After Lei Jun, Liu Qiangdong re-positioned the car

Automotive Business Review Magazine

2024-05-27 09:42Published on the official account of BAIC Business Review

Written by Windsor

Editor / Huang Dalu

Design / Zhao Haoran

There are two Internet bigwigs in the capital, Qinghe Lei Jun and Yizhuang Liu Qiangdong, each with their own strengths.

"Don't compare marketing with Lei Jun, we can't compare to him in this area...... That's definitely not what the average person knows. In 2013, the two participated in a commercial reality show, with Lei Jun and Liu Qiangdong as captains. At that time, the competition in the Internet industry was much fiercer than reality shows, and it was a knockout game of death and death.

10 years later, Lei Jun, who broke out of the encirclement from the Internet, came across the border and used a mobile phone holder to teach car friends a solid lesson, and Liu Qiangdong's "painful understanding" many years ago was also dug out. Xiaomi's sales once again prove Lei Jun's marketing ability of "not an ordinary person".

Seeing that Lei Jun's automobile career was booming, Liu Qiangdong was almost invisible. On April 16, Liu Qiangdong, who had not appeared for a long time, made a live broadcast for Jingdong Supermarket, creating the highest number of viewers since the broadcast, but it was not his real body, but a carbon-based digital human clone.

Where did Liu Qiangdong go? It is said that when he was in Beijing, he hardly went out, and his hobbies were cooking and beating eggs. The Internet tycoons who are addicted to work will never stop, and JD.com has made frequent moves in the automobile circle in the past year, and its ambitions have been placed in the base camp of Yizhuang.

In Yizhuang, Beijing, there are a total of two booths on the first floor of Jingdong headquarters, one is called "Jingdong Unlimited", showing Liu Qiangdong's family history: the three-foot counter in Haikai Market, the temporary bed in Room 1202 of Yinfeng Building, and the scene of the Nasdaq bell ringing in the Beichen era...... The places where Liu Qiangdong once worked and lived were reproduced one-to-one in the exhibition area.

Another booth is called JD Auto Internet Celebrity Test Drive Center, where a Lamborghini was placed before, which is the same Countach as Leonardo, the "Wolf of Wall Street", and there are only two in China. Starting from May 19, the show car was changed from Lamborghini to Liu Qiangdong's favorite off-road vehicle, Dongfeng Mengshi.

According to the staff, this exhibition area is set up to celebrate the new car section of Jingdong shopping mall, which will be launched from around May, and it is expected that the exhibition time of each show car will be 15 days, and it will not be taken off the shelves this year.

One pays tribute to the past, the other calculates the present, Lei Jun, Robin Li, Zhou Hongyi...... Seeing that his former friends have all taken pictures in the automobile circle, it is Liu Qiangdong's turn to calculate. Liu Qiangdong, who was born on Valentine's Day, has just passed the age of 50, and is not as high-profile as Lei Jun, but like Lei Jun, he has seen the cake of the new energy market.

At an event in March 2024, Jingdong Automobile came up with a PPT, covering car purchase, car boutique, car maintenance, car service and trade-in, focusing on the whole life cycle of car owners "buying-matching-maintenance-use-exchange", Liu Qiangdong is building his own car empire.

What does Liu Qiangdong want to do?

"The first meeting was when Li Bin came to our house and had a meal with me and Qiang Dong. He spent 15 minutes talking about his thoughts on NIO, and my husband spent 10 seconds saying yes. ”

In 2017, NIO held a press conference, Zhang Zetian represented JD.com as an investor, and Wang Yizhi was the proprietress of NIO and the host of the press conference. A conversation between two women was rumored on the Internet as a "showdown between tens of billions of noble ladies", and finally ended with Wang Yizhi's apology many years later, and Liu Qiangdong's identity as an investor in Weilai was widely advertised.

There is a reason why Liu Qiangdong and Li Bin were able to sit at the same table and eat. In 2015, JD.com and Tencent invested $1.55 billion in BitAuto.com to start its foray into the car distribution and service sector, with the goal of building a more powerful online car shopping platform. At that time, Li Bin's title was still the chairman and CEO of Yiche.

