own ideas out for themselves as industry people offer the user-friendly, self-explanatory and labor-saving products that make home-improvement easier, even enable a sense of achievement, purely done by own hands to save home repairing expense. Now, increasing female shoppers have joined the queues. By the a survey, while purchasing holiday gifts, 48% of U.S. women choose home improvement items, such as new flooring, appliances, window coverings and even tools, compared to 39% prefer apparel or other personal items, such as jewelry.In generally, the DIY market differentiates from the professional one, particularly as the former consumers tend to be sensible to price in purchasing decision. By this, DIYers are always searching for the tools, affordable yet practical to suit their needs. DIY tools, hand tools and power tools alike, are ergonomically designed with cushioned grip with asymmetric handle design and new, lightweight and durable materials, which enables end users to work more efficiently and safely for greater productivity, higher quality work, less fatigue, less wear-and-tear on joints and muscles and lessened danger of twisting or straining their wrist, arm or elbow. For strengthened safety, the tools with high-voltage insulation on the handles are required particularly to the electricians who need extra protection as working near live circuits. Multi-task tools provide stripping, cutting and crimping all with the same tool, incorporating an adjustable wrench with jaws that open like pliers; and pliers that can clamp work in place to serve as a third hand. Open-end wrenches come in integrated ring ratchet wrenches to be used in difficult to access places while traditional ratchets seem too large and somewhat cumbersome in use.Cordless power tools are lightweight, compact and easier to handle thanks to the use of small lithium ion rechargeable batteries, primarily used in mobile phones and digital cameras. Higher power output is significant. For instance, heavy hammer drills and chisel hammers with multistage overload clutches are designed with long-lasting power, friendly to user operation on hand. Now, laser technology for projecting precise cutting lines onto workpieces that often seen on professional-grade stationary panel saws and miter-cutting saws has turn to an indispensable feature of hand-operated saws for DIY lovers.
Market Snapshots
In TAIWAN, 90% of DIY hand tools are exported to overseas markets. According to the official statistics, the shipment of the general hand tools reaches to US$ 1.62 billion. The U.S. is the largest buyer, accounting for 36% of the total output. Taiwan¡¦s industrial players make effort on the R&D of new items and methods for RoHS Enforcement Guidance Document, hoping to conform to the ecological standards and regulations in Europe and other regions.
In CHINA, with the improving living standards, consumers have more pastimes to do house decoration and remolding. Currently, the Industry has fundamentally full-built as a complete production system from upstream to downstream. 78 % of the tool factories locate in Zhejiang, Sichuan, Jiangsu, Shandong, Shanghai, Guangdong, and Tianjin. China’s cost advantage makes itself the world factory in tool sector, attracting myriad of world tool companies to set up manufacturing bases, especially from Taiwan. By statistics, Taiwan has more than 5,000 tool manufacturers and now one tenth of them have set up the factories in China.
In the U.S., the power tool market is expected to hit $10.5 billion in 2006, rising 23% since 2001 as the number of DIYers continues to grow. Although we saw a slowdown in housing sales, the rising demand for renovations contract the negative factor and DIY products celebrate the added sales correspondingly. Most of American regard garden as an oasis of peace and quiet and relaxation or a very personal place of withdrawal or refuge, more topical than ever before. The garden tools attract the eyes of house-owners who love getting close to soil and flowers. In America, the key consumers are mostly aged 45 to 65. The beginners contribute to the biggest market gains over the coming years.
Unlike US with rising female DIYers, DIY in the UK are basically a masculine activity. The participants include many more couples, single home occupiers and multi-generational households, either younger and older consumers. The DIY provides an economical way to do necessary repairs or of improving the value of the home. UK DIY & home improvement market is highly influenced by the overall health of domestic economy while the market is classified as discretionary spending with a small percentage of essential repair sales.
In FRANCE, in spite of the lack of physical strength and size and finding the work too tiring, 8 out of 10 women undertake DIY projects in the home. Women of less than 40 years’ of age are the most likely to undertake DIY, and not out of necessity, but for pleasure. For 82% of women, DIY is synonymous with the pleasure of dialogue within a relationship and not simply motivated by finances or a lack of workmen.
