Recently, a short video about tire repair became popular all over the Internet. The reason is that one night a car owner repaired tires in a repair shop in Huaihua, Hunan, because it was overtime, the repair shop added 20 yuan, and the price of repairing the tire was adjusted from 30 to 50.
The incident caused a collective outrage in the auto repair circle for a while. Many auto repairers posted videos on short video platforms to express their views on the event. Judging from the publicly released video, the auto repairers without exception support the repair shop, thinking that the owner is unreasonable.
Judging from the comments below the related video in the screenshot above, the attitude of the auto repairer towards this matter can be seen. Today, instead of judging the rights and wrongs of things, we use this incident to explore a question: does the auto repair industry have a future?
Strange appearance of the industry: the cost of working hours is not valuable
As we all know, the profit model of the automotive aftermarket has always been "product price difference + working hour cost". However, for auto repair shops, the cost of working hours is often "in name only".
The root cause behind this is: on the one hand, objectively, domestic consumers have long lacked the awareness of paying for services, do not recognize the service fees, and the working hours of auto repair shops are naturally among them; on the other hand, in order to attract customers, the auto repair industry has long existed to attract customers in the way of low or even no working hours.
Subjective and objective factors are superimposed, and the auto repair industry finally forms a stereotype for consumers: car service can be free of labor hours.
In order to maintain their own profit margins, auto repair shops have increased the price of high profits to products to ensure the profitability of their stores. Over time, "only charging for accessories and no working hours" has become a strange phenomenon in the auto repair industry, and it is difficult for auto repair shops to charge labor service fees that match technical services.
Amplify the value of the service, so that the technical service can achieve the due price return
Making the difference through product profits was a viable survival path in the early years of the industry.
However, in recent years, with the change of supply and demand in the auto repair industry, and the information asymmetry in the auto repair industry has been gradually broken, it has become more and more difficult for auto repair shops to make money by product price differences.
On the one hand, due to the fact that there are many stores and few cars, in order to compete for customers, auto repair stores have tried their best, various low-cost drainage projects, various value-added services, and so on; on the other hand, based on the customer's psychological price anchored by e-commerce, the probability of auto repair stores wanting to pay a premium through goods is getting lower and lower, and then relying on selling goods is not enough to support stores.
Combining these two reasons, it is difficult for auto repair shops to make money on accessories in the real sense. This may also be one of the reasons why auto repair shops are getting more and more difficult nowadays.
There is a view that auto repair shops need to change their consciousness and see themselves as technical service providers, and the stores as places for professional services to enhance the value of their services. "When customers realize the value of the store's service, they are willing to pay for the service. ”
In fact, dismantling the essence of the auto repair industry, we can find that the essence of auto repair is actually technology rather than accessories. In the whole process of automobile service, it is necessary to have a certain level of technical level of maintenance master to participate in it, in order to complete the maintenance of the vehicle, and the accessories are only the carrier to solve the vehicle problem.
"Without the technician's repair skills, the spare parts are just a pile of scrap metal. Some people in the auto repair industry said.
Therefore, at the moment when the price of accessories is broken down, the auto repair industry needs to amplify the value of services, so that car owners can identify with the value of auto repair technology, and truly reflect the price of services.
In other words, it may cost 200 yuan to unlock the door at a time, so why can't a reasonable fee be charged for complex car maintenance? This requires the joint efforts of the whole industry.