"When I was eating and chatting that night, Li Bin mentioned the project of Weilai Automobile, in fact, the dinner was not to talk about Weilai Automobile, but to talk about other things, and when there were still ten minutes before the end, Li Bin introduced Weilai Automobile." In 2017, Liu Qiangdong also recalled the situation at that time in an interview, "I think it is very reliable and credible, so I voted"

He said that he invested in NIO for two reasons, one is that Beijing has serious smog, and hopes to do something to alleviate the haze, and plans to change all of JD Logistics' self-operated trucks to new energy trucks; In addition, it is believed that electric vehicles can achieve complete unmanned driving.

"When Li Bin first talked about this project, I put forward a request, hoping that one day NIO can spend a lot of manpower and resources to develop an unmanned car, and at the same time closely integrate with express delivery to achieve unmanned automatic delivery."

Li Bin took the money and made the largest user-oriented enterprise among the new forces of China's car-making, and also became the leader of the battery swap track by the way. The achievements are remarkable, but Weilai's intelligent driving is not yet in the name, Liu Qiangdong's money has not been wasted, and the original intention of investment has gradually deviated.

On the other hand, the newcomers represented by Huawei and Xiaopeng are chasing me in the intelligent driving track, from the number of Kaicheng to the bottom of the technology, it is lively, but the future of unmanned driving is still very far away, so that the delivery of car robots looks difficult to achieve, Liu Qiangdong still has to do it himself.

In 2018, CCTV Finance interviewed Liu Qiangdong, in which he said that "I only want to do two things in my life", one is the supply chain business with logistics as the carrier, including finance, insurance, automobiles, real estate, health, etc., and the other is technology.

"In the future, the three services of automobiles, real estate, and medical care are very important, and the proportion of income is relatively high in 3-5 years. For example, there are about 20,000 or 30,000 car owners on average every day who buy tires and replace tires on JD.com. ”

Liu Qiangdong also said that in the next 5 years, more than 50% of the sales of electric vehicles will come from the network, "the future of electric vehicles do not need 4S stores at all, and there is no concept of 4S stores, entering the era of electric vehicles, just like buying a computer motherboard and replacing a motherboard, replacing the graphics card when the graphics card is broken, and replacing the hard disk when the hard disk is broken, all of which are componentized, standardized and modularized." ”

These, much easier to achieve than driverless car delivery, and no need for others, JD.com, which started with "selling hard disks and graphics cards", has entered its own comfort zone.

"In the future, new energy vehicles will evolve into super-large electrical appliances, Jingdong Automobile learns from the successful experience of Jingdong Electric, and we hope to do two things well: one is to provide new omni-channel sales channels for brands. The second is to provide users with a one-stop service experience. Miao Qin, vice president of JD Group and president of JD Retail Automotive Division, said.

What can Liu Qiangdong do?

In the spring of more than 20 years ago, the first owner placed the first order on JD.com, a car cushion; In 2023, the first user will buy a whole vehicle on JD.com, and the full amount will be purchased online and delivered offline.

The latter is being explored both at home and abroad, and putting a car in a shopping cart is a theoretically valid thing, and the symbolic meaning of selling cars online is greater than the practical significance. Cars are probably the second most expensive product many people buy in their lifetime, and it's hard to make impulse purchases. No one has succeeded in the past, and it is still in the stage of painting cakes.

The former is the foundation of JD Automobile. As China's largest Internet shopping site, JD.com has more than 600 million consumers, more than 200 million car owners, and more than 7 million new energy users. On the website, JD.com has almost 470 million SKUs. Massive products and massive users constitute the underlying logic of JD's car products' success.

On Valentine's Day 2023, Tesla's official flagship store will be officially launched on JD.com, mainly selling peripherals. A year later, the first seller is Tesla's 11kw home charging pile priced at 6,800 yuan, and there are already 20,000 reviews. Backed by JD.com's strong logistics system and official authenticity guarantee channels, JD.com has a unique advantage in selling car products.

