Your next iPhone, why your iPhone
Photo/pixabay
Text | Caijing reporter Li Ying
Edit | Yu Le
Liu Mengze accidentally dropped the mobile phone on the ground, frightening her a spirit, hurriedly picked it up and carefully checked around, seeing that there was no trace, which was relieved.
Since changing this iPhone 12, Liu Mengze has begun to care about the mobile phone unusually, not for anything else, just because this mobile phone is rented and will be returned in the future.
In a group of users of a rental platform that Liu Mengze joined, mobile phone rental connected nearly 500 people, who discussed lively here, competing to teach how to quickly rent a new mobile phone, or share the joy of the mobile phone.
But in addition to this small group of "rent-a-machine parties", most people are full of question marks for renting mobile phones: Why rent such a private device as a mobile phone? Even if you can't afford to buy expensive ones, can't you afford to buy cheap ones? Even if you can't afford the full amount for a while, isn't it fragrant to buy a mobile phone in installments...
However, in just a few years, the ununderstood mobile phone rental economy has grown a large market volume, and some people regard this as a blue ocean and bring funds to add bricks and tiles to it.
What is the sale and purchase of renting a mobile phone, and is it a "really fragrant" choice for consumers?
Can't afford it, why rent it?
In October, Zhang Mo successfully replaced the previously rented iPhone 12 with 13 through the "trade-in" activity of a mobile phone rental platform. Counting down, Zhang Mo finally used the new 128G iPhone 12 for 9 months with 4199 yuan, and now continues to enjoy the use of the iPhone 13 at a monthly rent of 424 yuan. After calculating this account, Zhang Mo felt that renting a mobile phone was cost-effective for him.
When a friend told Zhang Mo that she could rent a mobile phone, her first reaction was to refuse. "I've been working for so many years, and I don't have the money to buy a mobile phone, so why should I rent it?"
However, she was soon persuaded by her friends. The logic is this: although (Apple) official website has an old-for-new activity, the old mobile phone can be discounted part of the cost, but this money is not much, so if you want to use the latest model every year, the cost of a year is also five or six thousand yuan. According to the rental price on a platform at that time, Zhang Mo may only need to spend four or five thousand yuan a year to use a new mobile phone every year, and no longer have to bother with the old mobile phone.
For people like Zhang Mo who change new machines every year, renting a mobile phone not only meets the needs of the use of new mobile phones, but also allows everyone to find another way when they are competing for new machines, and enjoy the happiness of having a new mobile phone at a lower price.
For those who do not pursue a yearly change, renting a mobile phone is not so cost-effective, but they also have their own reasons for renting a mobile phone.
Sun Tong knows that according to his own replacement frequency, it is much more expensive to rent a mobile phone than to buy it directly. However, she told us that the pressure to pay rent in installments is relatively small, and renting a mobile phone is also an acceptable choice in the case that it is impossible to use other platforms to buy in installments.
The same is true of Liu Mengze, who wants to have a new mobile phone, but the credit limit does not allow installment purchases. "At that time, I was fascinated and wanted to use An Apple mobile phone, and many of my classmates around me used the iPhone 13, and I still had an Android machine that was stuck." After repeated weighing, she finally decided to rent a 9.90% new iPhone 12, with a daily rental price of about 10 yuan and a lease period of 365 days.
Sesame credit points are deposit-free, daily rent, and do not occupy the huabei quota, these preferential policies give Liu Mengze a great deal of rental convenience. They often want to change mobile phones but are shy, and the way of leasing can spread the large expenditure of one-time purchases to a longer time period, and a cup of milk tea money a day can allow them to use the new mobile phone they want.
There are also some people who choose to rent mobile phones because of other needs other than daily use, such as work backup machines, game machines, evaluation and testing machines, star chasing machines, etc. Mr. Li rented a second-hand iPhone 11 on a rental mini program, the daily rent was only seven or eight yuan, the lease period was 180 days, and he was entitled to work and life backup machine. A few dollars a day rent is no stress for him, and the rented mobile phone also meets some of his daily pastimes. For Ahao, who is obsessed with 3C products and has always wanted to be a digital review blogger, renting a mobile phone does not have to spend a lot at one time, and can get a variety of mobile phones for evaluation in a certain period of time, which is just right for him.
