In 2026, major manufacturers will gather together to reconstruct the home decoration track, and the trillion-dollar stock market will usher in new changes.
JD.com recently launched the “JD.com Self-operated Decoration” App, and Alibaba, Ant, and Kuaishou have followed suit. This is not just a taste of hot topics on the Internet platform, but a signal that the underlying logic of the industry has been completely rewritten.
It is not new for Internet platforms to test the waters of home decoration. As early as ten years ago, some major manufacturers made attempts to sell building materials online and divert information, but most of them stayed in the light model of “getting commissions from offline decoration companies”, and in the end they did not create much waves.
But this time, starting from the second half of 2025, all leading platforms have switched to track logic. They are no longer satisfied with making information price differences, but directly cut into the entire transaction link, making two-way bets on light and heavy assets.
JD.com has taken the heaviest route: not only has it launched an independent self-operated app, it has also directly acquired Sichuan Life Home to acquire a 126-city offline store network, built tens of thousands of square meters of warehouses for unified centralized procurement, and directly managed more than 5,000 industrial workers, directly breaking the stubborn problem of “layers of subcontracting by contractors” in the traditional decoration industry.
This year, home improvement stores have been fully connected to JD.com MALL, and customized plans have been launched to renovate old houses. Even segmented needs such as decoration for the elderly have been planned in advance.
Alibaba Ant focuses on infrastructure positioning: Tmall launches the AI Designer underlying platform, integrating AI design, supply chain, construction site control and Alipay fund custody, opening up digital tools to small and medium-sized decoration companies, and at the same time doing community group buying to help retail investors reduce premiums; Alipay Home Decoration Bao directly solves the industry’s most painful financial trust problem, “node acceptance, segmented lending”, if the owner does not confirm the qualification, the decoration company will not get the money, directly blocking the possibility of the money running away from the transaction link.
Content platforms have also found their own position: Byte has merged Xiaobang into Douyin Life Services, giving up heavy asset self-operation and focusing on content acquisition in the same city; Kuaishou Zhudengjia directly went to the third and fourth tiers, recruiting agents across the country to do live broadcast group buying, opening up a complete closed loop from content planting to offline transactions.
No platform is still engaged in the business of “only earning traffic without touching delivery”. Everyone has plunged into this service-oriented entity track.
Many people say that the major manufacturers entered the market because growth in other tracks has peaked, and they came to home decoration to find growth.
But behind this wave of collective overweighting, there are three hidden driving forces that have been ignored by most comments.
First, the replacement of demand in the stock market has been completed. Real estate has entered the stock era. Renovation and partial renovation of old houses have replaced new ones as the mainstream of the market. Users’ requirements for standardization and transparency are much higher than before, which traditional small and medium-sized decoration companies are difficult to meet.
Second, the value of the “traffic entrance” of home decoration itself has been rediscovered by major manufacturers. Capturing home decoration traffic is equivalent to locking in a family’s full-cycle consumption for the next ten years in advance.
The third is the long-term pain points accumulated in the industry, such as lack of standardization, opaque prices, insecure funds, and difficulty in construction control. These are shortcomings that major Internet companies can make up for.
There is now a voice in the market that believes that the entry of large manufacturers will eat up all small and medium-sized clothing companies, eventually forming a situation where one company is the only one.
But in fact, the non-standardized nature of the home decoration industry determines that it is impossible to achieve complete standardization and scale like 3C home appliances, let alone form a one-size-fits-all pattern.
This round of layout by major manufacturers has not squeezed the living space of the B-end, but has opened up capabilities to small and medium-sized clothing companies.
In the future, the industry will form a stable triangular pattern of coexistence of large Internet manufacturers, national chain decoration companies, and regional local decoration companies.
For ordinary owners, the entry of big manufacturers is a good thing, at least it meets the most basic need of “not being cheated”.
For the industry, the entry of large manufacturers with funds, technology, and brands is equivalent to helping the entire industry complete a trust reconstruction and improving the overall service level of the industry.
This industry restructuring has just begun, and the first to reap the dividends are every ordinary user who wants to decorate.
