A few days ago, the Department of Industry and Information Technology of Guangdong Province held a press conference in the second quarter of 2021 to reveal that the strategic industrial cluster developed rapidly in the first half of the year, and the growth rate of added value was higher than the economic growth rate of the province. Among them, the output of new energy vehicles increased significantly by 230.8%. The digital transformation of manufacturing enterprises is accelerating.
At the same time, looking back at a set of data seen in 2020, people can't help but sigh: times have really changed. Looking back at 2020, the number of authorized brand dealers in the country declined for the first time, and the annual network size shrank by 5.8%, leaving 28,000. Nearly 4,000 stores were withdrawn from the network due to poor management of OEMs or non-OEMs in the whole year, while only more than 2,000 new stores were added. That is to say, in the whole year of 2020, about 11 4S stores will be closed and withdrawn every day.
It is true that the large-scale closure of 4S stores in 2020 has the factor of the epidemic. However, compared with the new forces with weak momentum, the traditional brand dealers with a large trend have taken the lead in being overwhelmed, does this mean that the direct operation model is better?
Brands are delisted, dealers are withdrawn
The reason why dealers have withdrawn from the gateway is nothing more than two reasons - low profits or the failure of the brand side. If the time passes before 2019, the reason for the collapse of the brand side is almost negligible. At that time, even if the automobile market went down, everyone still had meat to eat, and there was also a mouthful of soup to drink. However, under the impact of the epidemic and the intensification of the Matthew effect, in just 2 years, a large number of brands have been delisted.
Zotye, Cheetah, Lifan and many other well-known brands have gradually withdrawn from the market, and the dealers connected with them naturally have no choice but to delist. But in addition to this layer of reasons, even if these brands still exist in the market, it is difficult to escape the situation of a large number of dealers, the reason is the word "profit".
First of all, at the 2019 Shanghai Auto Show, more than 30 Qoros dealers "denounced" the payments payable to the brand Qoros collective due to the delay in performing rebates and other reasons; then more than 100 BAIC Phantom Speed dealers advocated capital demands at the door of BAIC Group; on May 5, more than 30 dealers from all over the country gathered at the gate of Lifan headquarters to demand that the main engine factory compensate for its continuous operating losses.
In 2020, after the official breakup of Changan Automobile and Peugeot Citroen (PSA), the news of the DS brand's withdrawal from the Chinese market was very loud, and now the DS brand of the original more than 200 dealers is only supported by 17 4S stores (and 44 service dealers). "No cars to sell, store losses" has become the fundamental reason for most dealers to withdraw from the network.
There are many reasons for the low profit of dealers, which may be low brand power, resulting in low sales; or some products are crossed, so that the revenue of models is uneven, and small heads cannot pull large heads; and it may also be caused by unequal status between manufacturers and dealers. For example, according to a Borgward dealer in Hubei Province, after the introduction of the "Shenzhou Buy and Buy Car" terminal sales system, the channel price was as low as 5.5% off, which was seriously lower than the 9.7% discount of the car price of ordinary dealers. This is why it is said that "selling cars does not make money, repairing cars is the biggest profit".
Dealer inner roll, direct mode frontal impact
If most of the car companies mentioned above are low profits because of sales problems, then what is the reason why many large brand dealers are also facing low sales? We all know that the supply and demand relationship in the market always affects the benefits obtained by participants. When the competition in the market is too fierce, it is easy to oversupply, so too many dealers make the dealer industry experience fierce internal rolling.
In general, the service radius of traditional dealers is about 15 kilometers. Taking the distribution of the above-mentioned auto-Volkswagen outlets in Shanghai as an example, there are 45 stores in the Shanghai area alone (including some ID.Store city exhibition halls). A shanghai dealer of SAIC Volkswagen reported that "the outlets are very dense, and the pressure of internal competition is too great." ”
Your family picks up the car quickly, his family offers big deals; this one sends decorations; that one adds configuration. Under the constant horizontal comparison of consumers, consumers' focus will soon shift from the product itself to the service of the distributor. In this way, the competition between dealers can easily gradually shift from benign competition to another extreme of vicious competition, which is especially serious for brands with lower sales, but large brands will also be affected. Therefore, improving service quality has gradually become the top priority of major brands and distributors.
In addition, the emergence of the direct operation model has undoubtedly launched a strong impact on the traditional dealer sales model. "Many users are tired of the opacity of prices and the asymmetry of information, and the advantages of the direct operation model in terms of services are difficult for traditional 4S stores to catch up in the short term." Bai Xu, an analyst who has long been concerned about the field of automobile circulation, believes that many consumers have quickly turned to the direct operation model, which is precisely the drawbacks of 4S stores.
It can only be said that fortunately, most of the main models of the new forces are more expensive today, so most of the impact is only high-end brands or high-end models. However, when the new energy era has completely arrived, how the traditional car-making forces can erase the gap in the sales model may become a big problem that needs to be solved urgently.
Write at the end
The word nirvana means rebirth in fire, that is, vitality is hidden in death. Nowadays, a large number of dealers are not a good thing to withdraw from the network, because this will be able to screen out more excellent brands, and it is also beneficial to the brand side and greater pressure to explore the advantages and disadvantages of the sales model, and has never created a better car buying experience for consumers. Therefore, for most dealers, the transformation may be painful, and it may even be a failure, but the current rout, why can't it be the beginning of nirvana?