There are also a small number of people who rent mobile phones not for use, but want to use them to set a cash, such as Fifi. She owes an online loan because of irrational consumption and urgently needs to raise funds to pay off the debt. After following the advice of a Weibo netizen, she felt that renting a mobile phone to cash out was a good choice. So Fifi first rented an iPhone 11 Pro Max in her own name, and after the phone arrived, she transferred it to the above netizens, who promised to give her a sum of money and return the phone after expiration. Although the money received is not much different from the annual rent, it solves Fifi's urgent need and makes her not have credit problems because she does not have money on the online loan platform. But soon the man lost contact, the mobile phone naturally could not come back, Fifi was deceived, had to bear the cost of renting the mobile phone alone.
Later, Fei Fei saw that a gang was sentenced for renting a mobile phone and reselling it for profit, and now she wants to come to the netizen to do this kind of illegal work. In the Douban "Debtors Alliance" group, there is more than one person who has a similar encounter with Fifi, they all rent mobile phones and hand over their mobile phones to others, and in the end, the mobile phones are not in their own hands, and the lease contract has to be memorized.
IQ tax or can it be paid?
For people who are now renting mobile phones or have the intention of renting a mobile phone, renting a mobile phone is often their choice after consideration, some people feel that there is money to save, some people feel that it is profitable, some people are in a hurry but unable to buy, everyone takes what they need, and the mobile phone rental market can therefore operate and continue. But when someone goes to rent a mobile phone, there is also a group of people who are trying to prevent others from falling into the "trap" of renting a mobile phone, and in their description, renting a mobile phone is a "pit".
Therefore, whether renting a mobile phone is a cross-cutting transaction or an IQ tax is worth discussing. Although many platforms are accustomed to using a few, a dozen yuan of daily rent or a monthly rent of hundreds of yuan to create a cheap illusion, but long-term accumulation, rent is also a considerable expense. Here we can do the simplest calculation:
Taking the new 256G iPhone 13 as an example, Apple's official flagship store is priced at 6799 yuan, and the annual rent ranges from 3500+ to 5700+ on several mainstream rental platforms. That is to say, some platforms can enjoy a new mobile phone at half price for a year, while some need to spend more than 80% of the original price.
Under the "rent-out and-give-away" package, the total rent of these platforms is more than 8400 yuan, which is more than 120% of the original price. In this model, the user pays the rent on a monthly basis, and the mobile phone is owned by the individual when the lease period expires, which is actually another form of installment purchase. Although it is more expensive than the original price of the mobile phone, it is good that it can provide another channel for those who cannot use huabei or white strips to buy mobile phones.
There is also a case where the lease is followed by a buyout, and if you choose this model, you need to pay a lump sum at the end of the lease period. Most of the buyout fees for the 256G iPhone 13 are between 3200 yuan and 4500 yuan, and some even exceed half the value of the phone. At this time, the one-year rent plus the buyout fee can reach 10,058 yuan, which is much higher than the original price of the mobile phone.
On the left is the mobile phone rental price in the "rent out and give away" mode, and on the right is the mobile phone rental price in the "rent out return/renewal/buyout" mode
In this way, by renting a mobile phone, "renting on behalf of the buyer" to get the mobile phone, the premium will be higher than the official selling price of 24%-48%, which is much higher than the interest of using white bars, flowers, and even credit card installments. If you only rent and do not buy, the rent will range from 3500 yuan to 5000 yuan a year. But in general, four or five thousand pieces can often buy a good brand flagship machine.
Combined with the previous calculations of Zhang Mo and Sun Tong, it is not difficult to see that renting a mobile phone is actually more suitable for people who frequently change mobile phones. As long as they find the right platform, they can often spend a little lower than buying a mobile phone to enjoy a new mobile phone. Conversely, "rent first and buy out later" is not a wise choice.
