On April 25, Smart Genie #1 was launched worldwide, and at the same time, two configuration versions of brand renewal and product pre-price of 190,000 and 230,000 were released. After fully embracing the electric era, the smart brand is bound to make a huge transformation in all aspects. A few days ago, we conducted an interview with Ms. Zhang Mingxia, Vice President of Sales, Marketing and After-sales of Smart Brands Global Company, in terms of smart products and brands, so how will she interpret the new Smart brand?
Question 1: The new Smart Genie #1 is the first model after the brand's renewal, will other models be larger than it in the future lineup? Or is this car already the largest in the product matrix?
Zhang Mingxia: After the renewal of the entire smart brand, as you can see or understand, the entire pure electric product series of the smart brand will cover more market segments, and also hope to reach more users and consumers who love the smart brand.
The new smart genie #1 is the first brand new model of the new generation of smart pure electric product family, because the fresh heat of last night's listing is still there, and now the 5 highlights of the new smart genie #1 are told to you: We define the product as tomorrow's urban close friend, and hope that the urban close friend will bring smart users a face value, a lohas guide, a strong player, a geek pioneer, and a reliable partner.
As a brand with more pure electricity, new luxury and more technology, the new generation of smart brings users urban travel tools and solutions that meet the brand tone. The smart brand must be committed to providing a better way of urban travel, providing more market segment services and products for more consumers who love the brand.
Question 2: Why adopt the direct sales agency model, compared with the new forces' self-built channel direct sales, what is the difference between us?
Zhang Mingxia: Thank you for your question, on the channel, we adopt the D2C direct sales agency business model, and you also mentioned that there are many new forces that may adopt the direct sales model. The smart team actually went through many rounds of in-depth internal discussions, and had a full debate with many professionals in the industry, and finally came to the conclusion that we must define the next business strategy according to the characteristics of the smart organization. The final conclusion is that the D2C direct selling agency business model is currently the most suitable for Smart, including smart shareholders, as well as brand history, so we really are not starting from scratch, starting from no foundation at all to do a brand new brand.
There are people who already have a perception of the smart brand, like investors, even our users, how to make the brand new in a faster and lighter way, I will feel that it is a smarter, more dexterous posture, and bring the products we envision to the market in a faster way. Therefore, with the D2C direct sales agency business model, we currently believe that it is the most in line with the composition of Smart's current shareholders, the tone of the brand, and the strategic choice that we want to explore our own unique business model in the market.
This year, at least by the end of 2022, we will establish flagship centers in 6 domestic first-tier cities, and the flagship centers will of course carry more brand levels to create the brand essence emphasized by the brand. It is expected that in 2022, nearly 150 independent sales and service outlets will be gradually rolled out, covering more than 40 first-tier, new first-tier and second-tier cities.
Why choose the D2C direct sales agency business model, and how to achieve a win-win situation between the trade-offs? I think it is how brands, agents, investors, and final users can choose a business model and break some of the pain points in the traditional format, such as user complaint points, including price opacity and so on. Therefore, we believe that using the current D2C direct sales agency business model can ensure that users have a more direct and transparent manufacturer price and service. As a partner, it can focus more on people, energy, management, and providing services to users. In this process, the brand is actually a part of the three-way win-win situation, we have been emphasizing the "user center, digital drive", in such a business model, I think the brand and our customers, or our users, closer, the formation of a closed loop of insight and understanding of users, such insight will help our team how to do the next product matrix, how to build services, and even the next brand communication, to provide a better channel.
Question 3: I know that there are many smart fans in China, I want to know what product details of the new smart brand will have a heritage for the old smart brand? Will there be a two-door A00-level plan in the future?
Zhang Mingxia: I especially like this problem, a small breaking news, let me myself be particularly surprised by the original smart sales team, specially sent a gift to my side of the team, when the celebration of the 20th anniversary of China's smart to do the activities, do the classic owner's badge (pin), they specially sent yesterday, hoping that smart can create a better surprise to the user, I think it is quite exciting, quite sacred, feel quite responsible. So this question is quite appropriate for you, so when I look at those badges (pins), I myself think what inheritance should I have? We have always said that the smart brand is renewed, but in fact it is grown up, new luxury, more technology, etc.; in addition, I think its original intention has not changed, 25 years ago smart was born for the undefined cross-border, how do we explore a different way of urban travel with others.
So in fact, until now, we can say that we have grown up, we will not be too much emphasis on the maverick behavior when smart was born 25 years ago, but how to maintain the personality of the inner self, this personality to grow up a little, is it possible to make tomorrow more smart, and can maintain and publicize the personality at the same time, can bring close friends around and colleagues around, together to make tomorrow more smart? This is my own interpretation of the longer and larger original intention, this original intention has not changed, but it is a little longer, I think this is inheritance.
The second one is the inheritance, and I think you should pay a lot of attention to smart, emphasizing the concept of smart. So in the new smart, we are also using this design concept, the previous smart small body and large space, the new smart heritage is "compact on the outside, wide in" and we are still "space magicians", so this is also a tribute to the previous inheritance or tribute.
Question 4: Will smart deploy special charging piles in the future? Or will it connect existing third-party resources?
Zhang Mingxia: Regarding charging, I think it is the focus of users when buying pure trams, and we always consider the charging needs of users. Smart adhering to the core concept of "user-centric, data-driven", fully considering that charging and replenishment is one of the topics that pure electric vehicle users are most concerned about, we will carefully consider the charging needs of users, and based on strong partnerships, as far as possible to provide the most complete and convenient charging network. We will gradually announce the construction of charging and replenishment networks in the future, so stay tuned.
Question 5: The impact of the pandemic on supply chains this year is huge, and we would like to ask if smart has made any efforts in this regard, or about when should the specific high-volume delivery be?
Zhang Mingxia: The first batch of users will be delivered in the fourth quarter of this year, and from the perspective of the sales marketing department, although it is said to be the fourth quarter, we hope that we can achieve such deliveries in the fourth quarter relatively early. The delivery of users and the landing of the brand are the top priorities of this year. So we have done a lot of work, including communication between various departments within, information pulling, the exchange of information between teams at any time, and so on. From the smart team, what we hope to be able to do is to make a commitment to the user, and once the commitment is made, we want to do our best to fulfill our commitment to the user.
Editor's comments: While everyone is paying attention to the listing price of the new smart genie #1, we have also made positive contact with the manufacturers and will bring you a test drive experience report of this new model in the near future. Because the current official is still the pre-sale policy, follow-up, for more versions of the new smart genie #1 model, Easy Car will also bring you detailed reports in the first time, so stay tuned!