Text | Plums from the Tiexi District
At the end of last month, news came out on the Internet that a dealer of a certain agent ID series of SAIC Volkswagen was punished by SAIC Volkswagen for reducing prices without permission. This news scores on both sides.
The positives:
Volkswagen finally realized that transparent prices made sense. When the friendly media "car fans" mentioned the price model of "no need to negotiate", the dealer staff said: "Finally don't negotiate the price, the price is really a discount."
Grassroots sales have been bargaining for a long time, and more than once on different occasions, I have heard expressions such as "youth is all used to bargain with customers". The employees of the 4s store talked about their former colleagues jumping to the new car company, and the most emotional is also "although the income is less, but the drought and flood protection, and the end of the work is off work, unlike us seven days a week, 24 hours a day at any time." 」 Those extra hours are basically used to negotiate with customers, which is nothing more than grinding their mouths and pulling big saws.
From the customer's point of view, the bargaining model pulls them into a very rolled dilemma. Once the transaction price is high, the 4s send less things, where the service fee is more, the first reaction of relatives and friends is to intentionally or unintentionally "You are not worth it, next door Wu Lao'er is cheaper than you xxxx block, but also sent xxxx."
The more money you spend, the bigger your face is lost. Even if others are considerate and don't say much, they will also calculate in their hearts, "Is this price too expensive, maybe you can talk about it for another three or two thousand pieces."
To put it nicely, buying a car and buying Li Hongzhang's feeling of talking about the treaty, although it is also how to sum up how to lose. At worst, buying a car is like buying vegetables in a wet market, which is not decent at all.
More positive:
This time, the Shanghai dealer gave id.4x and id.6x preferential treatment is obviously different from when buying fuel vehicles before, I don't believe see the promotion chart:
See watermark for image source
There is a basis for this difference, because the id series is originally a transparent price, so when promoting the offer, the dealer says how much to give in, that is, how much to give.
In the past fuel vehicle era, even if dealers give price concessions, consumers should still bargain when they enter the store, and they should decorate to decorate, and the id series, including car purchase, replacement, credit, each purchase method should pay the money, and the discounts that can be obtained are clearly marked with the price. That is to say, consumers can still clearly know that no matter who it is, as long as they buy id, the price is the same.
Such an offer does not in fact violate the rule of "price transparency". The basic meaning of this rule is that the quotation seen by the consumer is the transaction price, and the dealer and the dealer can have different quotations and different additional offers (such as gifts and the like), and the purchase decision will be clearer and clearer at a glance.
From an industrial point of view, it improves sales efficiency, eliminates the need for those bargaining tug-of-war, and 4s stores can have more energy to study how to get more clues and improve service quality.
Hangzhou West Lake Weilai Center | The picture is from the official website of Nio
The positive significance is reflected in the fact that when traditional car companies realized that Tesla's transparent price is more in line with modern consumer concepts and improved for the existing marketing model, dealers were also aware of this problem. In the final analysis, in the 4s system, which is a cooperation structure in which the two forces of automobile manufacturers and dealers are intertwined, long-term cooperation and mutual restrictions, dealers are destined to have an extremely important position and will continue to exist.
If only manufacturers realize the necessity of price transparency, and dealers continue to be the market vendors who hide behind the main engine factory and only want to slaughter one in the face of pressure, then the automotive industry will never be able to usher in a real sense of transparent prices and upgrade the sales model formed around it.
The change of concept of manufacturers is only the starting point, and the change of concept of dealers is the key step of change. The Shanghai dealer's transparent offer shows that change is already happening.
A simple example is that the prices of apple stores and apple distributors are almost never the same.
The price of the Apple Store is always constant, and it is the official price set by Apple for its own products. When a new product is just launched, there are often many consumers who make an appointment to buy, and more people cannot grab the initial appointment ranking. At this time, the dealer who gets the goods first gives a price higher than the official price of the Apple Store.
When the popularity of the listing period has passed, consumers can not make an appointment, and when they enter the store, they will pay money on the spot to take it away, the price of the Apple store is still the same, the dealer will reduce the price, and the price will be lower than that of the Apple store - after all, the consumer's first choice is of course to go to the most reliable official store.
When the new model is listed, the Apple Store will remove this product from the shelves, the official will no longer sell, and the price of the dealer will be reduced again.
In this whole process, whether it is an Apple Store, or a shopping site such as Tmall, or an Apple dealer, the price given by each party is transparent, and consumers can see the calibrated price transaction on the Internet, go to the scene or express delivery to receive the goods. Although the price is changing, although the price of each house is not uniform, the whole experience is the same, and consumers will not form a "poor experience of buying Apple products" feeling.
"Transparent price" is not uniform, the specific price can be varied, rich and diverse, the key is that the quotation and transaction price are consistent, and it is enough to do this.
apple Changsha store | Image from Apple's official website
Volkswagen may have punished the dealer, perhaps not for the service, but for the brand.
Personally, I believe that the public will not be unaware of the positive significance of the dealer's attempt, but they still punished it publicly:
On the one hand, the id series is the face of volkswagen electrification transformation, and if the price collapses, the brand will be dull.
More importantly, the Volkswagen id series is an overall agency sales model, one dealer discount, other dealers have a high probability of keeping up with the launch of their own offers. Once this happens, the official price of the id series becomes a decoration.
When selling fuel vehicles, although it is a bargaining model, the transaction price may even be one person and one price, but there is also an "official guidance price" placed there, consumers know how much the car is, enter the store around this official guidance price to grind their lips on the line.
But if it is a transparent price model of no bargaining model, different stores give different prices, when consumers talk about the id series, the latter does not have the guiding price, becomes no one knows how much the car is, the price of different stores is not the same. This situation will be devastating for the brand.
To avoid this embarrassment, Ford adopts a fully direct-operated approach, with all stores selling mach-e being official stores, and prices that are transparent and uniform official prices. In this mode, the price is stable, and it is convenient to adjust the price according to the market competition in the future. But full official direct operation also has its disadvantages, and the rollout of the network will face larger costs and lower efficiency.
What the public should do, in fact, the answer is at hand, open an official direct store, sell it completely according to the official price, and observe the market competition situation to adjust at any time. In this case, when the dealer gives the offer, it will also avoid too much deviation around the official price. Official prices with guiding significance, more intensive channels rolled out, transparent prices that are more adapted to the market, all purposes can be achieved.
Simply put, it's four words: learn apples.