An important trade-off between cost-effective and non-cost-effective is the lease cycle. On the rental platform, the rental cycle of new mobile phones is generally set for a long time, and only second-hand mobile phones can be rented for 30 days or 90 days. At present, on mainstream rental platforms such as Renren Rent and Love Rent, the lease term of a new Apple mobile phone is basically one year. The above-mentioned operator Xiao Zhao told us that the value of new equipment is generally relatively high, if the customer returns after short-term rental, the new machine becomes second-hand, the value will drop significantly, so the merchant will generally set the lease period for a longer period.
When consumers only have a short-term demand for mobile phones, it is far more appropriate to spend a few hundred yuan on a short-term lease for a month than to buy a new mobile phone; but if faced with long-term demand, they must compare the cost difference between long-term rental rent and one-time purchase.
To sum up, renting a mobile phone is not an IQ tax, or it depends on the needs and the actual situation of the individual. Like Sun Tong, who knows that rent is more expensive than buying directly, but can't buy in installments, renting a mobile phone is the most suitable solution for them after weighing all factors.
Zhang Mo wrote in the notes of the Little Red Book: In this era of rapid technological development, electronic products are updated too quickly, and for some digital trendsetters who have requirements for configuration, renting a machine is a good choice. Some digital bloggers also believe that renting can create a benign run-in period between people and products, with a rational way to let people fully experience the product, when the speed of electronic product innovation and replacement is getting faster and faster, the use of electronic products in the way of renting may be more and more in line with contemporary trends. "During the trial period of the product, as much value as possible", renting a mobile phone is also a new model of consumer digital products that is worth trying.
Rent a dark cloud above your phone.com
Price aside, a lease model with only the right to use and no ownership can sometimes cause additional headaches for tenants.
Rented mobile phones are not used steadily, which seems to be the common feeling of renting users. Although the iPhone 12 has been rented for more than two months, Liu Mengze always has some concerns in his heart, afraid that the mobile phone will bump into it. "After all, it is not my own thing, and if there is a problem when the platform asks me to buy it out, then I will be in trouble."
Liu Mengze's worries are not unreasonable. She has seen many people on the Internet appear and say that after returning the mobile phone, they are required to pay maintenance fees, and even more forced to buy out, like this toss a circle down, the cost of renting a mobile phone is far more than normal purchase.
In the "Rental Instructions" of the platform, the rules of depreciation and compensation will be explained: under normal circumstances, the depreciation costs arising from the normal use of the leased equipment are borne by the merchant, and the tenant needs to bear the maintenance costs such as man-made damage, collisions, scratches and so on. If the rental equipment is not met by the standard conditions for returning the machine when it is due, the tenant must pay compensation to the merchant according to the agreed standard.
The problem is that the process of leasing and returning the machine is difficult to delineate responsibility, and the platform appraisal after return also lacks a transparent mechanism. Previously, when some analysts experienced the mobile phone rental service, they found that the problem that may occur when returning the machine: in the terms of the lease, it only said that there was a major damage to the need to buy out, but there were other situations in the return page that may make you have to buy out.
In addition to caring about the wear and tear of mobile phones, a large part of the insecurity of renting mobile phones comes from the fear of personal privacy data leakage. Unlike other devices, mobile phones are one of the most commonly used and closely related electronic products. Contacts, chats, profiles, payment information... As long as after long-term use, they will leave traces on the phone.
The platform mentioned that tenants are advised to erase personal information before returning the machine, and if they forget to clear it, they will also have professional engineers to erase the data. But Xiao Zhao told us that they actually did not have time to deal with them one by one, because there were too many equipment that were returned or rented out every day. "I don't know much about other stores, but our own words, the first time to take it back is to detect whether the equipment is damaged, and the equipment will be formatted without problems." She also mentioned that the average customer will take the initiative to format it before returning, after all, personal information is more important.
The analyst said that when she was still on the machine, the staff only detected whether the functions of the mobile phone were normal, and did not take the initiative to show her how to operate to clear the private data. But as far as the current technology is concerned, even if the phone is formatted many times, it is not difficult for someone with a heart to recover the data.
However, in this regard, the platform has clearly stated that it will carry out professional data cleaning on the mobile phone to ensure the privacy and security of users. Zhang Mo voluntarily restored the factory settings before returning the iPhone 12, and she was not worried about the data leak, "I believe in Alipay's platform endorsement. In her opinion, Alipay is still reliable.
