Second-hand car electricity supplier entered the "barbaric growth" period

While the traditional used car market is improving its own strength, it must also explore new ways of survival through integration with e-commerce.

Recently, Volvo Cars officially launched its second-hand car service brand "Zunwo Certified Second-hand Car", becoming another car manufacturer to develop branded used cars. It is worth mentioning that Volvo Cars has combined several Internet platforms and combined with Volvo dealers. Try to integrate and open up resources and links online and offline.

Despite innovations in the business model, Volvo's branded used cars are still late in the market. As early as 2002, Shanghai General Motors took the lead in launching the second-hand car brand "Chengxin Used Car". From then on, major manufacturers started the used car business one after another. In Beijing, operations such as the Asian Games Village, Huaxiang and other traditional second-hand car trading markets are represented. The model has matured; in recent years, second-hand car electricity suppliers have also entered a period of “barbarous growth”, and many e-commerce trading platforms have emerged one after another.

Shen Rong, deputy secretary-general of the China Automobile Dealers Association, said that the growth of the used car market outperformed the new car market in 2014, and the used car market will usher in a new high-speed growth phase in the next two to three years. Today, car companies, e-commerce, and specialized second-hand car trading markets all want to participate in the sub-cake team.

data flow

From 2000 to 2013, the trading volume of the used car market increased from 251,700 units to 5.2033 million units, an increase of nearly 20 times, and the transaction amount has reached a scale of 2.916649 billion yuan.

For the whole year of 2014, the cumulative number of used vehicles sold was 6,052,900, an increase of 16.33% year-on-year; the transaction volume was 367.565 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 26.03%. In contrast, the growth rate of new car sales in China in 2014 was only 6.9%. Compared to the 13.8% growth rate in 2013, the new car market slowed down significantly.

E-commerce influx into traditional forces

The e-commerce platform relies on venture capital to have a large amount of funds, propaganda, and resources that it can occupy.

The sales of new vehicles slowed down year by year, especially in cities with limited purchases such as Beijing and Shanghai. New car sales are increasingly dependent on replacement business. According to industry sources, the trade-in ratio for trade in used cars can already reach more than half. The future used car market will become an important support for the new car market.

The warming of the used car market and the continuous influx of various entities have made this market more active, but it also makes the used car market enter a fierce competitive era. In the current battle for the used car market, the use of certified car brands, used car dealerships, and second-hand car network trading platforms have become the three major confrontational forces. In particular, the participation of e-commerce has produced certain “traditional forces”. Impact.

“The used car market has entered an active period and everyone is optimistic about this prospect, but the involvement of e-commerce is a huge test for traditional used car dealers.” Luo Lei, deputy secretary-general of the China Automobile Dealers Association, said how to use this The shift of ideas in the process is crucial for dealers of traditional used cars.

Dongfeng Citroen a brand used car dealer told reporters that the participation of all parties to the consumer to provide more channels for the sale of used cars, used car dealers also brought a certain impact. “With the entry of venture capital, the e-commerce platform has a large amount of funds, and the propaganda is stronger than traditional second-hand car dealers; in the closing session, e-commerce companies seize a lot of resources; and in the sales cycle, with the increase in channels, in the quality Under the premise of the consumer, consumers will choose the platform with the best price through price comparison.” At the same time, the dealer admitted that although the sales volume of used cars is increasing every year, the gross profit of bicycles is decreasing every year. This is also the brand used car. The dealer is very worried about the problem.

Although traditional second-hand car dealers have their own concerns under competitive pressures, it is not easy for traditional car dealership platforms to compete with traditional dealers for the market. Some industry insiders have stated that the current second-hand car e-commerce business is still in its infancy. The e-commerce platform also depends on traditional auto dealers, 4S stores, etc. to acquire car sources, and through the traditional used car market to obtain the latest dynamic information. In addition, the influx of a large number of second-hand car e-commerce platforms will also result in some of them being eliminated in the market competition.

