The author | Meng Xiangtao, editor| Wang Biqiang
Wang Qingtuo's hatred for sharing bicycles is as thick and strong as the love they once had.
When I asked a bike factory owner if he had ever produced a bike-sharing bike, the other person suddenly changed color, "What do you ask this for?" It was troublesome to record the sound back, and directly said that we had not done it. "Confirmed the look, this is a man with a story. And just a second ago, the factory owner was still a kind old man, asked about the reporter's work and hometown, lamented that Beijing is expensive, and advised me to return to my hometown as soon as possible, at least the leaves fell back to the roots.
Just two or three years ago, shared bicycles were also regarded as a shot in the arm of Wang Qingtuo's bicycle industry, which has fallen into decline, and wuqing local media also said in 2017 that "China's first bicycle town" ushered in its own unprecedented highlight moment in history.
Located in Wangqingtuo Town, a suburb of Tianjin, the last heyday dates back to 20 years ago, when the town's bicycle production accounted for one-eighth of the country's production and sales, while in previous years, bicycle production here has been declining, the factory's profits have dropped from tens of yuan per car at the peak to one or two yuan, and fierce competition has reduced the number of bicycle factories here from hundreds to dozens. In an intuitive sense, Wang Qingtuo once went from "twilight" to "new life" because of shared bicycles.
It's just that this "new life" did not last long before it died, and as the shared bicycle companies fell one by one like dominoes, the defeat came sooner than everyone expected. After Mobike was acquired and renamed by Meituan, its former rival ofo xiaohuangche is still waiting for the endgame.
The latest news is that according to a judgment document of the Tianjin Municipal Higher People's Court, dongxia Datong (Beijing) Management Consulting Co., Ltd., the operating entity of ofo, does not even have a subject matter under which compensation can be enforced.
Affected by the collateral, Wang Qingtuo's bicycle enterprises wailed, a large number of depots closed, and the once "life-saving straw" has now become a "life-saving charm".
As a result, everything seems to have returned to the original point, Wang Qingtuo is still the "bicycle kingdom", but there will be traces of what happened. Wang Qingtuo, who is wrapped up in the sudden rise and fall of the sharing economy, is waiting for a new stimulus, but is this wishful thinking? People were at a loss.
<h1>Shared bicycles collapsed overnight, and the pit tragically "China's first bicycle town"</h1>
Lengqing was my first feeling when I arrived at Wang Qingtuo. Pedestrians are rarely seen on the streets, mostly cars and trucks carrying goods whizzing by, there are fewer pedestrians on the road than cars, and cyclists are much less numerous than pedestrians. It wasn't until I walked to the development zone next to the town that I saw a Mobike parked alone in front of a shop with the word "for rent."
Like the town as people perceive it, Wang Qingtuo rarely has more than five floors except for a few high-rise buildings in the development zone. Here, the best business at the moment is the electric car factory, and there are always seven or eight customers coming to the door in an afternoon.
Wang's bicycle stores are mainly concentrated on the short main road, the street road is in serious disrepair, and the potholed cement and dirt roads are the mainstream. The few stores randomly visited by the reporter have no customers, and hundreds of bicycles are placed, which are half a finger thick of dust. Idle shopkeepers either gathered themselves at a table to play mahjong, or leaned on the porch in their undershirts and looked out the street with the wind blowing, even though there was nothing on the street.
The middle door of one of the stores was wide open, and when I walked in, there were only a few bicycles that were scattered and twisted and twisted, but the small area was particularly empty. "Anyone?" I repeated the sentence like a repeater, and raised the volume more and more without anyone responding, and when I thought there was no one in the store and was ready to leave, a young man came out of the back room, looked at me and quickly turned his head, strode to the pickup truck in front of the door and drove away, leaving me alone in the store. June, on the other hand, was supposed to be the traditional peak sales season for Wang Qingtuo.
The former Wang Qingtuo was not such a scene. At its peak, the orders that flew like snowflakes made Some car factories in Wang Qingtuo receive soft hands. This unprecedented grand situation was written into the "Tianjin 2017 National Economic and Social Development Statistical Communiqué" as a typical example of the new economy: the rapid development of shared bicycles led to bicycle production, and the annual output of two-wheeled bicycles increased by 31.6%.
Li Qing'e still remembers the fiery scene of the car factory next to her day and night, one car of freight going out, one car of raw materials pulled in, at that time, most of Wang Qingtuo's depots had more or less received orders for shared bicycles, but Li Qing'e was the exception.
"It is true that some companies came to us in 2016, and they were really moved at that time, but when we heard that we had to pay 30% of the payment first, how much money we had to pay for tens of thousands of cars." Li Qing'e, who hesitated repeatedly, finally refused.
