In 2026, the building materials and home furnishing industry is undergoing a profound change.
Store sales from January to March were 307.96 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 8.79%, trade-in sales drove consumption to over 2.6 trillion yuan, and furniture exports increased by 25%. These data show that the industry has not shrunk, but the way to make money has completely changed.
Business owners in the industry generally feel that policies are taking effect and demand is still there, but business is becoming increasingly difficult to do.
Insufficient quality of gold, silver and silver, declining store traffic, intensified price wars, and pressure on inventory and cash flow have become common difficulties in the industry.
However, the data presents a more complex reality.
The store side is under pressure. From January to March 2026, the cumulative sales of building materials and home furnishing stores above designated size across the country were 307.96 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 8.79%; in March, the single-month decrease was 13.69% year-on-year. “The peak season is not strong, and the off-season is even weaker” has become the norm.
In contrast, growth is seen on the retail side. From January to February 2026, national furniture retail sales increased by 8.8% year-on-year, significantly higher than the average growth rate of total retail sales of consumer goods; furniture exports increased by 25% year-on-year.
These two sets of data show that the demand for new home decoration is shrinking, the demand for existing renovation is rising, and the industry demand has just changed direction.
The impact of the 2026 policy on the industry is “reshaping”.
Four policy threads play a key role.
The first is 250 billion yuan in trade-in. The state has arranged 250 billion yuan in special government bonds to support the trade-in of consumer goods, focusing on smart homes, green building materials, kitchen and bathroom bureau renovations, and aging-friendly renovations. It has driven related consumption to more than 2.6 trillion yuan, including more than 120 million pieces of home decoration, kitchen and bathroom renovations. High-frequency, fragmented, and service-oriented stock renovation needs have become an important source of growth for enterprises.
The second is to strictly control new production capacity. Six departments including the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology strictly prohibit new production capacity of traditional building materials such as cement and glass, and accelerate the elimination of backward production capacity. The operating income target of the green building materials industry exceeds 300 billion yuan in 2026, and the industry is transforming to high-quality development.
Third, the new national standard was implemented in June. On June 1, 2026, the new national standard for the formaldehyde release limit of artificial panels (GB 18580-2025) was officially implemented. The ENF level standard was included in the mandatory specification, and environmental protection became a hard threshold for project procurement.
The fourth is to replace “building a house” with “good houses”. The 2026 Government Work Report clearly promotes the construction of “good houses”, focusing on the development of green, smart, safe, integrated integrated solutions, and the transformation of single product sales to scenario-based and integrated services.
The challenge faced by most companies is the deep mismatch between the original business model and the new environment.
There are channel shortcomings, multi-level distribution leads to a complex price system, obvious regional conflicts and internal friction; inventory shortcomings, insufficient production and sales coordination, lag in terminal feedback, low inventory turnover rate, and high capital occupation; service shortcomings, insufficient coordination in design, production, delivery, and after-sales, affecting user experience and repurchase; decision-making shortcomings, lack of systematic data analysis capabilities, and business decisions relying on experience rather than data.
The core of these problems is the insufficient synergy efficiency of information flow, business flow and resource flow, which amplifies operating pressure in the context of slowing growth and dispersed demand.
Despite the pressure on the industry, demand has not disappeared, and there are six growth directions worthy of attention.
Green and low-carbon, the “double carbon” goal is advancing, and green building materials have moved from policy advocacy to market popularization; smart homes have evolved from single-product intelligence to whole-house intelligence, and AI has increased the added value of products; aging-friendly renovations, as the population has deepened, and related demand has grown; demand for existing renovations and old house renovations has continued to be released; full-scale integration, from selling products to selling solutions, integrated delivery capabilities have become the key to competition; high-end customization, building differentiated advantages through design and branding.
The common characteristics of these directions are the shift from incremental drive to inventory drive, from single product sales to solutions, and from scale expansion to efficiency improvement.
The logic of competition has also changed, from scale competition in the past to efficiency competition.
Leading companies have improved their operating quality through digital transformation, and digital platforms and industrial collaboration systems have become key supports for cost reduction and efficiency improvement.
PaiLian Technology provides an integrated solution of “Platform + Operation”. Targeting the three major pain points of enterprise procurement black box, delivery disjointedness, and fragile supply, it builds a supply chain collaboration middle platform, a full-link fulfillment visualization system, and a digital supplier resource pool to build a digital base for the inventory era.
In 2026, the building materials and home furnishing industry will enter a new cycle in which efficiency determines victory or defeat.
Future competition will be a comprehensive competition between supply chain collaboration capabilities, customer service capabilities and digital operation capabilities. Enterprises need to follow the trend to achieve stable and long-term development.
