Shentucar original
Author | Zhou Jifeng
Edit | dawn
In China's major first-tier cities, and even shopping malls in the core areas of second- and third-tier cities, while Starbucks is standard, more and more new energy vehicle brands are beginning to be equipped as standard.
In the past few years, in order to increase exposure and obtain the dividend of business circle passenger flow, new car brands have flocked to seize the city shopping mall. Rents in core locations have also risen.
As more car brands race around, new problems ensued: shopping malls were not enough, five or six brands were crowded together, and the core areas were difficult to find; car companies spent a lot of money to rent shops, and the actual market effect was not satisfactory...
Shentu visited several core business districts in Beijing and found that this game of enclosure with money and traffic as the core has a new way of playing: some brands have given up arrogance and begun to pursue cost performance; some shopping malls have reformulated the rules of the game, and it is difficult to please them simply by relying on money...
Rob the shops, the new forces are not trenched?
Now on the first floor of Beijing Chaoyang Joy City, every door and every elevator entrance has a new energy brand "handle", from the westernmost to the easternmost, you can see the ideal, Xiaopeng, Extreme Krypton, Lantu, Cadillac five brands of exhibition vehicles.
An ideal salesperson told Shentu: "Now there are no empty stores in Joy City, so we have done an outreach, but it is also directly operated." ”
The so-called outreach is to open up an open space in the lobby on the first floor of the mall, put a car, and then equip it with a few chairs, which has become a simple "experience center". But even so, such outreach is in short supply. Cadillac's outreach was originally rented by SAIC Feifan for a long time, and after SAIC Feifan withdrew from the lease, it was quickly replaced by Cadillac.
In the past few years, new energy vehicle brands have spent thousands of dollars in order to rent hundreds of square meters of space in popular areas of high-end business districts.
In 2017, NIO's car has not yet been mass-produced off the production line, and NIO's first NIO House appeared on Chang'an Avenue. People don't know much about pure electric brands, but the modern decoration style is particularly eye-catching.
Four years later, Xiaopeng also spent thousands of dollars to rent a space of 500 square meters in Sanlitun, Beijing, and established the only flagship store in Beijing. This shop has also become the "façade" of Xiaopeng Automobile.
But now, there are fewer cases of spending thousands of dollars.
Or in Sanlitun, the most famous fashion street in China, there are currently only two new energy vehicle brands, one is Xiaopeng, which has signed a long-term lease, and the other is Jihu.
The sales staff of Jihu told Shentu that the annual rent of Jihu in Sanlitun is now nearly 20 million yuan. "Few brands have enough money and strength to set up shop here, after all, they are all money-losing transactions." He said.
People seem to be starting to get pragmatic.
WM Motors closed the experience center at Chaoyang Joy City. "China Business Daily" reported that Tesla also chose to close three years after opening in Beijing's Chaoyang Joy City due to higher costs such as rent and water and electricity.
Many brands have opted to replace fixed retail stores with mobile booths or pop-up stores.
WM Auto's offline experience pop-up store
The nearly 3,000-square-meter open space in the five-story atrium of Beijing Hopson Hui is now divided into small pieces of dried tofu, and there are nearly ten new energy vehicle brands stationed inside.
Xiao Peng is next to Nezha and Lantu, and next to Lantu are Extreme Krypton, Ideal, as well as Weima, Skyrim, and Polar Fox. Originally competitor brands, the booth is shoulder to shoulder, foot to foot. After the consumer visits one store, he can lift his foot to go to another store to continue shopping.
These brands did not rent Hopson Hui stores, but rather simply temporarily built exhibition halls on the fifth floor of the open space.
Wang Lei, head of the shop department of Savills North China, has helped Ideal, Weilai, Zhiji and many other new energy vehicles to do site selection, in her view, from 2021, the entire industry has changed: many new energy vehicle brands are no longer simply seeking big and attracting attention.
In the past, the new car-making forces, including Ideal and Weilai, were mainly for the pursuit of brand exposure and brand image display when choosing a site, and the site selection area was also large.
"In the last two years, these brands have become more pragmatic and tend to look for economical and practical stores. Factors such as brand positioning, customer group differences, and actual conversion rates will be included in the scope of site selection considerations. Wang Lei said, "The site selection area has also become relatively small, and stores of two or three hundred square meters have now become the mainstream." ”
Many brands will not even rent a fixed store directly, but choose to open a pop-up store, test the water at the booth, and if the market performance is good, they will consider renting a fixed store.
In the view of Zhang Junyi, managing partner of Oliver Valve, this is almost an inevitable phenomenon: "When the new energy vehicle brand first launched brand recognition, it would frantically rob the business circle. But in fact, this is an eye-catching behavior. When everyone has a certain brand awareness and sales have risen, these brands will definitely dynamically adjust the number of stores, stores with high conversion rates will continue to open, and stores with low conversion rates and poor cost performance will definitely be closed. ”
Having money is no longer a panacea
It's not just car companies that're changing.
Three or four years ago, only Tesla, Weilai, Xiaopeng and Ideal, a few new car-making forces, entered high-end shopping malls. Now the new energy vehicle market situation is very good, and major brands have sprung up.
For core malls, the range of partners to be selected is wider. But for car companies, the competition has become more intense.
Wang Lei said: "In Beijing, the core location of the core business district is still difficult to find. Moreover, the criteria for owners to select partners have also changed. ”
In the early years, brand and price were the deciding factors. The highest bidder is likely to grab the core store. Now, shopping malls will comprehensively consider various factors such as brand delivery ability, product research and development ability, technology research and development ability, and production capacity. "We even have to consider how much room the brand has in the future and how far it can go on the road of building cars." Wang Lei pointed out.
Not all shopping malls welcome a large number of new energy vehicle brands to settle in.