Tradition and electricity providers have to leverage each other

Traditional distributors use the Internet platform to promote themselves, and e-commerce companies are also making use of traditional resource advantages to expand their platforms.

From a superficial point of view, the emergence of second-hand car e-commerce has brought impact to traditional car dealers to a certain extent, but for traditional car dealers, years of accumulation and development still give them strong advantages.

Shen Rong said that the development of the used car industry is inseparable from the support and leadership of the technological revolution. In the future, second-hand car e-commerce will play a greater role, but the entity management is still not irreplaceable. The prevalence of the O2O model has forced traditional second-hand car practitioners to pay more attention to the offline in order to deal with the impact of e-commerce, thus enabling the offline capabilities and energy to be strengthened and played. In addition, the experience process in used car transactions is still very important, which is not replaced by online transactions.

Dongfeng Citroen brand used car dealers believe that although some e-commerce platform also launched its own certification system, but e-commerce used car platform as a new thing, will experience a process of survival of the fittest, so for consumers, the brand used The certification of the car appears to be more secure and authoritative; in addition, consumers trust the brand behind the branded used car.

However, the simple confrontation and adherence to its own site are not conducive to development. The Internet characteristics of the e-commerce platform are the general trend.

“Traditional used car dealers have already seen the advantages of the e-commerce platform and have begun to use this platform to develop their own used car business.” Audi's certain brand used car dealer said that the combination with the Internet is a trend, everyone To keep up with the progress, the basic information sources and customer resources of used vehicles are spread through the Internet. Therefore, their stores not only opened their own used car WeChat public numbers, but also cooperated with well-known second-hand car platforms to take advantage of the Internet. , Develop your own branded used car business.

In fact, this method has now been accepted by many traditional second-hand car dealers, and the integration with the e-commerce platform is a mutually beneficial thing. On the one hand, traditional distributors can use e-commerce's powerful Internet platform to promote themselves and increase the circulation channels of used cars. On the other hand, e-commerce companies are also making use of the resource advantages of traditional second-hand car dealers to expand their platforms and make influence.

“Traditional used car dealers believe that the involvement of e-commerce brings competition, but their combination with e-commerce is a good thing.” Luo Lei said that e-commerce involvement increases customer information delivery opportunities.

Both parties need to improve their own strength

It is crucial for second-hand car e-commerce companies to maintain the consistency of service quality in rapid expansion.

It is a good thing to use their respective strengths to develop cooperation. However, there are also dealers who worry that the cooperation with e-commerce will shut down end-users and lead them out of sight with consumers. They will not be able to know what consumers are thinking and eventually lose customers. Therefore, the cooperation between the two parties must be premised: on the resources, traditional dealers provide the resources of the car, and the e-commerce platform must also provide customer information.

“Combining with e-commerce is a trend, but for traditional second-hand car dealers, it is still necessary to constantly enhance their own strength.” A brand used car dealer of Dongfeng Citroen said that traditional second-hand car dealers should increase advertising investment and strengthen Publicity, on the other hand, should dig deeper into used car profits. Cycling gross profit decline is already an unavoidable trend. To reverse this situation, it is necessary to make efforts to save some of the cycling profits, such as fine decoration, insurance, beauty, and finance. However, there is still no uniform standard in the domestic used car market, and everyone is also exploring.

For e-commerce used car platforms, they have also launched various subsidies for rapid growth. For example, Car Yip has adopted a series of measures to subsidize logistics costs and provide financial credit to small and medium-sized car dealers to cope with market changes and stabilize the market. status.

"The sale of used cars must first solve the problem of trust." Car Yip CEO Yang Xuejian said that for the used car e-commerce platform, how to maintain the consistency of service quality in the rapid expansion is crucial. In her view, the development of the e-commerce used car platform is not to grab the market with traditional used car dealers, especially branded used car dealers. The difference between the two lies in the fact that one must focus on the platform and provide more information. One needs to do a good job of branding, because offline transactions are still done through dealers. Only by doing their own thing and trusting each other can we cooperate better.