The prosperity of shared bicycles has brought a fatal blow to independent brand car factories like her, "The streets are all shared bicycles that sweep and go, who still buys their own bicycles?" "Seeing that others are running at full capacity, but her own factory has not received many orders for several months, once she had the intention of closing."
The source of pressure is not only the inability to sell, but also the rise in the cost of raw materials. From August 2016 to the present, the price of aluminum used for forklifts for Mobike bicycles has risen by 2,000-3,000 yuan. The price of rubber materials used for car tires has also increased since December 2016, an increase of about 10%. Because the factories that produce shared bicycles pay more than other factories, many skilled workers have jumped ship, and there is no other way to retain people except to increase wages.
At that time, Zhang Chu's factory was only two production lines, and the orders for thousands of vehicles could be fully satisfied, because the market was not good, and he even wanted to stop one of the production lines. At the end of 2016, a shared bicycle brand found him, opened his mouth to ask him to produce the output of the past few years in a month, he did not want to give up this opportunity, "at that time, I thought that this shared bicycle can at least fire for a few years, wait for the first bite of soup to drink, and then withdraw when the time comes." ”
Unexpectedly, the overwhelming orders seemed to stimulate some kind of addiction in him, expanding production and expanding, and by the first half of 2017, Zhang Chu's factory had four production lines, and the backlog was increasing, and only by sending out the next batch of goods could he receive the last batch of final payments. ”
At the time when Zhang Chu was desperately trying to expand production capacity, the battle situation of shared bicycles had undergone subtle changes, and a large number of shared bicycle companies had closed down. One day, Zhang Chu called the other party to urge the final payment, but found that the phone could not be called, and soon after he saw on the news that the shared bicycle company he supplied had gone out of business.
To this day, Li Qing'e is still extremely happy with her original decision, and several of her familiar peers, one of which is One of the largest depots in Wang Qingtuo, have been dragged down and closed. "In order to expand production capacity, the boss of one family borrowed all the money of relatives and friends, and as a result of this collapse, he did not even dare to return home now, and now people do not know where it is." In the midst of the wailing, she became one of the few survivors who did not get hurt.
<h1>The "bicycle cemetery" has spawned second-hand bicycle sales, but no one wants ofo small yellow cars to sell waste</h1>
When it comes to Zhao Jialiu Village, most people will feel strange, which is the remnants of the cooling of the sharing bicycle fever, and a large field at the mouth of the village is full of abandoned bicycle wreckage, that is, the "shared bicycle cemetery" in the media's mouth.
The distance between Zhaojialiu Village and Wang Qingtuo is only 5 kilometers, but it belongs to Tianjin and Hebei. The master who carried me to the bicycle cemetery was not without self-satisfaction, "Wang Qingtuo belongs to Tianjin, Zhao Jialiu belongs to Bazhou, Hebei, and our living conditions are better than theirs." "Straight through the village, the road is narrow, only one car can be allowed to pass, all the way bumpy, like sitting on a bumper car.
Bicycles are neatly stacked on the farmland, most of which are cool rides, which were produced in the second half of 2017, but the moment they left the factory can only meet the fate of being abandoned, because the cool ride company no longer exists. There are also a few small yellow cars, seats, tires and other parts are thrown around at random. The surface of the bicycle has begun to change color due to prolonged exposure and wind and rain, and the axle part is full of rust.
However, to my surprise, the number of bicycles is not as large as expected, and the media has previously reported that tens of thousands of bicycles are idle.
A villager introduced to me that there were indeed a lot of them, and he pointed back and forth, and where the grass was not very long, bicycles were originally parked. Today, a sheepfold has been built next to the place where the bicycles are placed, and these idle shared bicycles breathe with the sheep all day long. The reason why there are fewer bicycles on the farmland is that they have all been bought by customers, and in Wang Qingtuo, the sale of second-hand bicycles is already a big business.
According to media reports, the upstream of these bicycle transferrs is the bicycle manufacturer who once made cars for shared bicycles but could not recover the payment, and the downstream is the buyers who reused these rarely used vehicles. Some workers replace the bicycle frame, fender, saddle rear, etc., with the name of the shared bicycle company with a new logo, and others remove the old handlebars and replace them with new ones, and there are a lot of stickers and old handles thrown on the ground.
Zhao Zhengzhi's shop has a lot of semi-new cool bicycles, and he has repeatedly stressed that if you want to get the goods as soon as possible, the inventory is only more than a hundred. His own experience is similar to Li Qing'e,she did not participate in the big hilarity of sharing bicycles because she did not want to backlog payments, but after the tide fell, he found a new profit point.
"You look at this car, it's good, the cost is more than six hundred pieces, now more than six hundred three, the quality is good." Zhao Zhengzhi himself did not want to disclose what his purchase price was, but the manufacturer's entire warehouse was rounded by him. "That garage has at least a few thousand cars, and a lot of parts, and I've taken them all down." Of course, there will be sad feelings, but he also understands the mood of the other party, after all, even if the cabbage is sold at the price of much better than being a rag in the warehouse.
