Text: Whoop Hu
In the six years since its inception in 2007, successive iPhones have insisted on only one model. There is no high configuration and low configuration, what big screen and small screen, what mini/max, just this kind of configuration, do you like it.
By 2013, the iPhone 5s and 5c rewrote this unspoken rule for the first time. However, the two-line strategy of the "s&c" model did not work well, because the iPhone convention is to launch new models and continue to sell old models at reduced prices - to use car circle rhetoric to call parallel generation, the new 5c is not attractive to the iPhone 5 that has been cut in price.
Although the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus in the second year started to double the screen line that continues to this day, it is not the same as today, when the "Plus" did not have an exclusive advantage except for a larger screen/battery (until the iPhone 7/7 Plus in 2016), in fact, the iPhone can still be considered "one configuration".
The real change came in early 2016 with the groundbreaking iPhone SE. Although the so-called "inventory clearance" model of "old mold + new core" has been implemented throughout the SE product line, that is, it has tried its best to avoid being regarded as "(actively and seriously) exploring the low-end market", but a completely independent SE line from the main line still announced the end of the history of the "single model" of the iPhone.
After that, everyone is familiar with it, now the iPhone has nothing to do with the "single configuration" in any sense, even if you ignore the "parallel generation" of the old models on sale, the latest SE plus the main line iPhone over the years, there is also a stable lineup of five models.
The so-called "one configuration" is achieved, and the more the poor, the better.
1
The last time the automotive industry mentioned "one configuration, one price", it was the Extreme Krypton 009 glorious version not long ago, and at first glance it seems that the pricing strategy of "single configuration" is still alive?
But in fact, it is easy to understand that the glorious version is the luxury top version of 009, and the price of 789,000 yuan is 200,000 yuan more expensive than the cheapest 009 under it.
Maybach naturally has the confidence to engage in "one configuration and one price", but what we have to see is how to do the "ordinary S-class".
At the beginning of the new forces, the "single configuration" pricing strategy and the accompanying "standard configuration is the top configuration" (only one configuration is not the standard configuration is the top configuration) was almost a kind of political correctness, and was often given a revolutionary progressive color.
The pricing strategy can be compared with Tesla's "transparent pricing".
What is impressive is that in 2018, (who made its first car called ONE) at that time, when the ideal ONE, which was still called "Ideal Intelligent Manufacturing", was launched, it shouted the slogan of "only one configuration, only one price, and the standard configuration is the top configuration".
"We only do one configuration and one price, we don't want to be the same as traditional cars, through high and low configuration and options, let users pay more money and entanglement...... The configurations that you see in these million-level cars will all be standard. ”
"One configuration, one price" is of course the most extreme approach, but compared with traditional car companies, the greatly reduced number of configuration versions/levels is a common practice in the early days of new forces. As many configurations as possible were listed as standard, and it became a consistent standard.
When NIO released the ES8 in 2017, in addition to the benchmark version, there was only one founding version limited to 10,000 units and priority delivery, "all of which (luxury configuration) are standard features of the ES8 benchmark version", which is actually very close to "one configuration, one price".
From then on, many configurations were arrayed on the PPT at the new car press conference, and then slogans such as "xxx items are all standard" and "standard configuration is the top configuration" have become a routine part of everyone before the price is announced at the end of the conference.
2
But before everyone knows it, "the standard configuration is the top configuration" is decoupling from "one configuration, one price".
Today's ideal product line, in addition to the relatively special MEGA, the main L series models are available in 2-3 configuration versions. When it was first launched, it only offered a configuration of the "previous flagship" L9, which has also been divided into two versions, Pro and Ultra, and there has been a wave of controversy because the former has cut the lidar.
Other new forces and old forces, as long as they are normal and mainstream so-called volume models, today are basically no longer obsessed with the real (different from verbal) reduction of SKUs and the standard configuration of the whole system, and more than 4 configuration versions of a single model have basically become the bottom line of the number of levels.
Relatively cheap models are often not as good as high-end models, which are easy to use customized free selection to solve the problem of configuration quantity. But even so, the Xpeng G3 was only available in three versions at the beginning of its launch in 2018, which is significantly less than the mainstream models of the same class.
Today, Xpeng's main models G6, G9 and P7 have no less than 5 configuration versions, and the price difference between the lowest and highest configurations is often close to or more than 100,000 yuan. In 2022, the unreasonable SKU design of the G9 was launched, which caused controversy, and after Xpeng's emergency adjustment, the G9 even had as many as 8 configuration versions at one time.
In addition to the G3 and P5, two old men of the previous dynasty who "sell one more to earn", at least the latest X9 also has four versions and four prices.
There are probably only two possibilities for maintaining "one configuration, one price" (two are also counted, in short, it is less): one is Nezha GT, Ideal MEGA and other special models with a small sales base, and the other is that the sales volume is really limited, so it is not necessary.
