Taking advantage of the policy Dongfeng, the used car business of Autohome rode the wind and waves to the deep blue
In 2021, the average monthly second-hand car transaction in the mainland is about 1.5 million, and the monthly transaction amount exceeds 100 billion yuan, and the role of second-hand cars in promoting consumption and promoting the prosperity of the automobile market continues to appear. In recent years, the State Council, the Ministry of Commerce and other departments have repeatedly proposed to relax the restrictions on second-hand car transactions to facilitate the circulation of second-hand cars. With the lifting of restrictions on relocation, inter-provincial communication, tax incentives and other policies have been landed, the large circulation blockages of second-hand cars have been opened one by one, and second-hand cars have become one of the main growth poles of the automobile market.
However, compared with developed countries, the development of the mainland used car market is still relatively lagging behind. The main performance is that the proportion of used car trading volume in the mainland is relatively low, and the proportion of new car sales is seriously unreasonable. According to estimates, the theoretical value of the trading volume of used cars on the mainland should be close to 40 million, and the development space is huge.
In this unprecedented period of opportunity, the track of used car e-commerce has poured into a large number of players, who carry different models to enter the market, and set off round after round of advertising wars with the help of capital, which has a tendency to subvert the traditional second-hand car market pattern.
However, a few years later, this crazy "burning money" model did not burn out of the fame, but step by step to the predicament, losses, layoffs... The scenery is no more.
The autohome used car ecosystem completed the closed loop
The "passion" fades, the used car track enters a new situation, the old players are watching, and the new players are rising.
A few days ago, the reporter learned from Autohome that Autohome is fully integrating its vehicle data, customer data, insurance data and other resources, and combined with the offline service capabilities of daily car shooting, it has built a whole industrial chain of used cars for service manufacturers, used car dealers and used car sellers and buyers, and the "aircraft carrier battle group" of Autohome's used car business has taken shape.
It is reported that under the situation of the collapse of the second-hand car e-commerce line, the second-hand car business sector of the auto home as a whole has been in a profitable state. The root cause of this also starts from the "trump card" model of the auto home.
According to Shao Haifeng, president of Autohome, after the acquisition of TiantianPai, Autohome and Ping An of China played three trump cards in the layout of the second-hand car business: traffic + finance + standard, and with the help of SaaS services, to achieve car control, control of people, control of the scene.
In terms of traffic, Autohome has nearly 70 million monthly active users, which is a natural traffic pool. In the face of merchants, Autohome helps car dealers find target customers through online car source information display, and helps car dealers get high-quality car sources through the C2B and B2B business of daily car shooting. In terms of finance, through cooperation with financial institutions to provide car dealers with cost-effective car business loan products, on the one hand, it solves the problem of car dealers' inventory funds, on the other hand, it also relies on Ping An's profound financial services and risk control capabilities to systematically build a credit reporting system for the second-hand car market. At the same time, Autohome also cooperates with Bancassurance to provide merchants with vehicle insurance and maintenance data inquiry services, providing protection for car dealers to enter the car and reduce business risks.
In addition, with the rapid growth of new energy vehicle ownership and sales, new energy vehicles will gradually enter the second-hand car market. But now, due to the lack of evaluation standards, the pricing system has not yet been established, and new energy second-hand cars have fallen into the embarrassing situation that merchants dare not collect and consumers dare not buy. It is reported that Autohome has been forward-looking to start the new energy second-hand car trading layout, while launching replacement subsidies with new car-making enterprises, and jointly with Beijing Polytechnic Xinyuan Information Technology Co., Ltd. to explore the formulation of new energy vehicle condition assessment standards.
In the face of car sellers, Autohome and Daily Auction car directly provide car sales services in 28 landing cities, and car owners can quickly dispose of vehicles at reasonable prices through auctions. For car buyers, the used car home platform has more than 50,000 member car dealers, and there are 300,000 car sources for buyers to choose from. In 2021, the average consumption of used car dealers in autohome was 13,400 yuan, an increase of 10% year-on-year; the number of used car payment merchants was 31,700, an increase of 9% year-on-year. According to statistics, in the C1 car sales end, passenger cars trade 14 million vehicles a year, of which more than one-third (more than 5 million) people who want to sell cars publish information in auto homes or are active in various app apps in Ping An, and auto homes and daily car auctions may eventually match auction services through this information, affecting about 16% of the country's car sales transactions (2.3 million units). In other words, in China's used car market, one in every three people who want to sell a car leaves a clue in the car home.
At the time when the "high-speed railway" of the second-hand car market is about to open to traffic, based on the traditional second-hand car industry chain, the new energy used car standard system is prepared, and the auto home and daily car auction jointly lay out a complete second-hand car trading C2B2C ecosystem.
Teach people to fish to achieve a win-win situation in the used car industry
80% of the car dealers operate in the second-hand car trading market, nearly half of the business models are individual industrial and commercial households, and 75% of the enterprises operate with an area of less than 500 square meters. At this stage, small and micro car dealers are still the main force in the second-hand car market.
This way of doing business will not only make the business model more and more important, but also cannot solve the trust problem between merchants and users. In addition, small and micro car dealers that lack traffic support and financial support can only rely on store traffic in the end, and in the long run, they are destined to become a pool of backwater.
The layout of the used car business of Autohome is not only to create performance, but also to empower the entire used car industry. By "teaching people to fish", Autohome hopes to inject a source of living water into its partners and help car dealers improve their business capabilities.