The electronic lock of the cool bicycle was sawn off by him in half, and it usually did not affect the ride. "There are people who buy goods, there are companies to buy and sell to other places, there are also people who buy to do car body advertising, in less than a year, it has been sold to only more than a hundred vehicles."
As for the little yellow car, he also collected it, but it was still difficult to hide his dislike for the little yellow car between the words, "The little yellow car was broken after riding a few times, unless it was a special model like a mountain bike, and others did not sell well." "The whole car is fine, but because the parts of the shared bicycle are specially made, there is no way to replace it on the ordinary bicycle, so there are not many people."
<h1>Inferiority, cottages, a swarm of bees, Wang Qingtuo's original sin</h1>
Wang Qingtuo bicycle industry began in 1994. Previously, according to locals, Wang Qingtuo's main industry was to fry dry goods, and at that time, there were also a few unscrupulous traders who added sand and gravel to dry goods in order to press the scale, and later this business was transferred to Tianjin Jinghai.
Originally a few workers who had assembled bicycles at supply and marketing cooperatives, they went to the sea to sell unlicensed low-end bicycles. Later, Wang Qingtuo formed a bicycle industry chain, and more than 100 parts needed for a bicycle can be easily purchased in the town. So a large number of young people who work outside the town turned into sales, looking around for orders, and then contacting relatives and friends in the town to produce.
For a time, Wang Qingtuo's low-priced bicycles quickly occupied the national market. At the most outrageous time, Wang Qingtuo's bicycle sold for 50 yuan a piece, which was one-third of the average price of the industry at that time. The frame of this type of car is as thin as paper, and the life cycle of the car is only 3-6 months. As a result, Wang Qingtuo has also become synonymous with inferior bicycles.
Later, the town government supervised, guided and supported the bicycle industry. After some clean-up and consolidation, Wang Qingtuo's bicycle industry is on the right track, forming some brand enterprises and entering the high-end market. In the favorable position near Gyeonggi and the port, coupled with the strong demand at the end of the century and the beginning of this century, Wang Qingtuo gradually formed a bicycle industry chain, once there were 600 or 700 bicycle vehicles and parts production enterprises, bicycle production accounted for one-third of Tianjin's bicycle production, less than one-fifth of the country's total output, known as "China's first bicycle town". "Accounting for one-fifth of Tianjin is very remarkable, let alone the whole country?" A local mentioned that it is still very proud.
However, the declining demand for bicycles has seriously affected this small town that relies on a single industry. A set of data shows that in 2015, China's two-wheeled bicycle production was 55.328 million units, down 10.8% from the same period last year; in 2015, domestic electric bicycle production was 32.57 million units, down nearly 8.3% year-on-year. These data are specific in Wang Qingtuo, but many bicycle factories have closed down every year, and it is common for enterprises to lose money.
Environmental protection policies have also given Wang a hard blow. In July 2017, the Central Environmental Protection Inspection Group listed Tianjin as a key inspection area and named Wang Qingtuo's pollution phenomenon. Subsequently, paint factories, electrophoresis plants, and oxidation plants, which are closely related to the bicycle industry, were shut down in large quantities.
And this is exactly the dilemma that Wang Qingtuo faced before the launch of shared bicycles. Li Qing'e also admitted that in 2016-2017, shared bicycles did save a large number of car companies on the verge of bankruptcy, but then pushed them into another abyss, "Wang Qingtuo was tragically pit by shared bicycles." ”
But some people feel that the main reason for Wang Qingtuo's decline is still in themselves, and the arrival of shared bicycles only plays the role of an accelerator. According to media reports, a few years ago, a company launched a single-speed car called "Dead Fly", because the market sold well, and in less than half a month, the entire street of Wang Qingtuo was filled with similar bicycles. Inferior quality, cottages, and swarms of bees seem to have become Wang Qingtuo's original sin.
Nowadays, sharing bicycles in Wang Qingtuo has belonged to the past tense, the second half of 2018 is Zhang Chu's most difficult moment, once three months did not open, layoffs, shut down a number of production lines, only to have breathing space, he is ready to make up for the deficit of the family back to bid farewell to the bicycle industry.
And Li Qing'e is also ready to continue to do, she is increasing the investment in her high-end product line, hoping to gain something, "after the sharing of bicycles, we are a long lesson, only give 30% of the advance payment to take the stupid thing can not be done anymore." "Now pay attention to the bag for safety."
*At the request of the interviewee, all names are used in this article
*This article is created by the author of the Tree Project [Phoenix WEEKLY], exclusively published in today's headlines, and may not be reproduced without authorization.