Even the newcomer Xiaomi knows that it will be available in 3 configuration versions at the first launch.
NIO has almost only one type at the configuration level, but it is convenient to change the battery, use the battery difference to pull out the price difference, and the sales scale of a single model is thousands of thousands, plus high-end positioning and more customization needs, and then consider the brand's insistence on high-end labels such as dual motors, which is understandable as an example.
3
From the popular, "correct" and trendy "standard configuration is the top configuration" many years ago, to the return to the "ancient traditional car company practice" with more configuration versions, more levels and more complexity, this is probably the case.
At the beginning, those voices who followed the market at that time and interpreted at length how correct, revolutionary, and forward-looking "one configuration" were, but unfortunately they were falsified by time.
BYD launched a series of Honor Edition models at the beginning of the year to further reduce the price and strengthen its competitiveness - of course, BYD has never had anything to do with "one configuration", but the Honor Edition's approach reflects the reason why the single configuration strategy has fallen out of favor from the side:
The new forces are no longer the small transparent ones that were used to be "two jujubes", and the head can easily achieve monthly sales of a single model of more than 10,000 if ideal; At the same time, high-quality new energy vehicles have shifted from a seller to a buyer's market, and the importance of differentiating levels and lowering the threshold has increased.
It must be pointed out that many years ago, those voices who touted "a single configuration standard configuration is the top configuration", which believed that reducing the configuration version can simplify the number of SKUs and facilitate production and after-sales, this is of course a fact, but they mistakenly regard relative as absolute.
Of course, the shorter the product catalog, the better, and in the era of Internet wealth, there is no need to worry about those early adopters who spend a lot of money and choose fear to overshadow the pressure of loan repayment.
However, at this moment in time, when the little transparent grows into a giant, there is no spare time to afford more "traditional" multi-configuration and multi-version? When the bubble bursts and the auto market falls into involution, consumers have more choices and are more careful?
Multi-configuration versions are based on the most basic truth: people, and people, are not the same. Habits are different, needs are different, and value judgment is different. The configuration developed and provided by car companies is certainly not available to everyone, and they are willing to pay the corresponding consideration for it.
A thinks that there is no configuration α does not call a taxi, and B feels that α is useless. In the era of "tomorrow will be better", even if there is only one version and one price of the X model, B does not care too much about the waste α of part of the car purchase, and chooses the X model like A.
But when the options are far away, and the market options are much richer, so that B can find a Y model that happens to have no α, is 10,000 yuan cheaper, and is no different from the X model, then it is obvious that the Y model will snatch B's purchase price from X.
One more configuration version means more likely to be Y.
Of course, this is only a very abstract description, and only serves to explain why the "traditional car company practices" that were once considered obsolete are prevalent. It is impossible to accurately meet everyone's preferences, and how to design the number and level of configuration versions is a science.
Moreover, the multi-configuration version cannot be purely for consumers, just as in the past, foreign brands dared to provide eye-popping versions and dare to design configuration tables to make people crazy, which is nothing more than to promote consumers to choose upwards as much as possible in a seller-led market environment, so as to maximize their own interests.
"A configuration standard configuration is the top configuration" is a short-term consumer dividend squeezed out after another batch of new sellers enter the game. When the times are up, people don't ask questions to enjoy dividends; And when the passing year is unfavorable, people will think about giving up dividends to save points.
4
But what is certain, and what is worth affirming, is that even if the dividends eventually fade, they often end up leaving something.
Today, although the market has returned from a single configuration to a multi-configuration version, it is not the same as the era dominated by foreign brands more than a decade ago: the overall basic configuration level has improved by more than a star and a half.
Although the Xpeng X9 offers four configurations, the main differences between them are battery life, front-wheel drive/four-wheel drive (power) and intelligent driving functions. If you put aside these and only look at the comfort, safety, and luxury configurations, it can indeed still be called "standard that is, the top configuration".
In addition to the low- and medium-priced economic brands, most of the mid-to-high-end cars will be equipped with electric adjustment, seat functions, audio-visual entertainment, basic safety and other configurations, which are still standard for the whole series - as for the configuration level, it has become an advanced function under the conditions of new technologies such as intelligence.
This model is not new, more than ten or twenty years ago, the mainstream family sedan even power windows, electric rearview mirrors are the luxury of the high-end configuration, but with the generosity of the independent brand at that time (although this generosity at that time revealed a trace of helplessness), even with the prompting of Japan, South Korea, Europe and the United States to follow up with competing products, the manual function has been almost extinct in a few years.
The so-called standard configuration, that is, the top configuration, with only one configuration and one price, cannot continue to be maintained in today's enterprise survival and everyone's special forces, but the good news is that the beautiful bubble that is quietly disillusioned will eventually leave something.