In the post-epidemic era, where will 4S stores go?

The author | Wang Dong

Edit | Island

Period: 2793

Source: People and Island members

Youth is not a few years, the epidemic accounted for three years, the epidemic in these three years in various places repeated, everyone slowly got used to such a life. Since March this year, the domestic epidemic situation has suddenly become serious, and various localities have also introduced strict epidemic prevention policies. 4S stores operated by offline entities have been seriously affected, what will happen to 4S stores in the future?

To analyze the future of 4S stores, we must first look at what are the external variables that affect 4S stores? The first is the impact of car electrification on 4S stores, and the impact of the epidemic on the entire physical sales ecology.

1. New energy stores opened in shopping malls

Many new energy vehicle companies have adopted direct operation and opened stores to shopping malls. In 2013, Tesla opened its store in Beijing's Parkview Fangcaodi Shopping Center. Subsequently, many new power brands have adopted this model. Recently, Hongqi also cooperated with Wanda and opened a Hongqi exhibition hall in Wanda Plaza.

In fact, building exhibition halls in shopping malls is not a new thing, and fuel vehicles have done this in the past. NIO's "NIO House" in Beijing was Audi's digital showroom. In 2003, Southeast Automobile also opened an image store on Wangfujing Street, the core business district of Beijing.

The image comes from Baidu and is only available in the accompanying picture

If the car 4S shop is likened to "people looking for a car", then this model is "car looking for people". The advantage is that the shopping mall has a large flow of people, which can increase brand exposure, although the rent is more expensive, but the advertising cost is saved.

Unlike the integration of sales and after-sales sales in 4S stores, these stores opened in shopping malls only have the function of sales. Some people say that new energy vehicles have a simple structure, small maintenance needs, and less demand for after-sales, and no longer need sales and after-sales integration. Tesla handed over the after-sales service to an authorized service center. In fact, the demand for new energy after-sales is small, and the fundamental reason is that the market ownership is not enough. The amount of ownership is more, taking into account the operating costs and service costs, it is still necessary to engage in sales and after-sales integration. Nowadays, many of the new stores opened by the new forces are in the form of sales and after-sales integration.

2. Will the direct stores of car companies replace 4S stores?

Regarding whether car dealers will be eliminated, this question needs to be analyzed from several aspects:

The relationship between traditional car companies and car dealers is essentially wholesale and retail. Car dealers buy wholesale from car companies and then sell them to consumers. In the final sales, the car company is not responsible, and the car company takes the wholesale payment. If the car company adopts the direct operation model, it needs to sell one by one, and once it is not easy to sell, this inventory pressure will have to be borne by itself. For car companies, the biggest advantage of the dealer model is that it can reduce the inventory pressure of car companies.

Nowadays, it seems that there is not much inventory problem in the new forces of electric vehicles such as Weilai and Xiaopeng, the production and sales are not large, and the order system is adopted, and the owner first reserves the car, and then picks up the goods. Moreover, the new forces are still in the capital feeding period, and there is money to be "burned". But then it will inevitably face the problem of corporate profitability, and in this period, as a factory, it must ensure a certain amount of production and sales. When it comes to selling tens of thousands of cars every month, the inventory turnover may not be as fast as it is now, and the financial pressure will increase, so in the long run, the same need for the help of dealers.

Cars are different from small goods, there is no way to package mail, it is necessary to have offline delivery and service links, car manufacturers must expand sales channels in the country, if you take the direct operation model to open stores one by one, the speed will be very slow, the later management is also difficult, and the operating costs are very high.

The image comes from Baidu and is only available in the accompanying picture

And to adopt the dealer model, you can borrow the local land resources, interpersonal relations, and funds of the dealer, and quickly open up the situation in the country. At the same time, the car dealer as a link between the car company and the owner of the car, when there is a dispute, you can first solve the problem in the front, the key time can also help the car company "back the pot", acting as a contradiction buffer belt, like Tesla owners directly conflict with the manufacturer, the reason is that Tesla does not have the role of the dealer to do customer dispute handling work.

In the car dealer model, each 4S store is a competitive relationship, different cities, different stores, the price is different. In order to achieve the transaction, dealers will hold various promotional activities, and customers can also enjoy preferential prices.

The form of direct operation of manufacturers is different, there is no middleman, the price is uniform pricing, and the price elasticity of the product is missing.

The market across the country is different, the market changes are also very large, when it is no longer a car is difficult to find, the difficulty of vehicle sales in various places is different, if the sales lose agility, it is difficult to adjust the rhythm and structure of sales.

At this time, if the car company adopts a unified price reduction, the loss will be very large. Before the car companies made such a move, the owners who bought at high prices were scolding the car companies for "cutting leeks", which was not a good thing for the brand.

Of course, the direct operation model has its advantages, but the dealer model also has great value. There are many new energy brands, and their respective situations are also very different, and the dealer model must be the best choice for many car companies.

3. Inspiration for dealers in the post-epidemic era

The impact of the epidemic on the real economy is very large, and we can get a revelation in the crisis, that is, dealers must actively transform.

First, dealers should develop diversified sales channels, especially pay attention to online sales channels, do a good job in the transformation of online marketing, and work private domain traffic such as Douyin live broadcast, enterprise WeChat customer retention, WeChat Mini Program live broadcast, etc.

Second, dealers should transform customer service providers, customers are the most core assets of dealers, around the customer to explore the deep needs of customers, integration of resources to provide customers with more services. For example, customer clubs, creating a circle of car friends, through the car friend service to achieve good benefits.

Third, dealers should actively expand new service projects, such as automobile boutique modification business, the reason is very simple, with the transformation of dealers into new energy, and the new energy 4S store after-sales income is low, after-sales machine repair workshop site use is not saturated, but new energy owners are younger, the pursuit of personalization, this time can be used to use the idle resources of the machine repair workshop, combined with the needs of young owners of new energy, to develop the car boutique modification business.

There are always more ways than difficulties, and the epidemic may be normalized with us, but we Auto people must not be discouraged, we must use our brains to do practical things, and we will always overcome the difficulties in front of us to usher in a better tomorrow.