JD.com also took a fancy to the cake of the automotive aftermarket. At present, Jingdong Car Care has opened more than 1,500 high-standard stores in 29 provinces and more than 160 cities across the country, with more than 40,000 cooperative stores nationwide and more than 45,000 real-name certified technicians.

More importantly, these channels are sinking enough, and the proportion of users in cities below the third tier of Jingdong Mall has exceeded 60%, and the proportion of car users in cities below the third tier has also exceeded 50%.

At the signing ceremony of Jingdong and Shenlong, the person in charge of Dongfeng bluntly said that what he values is the sinking channel of Jingdong Automobile, which can help Shenlong to better implement the promised "Five Hearts Guardian Companion Bosom Friend" service. The automobile market has become a red ocean, and it is an opportunity for JD.com to roll up the price roll service between major brands.

In the new automobile era, the role of traditional 4S stores has been partially replaced, and brands such as NIO and Tesla are staunch supporters of direct sales. When the car brand pushes into a large supermarket, looks at the car offline, and places an order online to buy a car, compared with Lei Jun, who is all in making cars, Liu Qiangdong wants to kill the 4S store.

According to Miao Qin, the proportion of new energy vehicle owners who have locked in the purchase of models before arriving at the store is as high as 56%, "that is, in the future, the online part of the car distribution channel will play more of the role of consumption decision-making, and the offline part will be more experienced and delivered." ”

These two parts are being done by JD Motors. On March 17, Jingdong Automobile New Energy Experience Center officially opened in Tianjin Jingdong Mall, marking the sixth store in the country to put into operation, in addition, Jingdong Automobile New Energy Experience Center has opened 5 in Shenyang, Shijiazhuang, Dongguan, Wuhan, Ningbo and other places, integrating car display, test drive, service and retail in one of the full-scene services.

There is also a piece of the puzzle that cannot be ignored, in 2024, JD.com is ready to spend 500 million to subsidize the trade-in car market.

"In the past five or six years on JD.com, countless people have asked Lao Liu if he wants to build a car, and I have been asking him in the past few years, but we have a deep consensus that JD has always been positioned as a technology and service company based on the supply chain, so it is very clear that JD is doing a good job in supporting and providing good services in the matter of automobiles."

Others dig for gold, and JD.com sells shovels and peripherals. Tesla, Mengshi, Lantu, BYD, Fengshen...... In the past year, JD.com's signing ceremonies have been held one after another. Just like Huawei, which entered the car market 3 years ago, it does not make cars, and there are Huawei's shadows everywhere; The left hand sells online and offline, the right hand car maintenance, and JD.com, which does not make cars, is also playing a big game of chess.

Liu Qiangdong's three fires

Like all cross-border arrivals, the slowdown in the growth of traditional businesses has led them to look for new outlets, and JD.com is no exception.

In 2023, JD.com's revenue growth slowed to 3.7%, while the core business operating margin slipped to 2.6%. On April 12, 2023, JD Retail started a new round of organizational structure adjustment, including three main aspects.

First, the business group system was cancelled and adjusted to the business division system;

Second, each business unit under the overall management of the original business group will be divided into many procurement and sales combat units according to subdivided categories, giving category leaders more autonomy in operation and management decision-making, including personnel appointment and dismissal;

Third, in the split procurement and sales units, there is no longer a distinction between POP business and JD's self-operated business, and the two are fully connected, managed by a unified category leader, and further realize the "equal rights" of traffic.

In June 2023, JD.com's automotive division became officially independent. Prior to this, the whole vehicle, car products, two-wheeled and car maintenance businesses were all within the framework of JD Retail, and did not operate independently. JD.com wants to find a new growth curve, and China's booming new energy vehicles are an ideal testing ground.

Review JD.com's previous expansion methods, the cornerstone of the success of the team, user experience, cost and efficiency.

This time is the same, the first knife after the independence of JD Motors pointed to the price war. In September 2023, on the day of the listing of Tuhu Car Maintenance, Miao Qin congratulated the "listing of friends on the market" in the circle of friends, and announced that JD.com would promote the "Zhenhu price" - related products are "5% lower than those of friends".

In the past two years, the price war in the automobile circle has been in full swing, and it is full of gunpowder, but compared with the Internet circle next door, it is still too polite.

