Although the direct-operated store model is already a common phenomenon in the industry, Great Wall is still cautious about reopening this plan. "In 2023, we are rethinking our channel model, including direct sales. On April 19, Li Ruifeng, chief growth officer of Great Wall Motors, said to Feiling Automobile.
Internally, Great Wall has established the "Great Wall Smart Selection" direct-operated store brand. It is understood that the Great Wall Smart Operation has established a unified brand identity system in retail stores, retail centers and delivery centers. At the same time, there are more than 600 product experts who have been trained, including end product experts and delivery experts. As a directly operated retail brand, all personnel are trained and directly managed by Great Wall Motors, and a relatively complete management system and efficient communication channels have been established. Great Wall Motor said that it will strive to maintain consistency in image, personnel management and operation processes for all types of stores.
In addition, the user center and delivery center are also in the process of being prepared, and will host functions such as user community activities. According to the plan, on May 1, the first batch of 33 directly operated stores will open. However, before the launch, preliminary negotiations between Great Wall and dealers across the country have been carried out, including Wei Jianjun, chairman of Great Wall Motors, who also personally participated in the dealer discussions. Not only that, after the opening of the directly-operated store, Wei Jianjun and Mu Feng, President of Great Wall Motors, will continue to go to the terminal to see whether the direct-sales model is harmonious in the actual process of operation, so as to better find problems and constantly correct and correct them.
At the same time, the Great Wall also emphasized that the so-called direct sales are to add a "merger" model to the original channel to better adapt to the market, rather than replacing the original dealer model, and implement the "dual-track system".
There are many reasons for the caution of the Great Wall. First of all, it is not the first time that Great Wall has been interested in direct marketing. As early as 2019, Great Wall began to try the direct sales model, and later tested the waters under brands such as Ora and Salon, and is also the first batch of large car companies in China to engage in direct sales. Later, Great Wall also carried out a joint venture model on the tank brand. However, in the first attempts, the Great Wall soon discovered the problem. "OEMs do their own direct sales, and many times they use the method of to B to do to C. At that time, we argued for a long time that this work could not be done. Mu Feng, president of Great Wall Motors, said.
Secondly, the Great Wall has a very large group of dealers, many of whom are "veteran" partners who have grown up with the Great Wall. After the launch of direct sales, it will inevitably have a certain impact on the original dealer group, which is different from the new brand enterprises that develop direct sales first and then develop dealers. In this process, Great Wall needs to carefully balance the competition and prevent the emergence of internal friction. From a practical point of view, in fact, there are no brands that fail in direct sales in the development, and finally return to the old model of dealers. The reason for this is that direct sales also test the financial strength of car companies, and it is not simply a change in the sales model.
"Not for sales, we want brands"
So why is the Great Wall now restarting this model? The answer is the need for change. The Great Wall has been promoting the transformation of enterprises to C in the past two years, and in the recent past, Wei Jianjun also personally went out to test the Great Wall's mapless intelligent driving, and then connected with Lei Jun, chairman of Xiaomi, etc. On social media, Wei Jianjun has opened a Weibo account that has not been used for more than ten years, and has also opened various video accounts. As an effective way for enterprises to comprehensively to C, direct sales have been proposed again.
Great Wall Technology Center
In addition to facing the user, brand is the most important consideration. The Great Wall is only in the two brands of WEY and Tank, of which the Tank will have four products (300, 400, 500, 700) and WEY brand is Blue Mountain and Gaoshan two products. From the point of view of price segment, the price of these products is much higher than that of other Great Wall products, representing the high-end series of Great Wall. In fact, this is also to solve the brand image and service problems faced by the high-end of the Great Wall in the terminal, and build the brand image of the Great Wall, which is very important in the current competitive environment.
Of course, there are more important reasons for choosing these two brands. "The first condition for doing direct sales is the brand's mission and good product strength. Mu Feng said. Under the fierce price war in 2023, no one dares to say that they have a solid "brand premium". Even luxury brands had to join the price war in the market last year, and the price of electric vehicles has overlapped with that of the independent high-end. In this context, Great Wall hopes to create a "triangle" with consumer experience as the core: to establish a link between physical objects and potential customers through products and consumers, because only by building this triangle can we build a future brand position through product experience.
For the self-operated channel, although Great Wall has set a sales target, it is based on the entire dealer network, based on which to jointly create a sales target for each city in the market. In the direct sales system, it will carry more KPI indicators for effect conversion and will not do involution in price.