Renting platforms still have a long way to go
The leasing economy has always existed, but now relying on credit points, payment points and other credit systems to develop credit leasing, is the key to making the leasing business such as leasing mobile phones more and more hot, and all the consumers interviewed by us said that it is possible to rent mobile phones with credit exemption. This credit-free electronic product leasing model has been expanding in recent years.
According to Alipay data, more than 8.04 million people have recently used the Renren Rent Mini Program, and the number of recent users of platforms such as Sesame Rental and Ai-Rent machine has exceeded 2.6 million. In November 2018, Renren Rent received tens of millions of yuan of Series A financing from Ant Financial, and in January 2021, it announced the completion of nearly 100 million yuan of Series B financing; and another major platform, Ai rent Machine, also announced the completion of a 10 million RMB A round financing in September last year.
Rental platform on Alipay
Xiao Zhao said that their company mainly does online and offline office equipment leasing, and the mobile phone leasing business accounts for a small proportion of it, but the current monthly order scale has reached 4 million to 5 million. According to enterprise investigation data, there are currently nearly 90,000 digital product leasing companies registered in the industry, while Alipay, Taobao or WeChat have helped the leasing platform link consumers and these large and small leasing companies.
In the development of ai-leasing machine in recent years, it has successively completed the transformation from its own rental to a platform service provider. Hu Guangtie previously said in an interview with the media that in the early days of its establishment, the profit model of the rental machine was "rent + residual value recovery - purchase price", that is, the platform purchased its own smart phones and completed the full set of leasing and recycling processes. From the beginning of 2020, the profit model will be changed to leasing companies to purchase mobile phones, and then put them on the Ai rent machine platform for rent, and the platform only collects resident and technical service fees.
Manager Renren Rent Cui told us that they have always been a platform attribute and participated in leasing transactions as a third-party service provider. In the announcement of the completion of the Series B financing, Renren Rent mentioned that the platform provides new leasing platforms, systems and tools for more than 25,000 merchants. Merchants who rent everything say that every transaction through the platform is a commission.
At present, the merchants or platforms that provide rental services in the market are basically the above two models, either as the lessor independently undertake the entire leasing process and rely on "rent + residual value recovery - purchase price" to make a profit; or play a good role as a platform, charging settlement fees, commissions and technical service fees to achieve profits.
The rental shops on the Alipay rental platform are no different from the Taobao merchants, and they are all signed up to settle in. The owner of a rental shop told us that merchants need to pay a certain service fee on an annual basis, and some small platforms can be settled for free, but each order platform will have a certain rent share. "Depending on the platform and category, the order platform on my side is divided into 8%. In addition, the platform will also have some promotion slots, and merchants can choose to pay for promotion. ”
Shop owners said that the role of the platform for merchants is mainly two aspects: one is risk control, and the other is order drainage. The risk control provided by the platform allows merchants to ship to users without deposit, while order drainage relies on the large traffic of Alipay and WeChat itself to provide customers for settled merchants.
However, even with a relatively complete credit system such as Sesame Credit, it is still difficult for merchants to grasp the true personal credit of users. Just like the cash-out situation mentioned by Fifi, it is also a major hidden danger that the rental platform has to face.
In addition, the current embarrassing situation of credit leasing of electronic products lies in the disapproval of consumers. @Weibo Digital once launched a survey on whether people will rent mobile phones, and 93.5% of the 4586 participants said that they would not rent mobile phones in the future. In September 2015, Apple launched a minimum $32 mobile phone rental sales plan, followed by Samsung also launched the Galaxy series of mobile phone rental services in the United States. It is said that the rental income of Apple mobile phones in the US market accounts for 10% of total revenue. In China, the transaction volume of the mobile phone rental market is less than 1‰ of the total mobile phone transaction volume. Hu Guangtie said that the penetration rate of 6% in China's leasing market is much lower than the average penetration rate of more than 20% in Europe and the United States.
In fact, in the final analysis, it is still a matter of concept, leasing prefers "enjoyment", and purchase is "owning". Whether it is a temporary enjoyment or a permanent possession, most people may prefer the latter.
*The interviewee in this article is a pseudonym