4S stores were originally for car owners, but most consumers did not have "love" for 4S stores, but only "hate". In recent years, the average 4S store has closed nearly 2,000 times a year, is the end of the 4S store coming?
1. No car owner likes a 4S store?
4S stores are invested and built by car dealers to connect car companies and consumers. However, for a long time, the image of 4S stores in the minds of consumers has been bad, whether it is looking at cars, selecting cars, negotiating prices, signing contracts, financial fees, car insurance, or in maintenance, repair and other links, many car owners have more or less encountered a very bad consumer experience. In the almost one-sided spit, the 4S store seems to have become a "black heart middleman" that everyone shouts and beats. 4S stores are commonly known as "four sons shops", and the owners joke that they are "pit daddy" stores.
2. An average of 2,000 companies close each year?
Before 2018, the mainland automobile market was in a golden period of rapid development, sales increased year by year, car dealers gradually developed and grew in the process, 4S stores continued to "attack the city", and the number continued to increase. According to the data, as of 2017, the number of 4S stores in the mainland was as high as nearly 30,000, about 16,000 more than in the United States. However, since the cold winter of the auto market in 2018, the number of cancellations of 4S stores in auto dealerships has doubled every year, from hundreds in the past few years to thousands.
In the past three years, the number of cancellations of 4S stores has increased to nearly 2,000. The data shows that from 2019 to 2021, the number of cancellations of 4S stores in mainland China is 1860, 1783 and 1944 respectively. Previously, some insiders believed that 10,000 4S stores would be eliminated within five years. Today, the number of 4S stores written off each year seems to confirm this prediction. According to the national automobile dealer survival report released by the China Automobile Association, less than 30% of the car dealers in the country will complete the sales target in 2021. Even the huge group of car dealers that were once the largest car dealers in China cannot escape the quagmire of bankruptcy and restructuring.
3. Is the end of the 4S shop coming?
Whether the end of the 4S store is coming, we don't know, but the number continues to decrease is an indisputable fact, because the 4S store has three major dilemmas. First of all, data from the China Automobile Association shows that before 2018, mainland automobile sales showed a continuous upward trend, and the automobile sales market was in an incremental period, and the number of 4S stores naturally "rose and rose". However, after the peak of 28.88 million vehicles in 2017, mainland automobile sales began to enter a downward stage, the automobile sales market turned into the stock stage, and the reduction in the number of 4S stores was inevitable.
Secondly, the 4S shop "can't live by its own sins". There is no unprovoked love in the world, and there is no unprovoked hate. Consumers' perception of 4S stores is generally poor, indicating that the problem is very serious. Using information asymmetry, 4S stores can bury many "pits" in the consumer car purchase process. What is more serious is that under the price of fierce competition, selling cars does not make money, 4S stores generally put the profit point in maintenance, repair and other links, resulting in after-sales service in order to pursue profits caused a lot of problems, consumers and 4S stores friction continues. Under the decline in word of mouth, consumers will naturally abandon 4S stores.
Finally, under the double attack of the self-revolution of the sales channels of traditional car companies and the direct sales model of new energy car companies, the future of 4S stores of automobile dealers is foggy. Honda, Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz, Volvo and other large multinational car companies have already begun to test the direct sales model in the system. Among new energy vehicle companies, Tesla pioneered the sales model of "direct-operated stores + official websites", which has brought a fundamental impact on traditional car dealers. New energy vehicle companies such as Weilai and Ideal have followed Tesla to adopt a direct operation model and removed the intermediate link of car dealers. Under the trend of the times, the living space of 4S stores is getting smaller and smaller.