Secondly, another starting point of self-operation is that the Great Wall needs to innovate the combat effectiveness of the channel, and self-operation is a "catfish" that is put in to ensure that the change of the channel will be carried out according to the setting. According to the schedule, the specific plan of Great Wall's self-operated stores is to complete 200 retail centers this year. Among them, the requirement for a single store is 200-300 square meters, and the store investment is large according to this requirement. If the dealer is required to invest, the dealer's willingness is not strong, and it will be very difficult to advance.
This choice of dealers is not difficult to understand. In the context of the increasingly serious price war, the sales of new cars of almost all brands are already in a state of not making money or even losing money, and dealers are no longer willing to invest in opening new sales centers. On the other hand, although the original dealer system is mature, under the current industry competition, the dealers themselves also need to change. For example, in the industry, some companies have mobilized dealers to use live broadcast and other means, so that 50% of the overall sales come from new media forms. This touched the Great Wall management greatly.
"Direct sales are a vanguard"
In 2024, the Great Wall will carry out a larger scale of reform, and go deep into the C-end. In this context, to ensure that there is no deviation in the implementation and implementation of the strategy, the direct channel is the most effective way. In addition, Great Wall also hopes that through the establishment of a directly operated retail center, it can explore more experience required for transformation and provide it to the entire dealer team.
"It's a vanguard. Mu Feng said. In terms of marketing reform, the Great Wall has also experienced some twists and turns. This made the Great Wall personally go down, approach the market, and listen to the sound of the market's gunfire. Moreover, by undertaking heavy investment, completing 0-1 exploration, building a sales model according to its own design, and giving dealers benchmarks and paths, the entire marketing reform will be much easier. In the design of the Great Wall, the most important thing is to realize the "dual sales" model of direct sales and distribution to achieve mutual empowerment and complementarity, and to achieve the effect of working together with dealer partners in the change. "We want our dealer team to be able to follow our changes quickly. Li Ruifeng said.
Of course, in this process, elimination is also an indispensable environment. "Even myself, if I don't change to keep up with the needs of the times, I must be the first to be eliminated. Li Ruifeng said. In the Great Wall Smart Selection, Li Ruifeng bluntly said that he hopes to build the direct retail capacity and the entire digital channel force through this design, and at the same time will form a dual-sales network with the existing dealer network to continuously improve the core ability of the terminal to serve customers. Internally, it accumulates retail and service capabilities, and externally, empowers the improvement of sales and word of mouth.
Of course, the number of directly operated stores is limited, because the cost of this investment will be very large. For example, many new forces such as Wei Xiaoli have begun to turn to the dealer franchise model, and even Tesla is moving away from urban commercial centers to reduce rental expenses. This also means that the number of directly operated stores of Great Wall will not continue to expand. In addition, the task of the directly operated stores is to enhance the brand, and at the same time open up the direct connection with the C-end, and at the same time continue to find experience for the reform of the distribution system. At the same time, Great Wall is also exploring more new models of cooperation with dealers.
According to reports, the Great Wall currently has a direct sales model in Brazil and ASEAN. In terms of form, it is a bit similar to Xiaopeng's agency system, the property rights belong to the Great Wall, and the store and the people in the store belong to the dealers, and the whole link is closed through the APP, which is the current model of the Great Wall in Brazil and Thailand. Interestingly, the Great Wall poached the executives in charge of direct sales of the new forces this time, and they have a bit of a mentality of learning from their opponents. The person in charge of Great Wall Zhixuan is Feng Fuzhi, who previously participated in the construction of retail channels in the initial period of Ideal and Xiaopeng channels, joined Great Wall Motors at the end of last year, and is currently responsible for the construction of Great Wall Motors' own channel capabilities.
Considering the fierce competition between Wei and Ideal in 2023, the Great Wall is also a division of its strengths. Previously, Mu Feng predicted that the entire automobile market would enter a life-and-death battle from 2024. It can be seen that the Great Wall has been in rapid transformation in the past two years. In particular, the interaction between Wei Jianjun and Lei Jun was surprising. Does this also mean that Xiaomi and Great Wall may have any opportunities for cooperation in the future? This is very imaginative. Xiaomi is very strong in marketing, branding, and C-end capabilities, while Great Wall is very strong in products, technology, and manufacturing, which can be said to make up for each other and a win-win outcome.