In the past few years, due to the impact of the epidemic, the vacancy rate of shopping malls is very high, and many shopping malls have welcomed car companies to settle in. However, after the impact of the epidemic gradually subsided, different shopping malls had different attitudes towards new energy vehicle brands.
Beijing Hopson Hui intends to gather new energy vehicle brands into a market.
On the deep way observation, in the Hopson Hui shopping mall, in addition to the weilai and hezhong stores are still on the first floor, the rest of the new energy vehicle brands are all gathered on the fifth floor.
A salesperson told Shentu: "Now basically all the new car-making brands are here." He pointed to the other side of the fifth floor and said: "In the future, there will be many car brands stationed there, and it is said that BMW and Mercedes-Benz are also coming." ”
The West Gate of Beijing's Blue Harbor is also home to several car brands. SAIC Volkswagen ID.StoreX (City Digital Showroom) quickly moved in after Skyline Cars withdrew. Next door to it is the Polar Fox Space and the Xiaopeng Experience Center.
In SAIC Volkswagen's store, only a few electric vehicles under Volkswagen are placed. The salesman said: "SAIC's oil trucks actually do not need to be publicized, everyone knows." But many people do not know and do not understand electric vehicles, so we need such stores to promote. ”
There are far more than three new energy vehicle brands in Blue Harbor. In addition to SAIC Volkswagen, Jihu and Xiaopeng, there are also Ideal, Weilai, Gaohe, and Huawei, which sells mobile phones while selling cars, and the other four are distributed in different places in Blue Harbor.
Next, the rest are likely to gather at the Blue Harbor West Gate.
"In the future, Ideal and Weilai are ready to move over." Saic-Volkswagen's sales staff revealed: "It is estimated that more car brands will move here, and it is ready to become a car market." Equivalent to a small auto show, everyone does not have to run around, directly in a shopping mall can learn about a variety of new energy vehicle brands. ”
But Sanlitun is clearly controlling the number of new energy vehicle brands. At present, there are only two brands on the boundary of Sanlitun.
Cars are a low-frequency consumer product. Objectively speaking, car brands like Tesla, Xiaopeng and Ideal will not bring much popularity flow, and they need to rub the popularity of the mall.
"Many shopping malls hope that brands such as Starbucks and Heytea will settle in, because they can bring popularity." However, in the environment of insufficient rental of shops, the new forces of car manufacturing can consume a large shopping mall area, have a strong ability to pay rent, coupled with the brand positioning of technology, fashion and intelligence, but also make some business circles willing to accept and attract smart car brands. Zhang Junyi pointed out.
Shopping malls are also changing dynamically, and some shopping malls will limit the number of car brands to a certain number, in order to maintain the brand tone and revenue of the mall. However, some shopping malls welcome new car-making forces and try to aggregate some brands to form new customer flow attraction points.
Will you eventually return to the 4S store?
Car companies seize the mall, but also from Tesla.
In the traditional automobile era, there are two groups of people who make cars and sell cars. Most of the 4S shops selling cars are built on the outskirts of the city, away from the crowds.
However, Tesla turned out to be a complete subversion of the traditional car sales model, splitting the traditional 4S store into three: a direct experience store, responsible for pre-sales consultation and test drive; a service center, in charge of delivery and after-sales; all vehicle sales are placed on the official website online, the implementation of a national unified price.
It is also Tesla that directly opened the direct experience store into the mall. People were surprised to find that while visiting the mall, they could also look at the car. Following the footsteps of this top-notch, the new car-making forces and the car brands created by traditional car manufacturers have focused on bustling areas such as downtowns and supermarkets with greater traffic.
But this madness doesn't last long.
For new energy vehicle brands, the cost performance of opening stores into supermarkets is not high. Shen Hui, founder of WM Motor, pointed out in an interview with the Economic Observer: "The rent of supermarkets is high, and half of the rent may be spent as advertising (fee). Most of the supermarket stores do not make money. ”
And the rent in the core area is not cheap. According to media reports, NIO is located in Wangfujing, Beijing, and the annual rent of THE NIO Center with an exhibition hall area of 3,000 square meters is as high as 70-80 million yuan.
Weilai Automobile offline store
"Car companies enter supermarkets more for advertising." Zhang Junyi said.
New energy brands with relatively low brand recognition and short establishment time are still frantically encircling land. For example, on February 18, The global flagship store of Extreme Kr officially settled in Shanghai Tower. According to the plan of Extreme Kr, the number of stores nationwide will exceed 300 in 2022.
Tesla, which has enough brand awareness, has been the first to make a retreat posture.
According to the first financial report, Tesla intends to reduce the number of supermarket experience stores in first-tier cities, and instead build more traditional 4S store outlets in the traditional automobile business circle to improve exhibition and after-sales service capabilities.
In the eyes of many people, new energy vehicle brands will eventually open 4S stores. Shen Hui once put forward such a point of view: "When the brand has enough popularity, in fact, many brands will still go to the 4S store." Because the brand awareness is high, the conversion rate of 4S stores is also high. ”
In Zhang Junyi's view, after the number of vehicles in the market is larger, the owner will definitely need to strengthen repair and maintenance. Therefore, after these new energy vehicles have a certain market share, they will definitely open some service sites similar to 4S stores around the city.
"In the long run, the most profitable thing in the automotive industry is not selling cars but selling services. A car has a long service cycle after delivery, and car companies can also earn money for repairs, maintenance, insurance and other aspects. Zhang Junyi said, "But there is a point, these new energy brands will certainly not return to the original 4S store model." The 4S stores they open in the future will still be self-operated. To put it bluntly, I have to earn money myself, and the users are all controlled by me. ”
*The caption image is from Visual China.