In the used car industry, there has always been a saying that "the source of the car is king". The ability to get a car often determines the operating efficiency of the enterprise, so it is the most important link for car dealers. Through long-term visits and research, Autohome has designed products that adapt to the capabilities of different car dealers: pure clue products are suitable for car dealers with strong ability, car dealers can invite customers after getting clues; invitation products are suitable for customers with general ability, Autohome will help car dealers invite customers to the store, car dealers only need to promote the transaction of customers in the store, do what they are best at; the daily auction auction hall Car source price is high quality, then suitable for those who have just entered the industry and need to take cars in batches. Qian Chao, head of the used car business department of Autohome, said that the follow-up of daily car auction will also make a personalized display of the lot according to the car habits of different car dealers, and provide more targeted services to car dealers and improve the efficiency of car dealers.
In the second-hand car sales link, in response to the lack of customers of car dealers and the narrow circle of peer wholesale sales, Autohome opened a "peer circle" forum. Here, there are 1000-2000 car source posts available for browsing every day, and the car source information is clear at a glance. Recently, Autohome has also launched an activity to help car dealers clear inventory, and car dealers can either synchronize the car source to the micro-store to carry out retail, or synchronize the car source to the daily car auction for batch sales.
Automakers have also noticed the rapid growth of the used car market, and manufacturers have formed a consensus on integrating used car resources and regulating the used car business. From the perspective of revenue structure, the second-hand car revenue of US dealers accounts for 30%, while the used car revenue of mainland dealers accounts for only 2.7%. From the perspective of profit structure, the profit of used cars in the United States accounted for 13.7%, higher than the 9.9% profit contribution of new cars. Industry experts pointed out that in the future, car dealer groups and 4S stores will have great potential in the used car business. Therefore, Autohome has launched a vehicle collection channel for automakers, and planned "brand home" products to help manufacturers obtain high-quality car sources, and at the same time opened an online product area for manufacturers to attract consumers to buy.
While solving the pain points of operators at both ends of "in" and "selling", Autohome relies on the rights and interests provided by the main business to provide customized financial products for car dealers, better empower car dealers around the "deposit" link, and solve the pressure of car dealers' inventory funds.
Launched the "Integrity Car 2.0" to help car dealers transform and upgrade
Founded in 2015, Tiantian Car Auction connects C-end individual car owners and B-end used car dealers through the mobile Internet platform, and provides used car trading services for both parties in the form of online + offline. Daily Car Auction can provide one-stop second-hand car trading services such as door-to-door testing, online auction, and package procedures, helping individual car owners sell cars quickly at high prices.
Autohome has strengthened its advantages in the C2B, B2B and B2C links of used cars by investing in daily car auctions. In the C2B link, Tiantianpai car is already the largest second-hand car Internet auction platform in China; in the B2B link, Tiantianpai car accelerates cooperation with OEMs, especially new energy manufacturers, to quickly cut into the second-hand car trading scene with replacement services; in the B2C link, Autohome establishes a complete platform empowerment model to provide comprehensive value-added services such as vehicle source display, sales leads, data, and finance.
It is reported that in order to provide protection for the C-end car purchase, Qian Chao said that in 2022, Autohome will focus on making efforts, combining the offline detection capabilities of daily car shooting, Ping An technology capabilities, Autohome data capabilities, creating "integrity car 2.0", and establishing an industry standard for Autohome certification of used cars. At the same time, the "cloud consignment" model of car sources is built to help car dealers complete the transaction by docking the auction process of the retail car sources that have not been sold for a long time, forming a new model of "cloud storage" in the auto home and "cloud sale" in the daily auction car, accelerating the disposal of the car source, reducing inventory, and improving the capital turnover rate. "At present, some of the top used car dealers have achieved a fixed price, shifting from earning the difference in vehicle prices to service fee income." The launch of Chengxin Car 2.0' will help more car dealers establish the image of honest management, and transition to a one-price model to complete the model transformation. He said.
In order to meet the upcoming growth of the new energy second-hand car market, daily car auction is laid out in advance. In view of the lack of testing and evaluation capabilities of new energy manufacturers for traditional fuel vehicles, Daily Shooting Car cooperates with manufacturers in the disposal of old cars and replacement subsidies to help manufacturers accurately evaluate old cars and formulate replacement subsidy schemes to promote new car transactions. In view of the possible phenomena of running gas, water, dripping, leakage and so on, every day the car is photographed and the manufacturer opens the data link to ensure the authenticity of the replacement of the old car. Through the daily auction of old cars, dealers can enjoy the policy of exempting themselves from examination and obtaining replacement subsidies. In addition, with the growth of data volume, different brand manufacturers will gradually outline future user portraits with the assistance of daily car shooting, laying the foundation for accurate customer acquisition.
In addition, Autohome has also cooperated with Beijing Polytechnic Xinyuan Information Technology Co., Ltd. to develop the "Core Performance Evaluation Service System for the Whole Life Cycle of New Energy Vehicles", which conducts professional evaluation around the three core issues of endurance, energy consumption level and charging efficiency, so as to make the vehicle condition more transparent.
The broad prospects of the used car market give Autohome full confidence. Qian Chao said that in 2022, Autohome will increase the average daily production number volume by 104% by increasing the quality of production capacity on the seller side. By expanding cooperative customers and designing products at different levels, the number of cooperative merchants will be increased from 1,000 to 5,000, and the breadth of urban coverage will be expanded. On the buyer side, Autohome will improve its content operation, build a content library of car guides, cooperate with live content, build a buyer user incubation system, and synchronously convert the cold buyer's phone number into a user portrait with temperature, so as to better facilitate transactions. It is expected that the new version of the membership sale will increase the scale of cooperative car dealers from 29,000 to 33,000.
According to the china automobile dealers association, in 2022, the national second-hand car trading volume will exceed 20 million. The China Automobile Dealers Association also said that chained and branded second-hand car dealers are more able to resist the risk of market changes, which has become a trend in the development of the second-hand car industry. With the dual blessing of policy and strength, Autohome's used car business will continue to lead the industry and accelerate to deep blue!