On the afternoon of January 24, Tuhu Yangche, the "first share of car maintenance", sued Jingdong Car Maintenance, believing that the "Zhenhu price" launched by it had affected the goodwill of Tuhu Car Maintenance, and demanded that the whole network delete the relevant expressions and claim 5 million yuan. Jingdong Car Maintenance did not show weakness, saying that the "Zhenhu price" will not be canceled, but will be upgraded, and take out real money - the joint merchant will add another 500 million yuan.

Liu Qiangdong picked up the "low-cost weapon", knocked on the mountain and shook the tiger, and also announced his strong arrival.

JD Auto's second big deal is to send cars. The 2023 New Year's Eve party has always been an important place for business warfare, "Open the JD APP and have a chance to win the cumulative maximum 10-year use right of Tesla Model 3." "On the last day of 2023, JD Motors delivered the car at Hunan Satellite TV's New Year's Eve party.

In one night, JD.com gave away 7 Tesla Model 3 refreshed versions with a cumulative maximum of 10 years of use rights, as well as 10 Tesla Cybertruck children's cars, worth more than 2 million yuan. Not only that, "Inspired by Liu Qiangdong's off-road feelings, Dongfeng will join hands with JD.com to add fuel to the New Year's Eve party: provide 6 Mengshi 917 as New Year's Eve gifts." You Zheng, deputy general manager of Dongfeng Motor Group Co., Ltd., also temporarily increased.

This wave of operation has brought the relationship between JD.com and the car one step closer.

Jingdong Automobile's third fire is to sell cars offline, from May 17th to May 19th, Jingdong Automobile held a car gathering in Kunshan Vientiane City, with a limited-time discount of up to 44,000 yuan, and a total of more than 200,000 yuan in on-site prizes. More than 90 auto dealers in the city have fully implemented the car trade-in policy, and superimposed supporting preferential measures. This is the third big set of Jingdong Automobile after Suqian and Jinan.

From online to offline, from marketing to entity, from dealers to the aftermarket, together with his good friends, Liu Qiang Dongzheng is attacking everywhere in the automobile circle.

The road is facing the sky, each going its own way, choosing a completely different path from Xiaomi, and the "huddle" of Internet companies has given new inspiration to the automotive industry that is verbally "together".

3month25day,Lei Jun led Xiaomi into Jingdong,He released the news that the new accessories of Xiaomi SU7 arrived on Jingdong in the circle of friends,Said that it can be delivered in 30 minutes at the earliest。 It is reported that in addition to the whole vehicle, Jingdong Automobile and Xiaomi Automobile will also carry out more in-depth cooperation, including Xiaomi charging pile delivery and installation integrated service, supporting tire sales, etc.

On May 20, Zhou Hongyi, the "leader in red", went to the headquarters of Jingdong Automobile, as the "only car model at the 2024 Beijing Auto Show", and an expert who had taught the CEO of Nezha Automobile how to sell cars, Zhou Hongyi visited the Jingdong Automobile Internet celebrity test drive center, and cheered for Liu Qiangdong as a person who came over.

"In the future, there will be great opportunities for online and offline car sales and live broadcast car sales." Zhou Hongyi said. They are all people in a circle, and JD.com took the opportunity to present Zhou Hongyi with a newly launched JD car gift card, taking the opportunity to promote the "JD Heartbeat Shopping Season" activity.

Zhou Hongyi encouraged Liu Qiangdong to broadcast live, after all, he believes that "entrepreneurs should be Internet celebrities". If Liu Qiangdong is willing, this is a matter of course, if you pull up the milk tea sister, the effect will be directly full, and the traffic password that half of the executives in the automobile circle are looking for is in their hands.

It is estimated that Liu Qiangdong may not be willing, "Marketing is not the key, let's defeat him, the core is not marketing, it must be sustainability." In the reality show 6 years ago, he also said the second half of the sentence, "What defeated Lei Jun was long-term thinking." ”

The contest between the bigwigs, from reality shows to real life, from the Internet to cars, when many people didn't notice, Liu Qiangdong had already buried thousands of miles.

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