Heavy warehouses offline, competition for capital purses, second-hand car e-commerce will face difficulties | bandar taruhan bola terpercaya, vinix 388 slot

From the continued increase in financing amount, Uxin’s share price break after its listing, to the fine for Guazi used car’s “way ahead” advertising, used car e-commerce has gone through an uneasy year.

According to statistics from the China Automobile Dealers Association, second-hand car transaction volume reached 12.409 million units in 2017, a year-on-year increase of 19.4% in 2016, setting the highest year-on-year growth rate since 2011. In the first half of 2018, the transaction volume of second-hand cars continued to grow at a year-on-year rate of 13.11%, and the transaction scale is expected to exceed 14 million units in 2018.

According to Yiou data, in October 2018, 1,068 second-hand car trading markets in 31 provinces across the country traded a total of 1.1818 million second-hand cars, a month-on-month decrease of 3.18%, and an increase of 13.94% compared with the same period last year. The growth rate continued to decline. Whether looking at the growth rate in the first half of the year or in a single month, it has slowed down significantly.

After the marketing war, user trust is still low

China's second-hand car market suddenly became popular in 2014, with a substantial increase in transaction volume and a historic moment. What followed was a rapid growth in the amount of financing. In the two years from 2014 to 2015, a total of forty or fifty investment and financing events occurred, with a total investment amount of more than 2 billion US dollars.

In recent years, the most eye-catching aspect of used car e-commerce is undoubtedly the various advertising and marketing campaigns. According to 36Kr data, Uxin invested about 500 million yuan in advertising in 2015; Guazi Used Cars also invested at least 300 million yuan in advertising funds after becoming independent from Ganji in September 2015; and Renrenche also spent 50 million yuan on advertising, and also hired Huang Bo as an endorsement.

From 2016 to 2018, the pattern of major used car e-commerce players has also taken shape: network information service platforms 58.com and Autohome; platform-based B2C companies Uxin Used Cars; self-operated B2C companies Uche Eslite and Chewang; C2B companies Tiantianpai and Chezhibao; and Guazi and Renrenche, which specialize in C2C direct sales models.

Today, the transaction volume in the second-hand car e-commerce market has not surged as quickly as expected, squeezing offline dealers out of the shelves. According to second-hand car transaction data, the monthly transaction volume of second-hand car e-commerce platforms accounts for 1.28% of the total second-hand car transaction volume, which means that for every 100 second-hand cars sold, one is sold online. This transaction data is not cause for optimism.

After all, with the development of used car e-commerce, market education has basically been completed. From today's perspective, the advertising and marketing investment of the major used car players has not decreased year after year, basically occupying the prime time of domestic TV advertising and offline prime locations. According to previous media reports, the advertising investment of Guazi, Renrenche, Uxin, etc. has reached the billion level.

Advertising and marketing wars are necessary for second-hand car platforms. On the one hand, they rely on indiscriminate advertising to seize users' minds, which is a necessary marketing method to expand territory in the early stages of an immature market. But too much is often too much. For second-hand car e-commerce platforms with tight capital chains, huge advertising investment will continue to overdraft the operating costs in the later stages.

However, it can be seen from the transaction volume data that despite years of market cultivation, the market’s overall trust in used car e-commerce platforms is still low.

The reason for this comes from two partiesFirstly, the second-hand car industry has always been controversial. After all, compared with the new car market, the second-hand car market is relatively deep, and it is also a frequent site for accidents or blister cars. For example, problems with used car meter (odometer) adjustment, concealment of accident cars, etc. occur frequently. Buyers who do not understand cars can easily get around it. With the growth of capital today, it is still difficult for used car e-commerce platforms to solve various used car dishonesty and even transaction fraud.

On the other hand, there is a lack of policy supervision in the second-hand car industry. For example, the transaction volume of used cars in China has exceeded 10 million units, but the relevant lack of supervision has led to chaos in the second-hand car market; second, the transaction process is too complicated. A used car goes through various processes from seller to final buyer, and labor and time costs remain high.

In China, the slogan of many second-hand car e-commerce platforms is "no middlemen to make the difference." However, everyone in the industry knows that the domestic second-hand car market is essentially dominated by "brokers". A large number of second-hand car dealers are basically brokerage companies. A car's viewing, valuation, and transfer are all single-line contacts between the buyer and the second-hand car brokerage company.

A brokerage company usually purchases the vehicle in full at a lower price, and then sells it to the final buyer at a higher price. How to solve the current trust problem still requires second-hand car e-commerce platforms to make more model breakthroughs to make the price system more transparent and narrow the price difference.

The iteration cycle of new cars is shortened, and the living space of second-hand cars is shrinking

The overall slowdown in the growth rate of used car e-commerce is also due to changes in the overall automobile industry environment. One major change is that the current shortening of new car update cycles by automobile manufacturers has squeezed the business of the used car industry.

Secondly, under the general environment of consumption upgrading, the market for second-hand cars is getting worse and worse. According to Mr. Chen, who has been engaged in the second-hand car buying and selling business for more than ten years, six or seven years ago, a used car that was almost scrapped could find a buyer. Nowadays, the appearance of second-hand cars is almost the same as that of new cars, but few people buy it.

According to statistics, 80% of the vehicles in the second-hand car market are new cars that are almost 90% new. Because with the rapid development of the automobile industry, the cycle for automobile manufacturers to launch new cars has been greatly shortened compared to the past, and the price of new cars has been declining year by year. Under such a general environment, it has had a certain impact on the second-hand car industry. Although the car stock market is large, new cars are seeing significant price cuts, and the price advantage of second-hand cars has gradually shrunk.

On the other hand, the National VI exhaust gas standards will be implemented soon. Consumers are waiting to see the National VI. New cars launched on the market will become popular. The potential consumption of National V and National IV vehicles will decrease. The depreciation and price reduction of current National V and National IV new cars will also be a major trend. National V and National IV cars will also flow into the second-hand car market in large numbers. These factors have squeezed the bargaining space of the second-hand car market.

Under this impact, most of today’s second-hand car e-commerce platforms have begun to transform themselves into selling new cars, and established offline experience stores to develop in business areas such as insurance, maintenance and other automotive aftermarkets.

Judging from the profit model of second-hand dealers, they mainly rely on charging price differences, transaction service fees, or bundling after-sales services, financial services and other additional products to increase profits.

However, according to the development history of second-hand cars in developed countries, the main profit margin of second-hand cars will become smaller and more transparent in the future. The second-hand car industry must turn its attention to the auto insurance industry, auto finance industry, auto IT industry and reform.decoration industry and other fields.

With heavy presence offline, used car e-commerce is upgrading from O2O to OMO model

In the past three years, the used car industry has attracted nearly 30 billion yuan in financing, with many entrepreneurs and supporters. Well-known VC/PE, Internet giants such as Tencent, Alibaba, JD.com, Didi and Baidu continue to increase their investment. In 2017, the financing amount of used car e-commerce exceeded 10 billion yuan. Alibaba invested in Dasouche, Tencent and Baidu invested in Yixin and Uxin; Tencent and Didi invested in Renrenche.

But judging from the trend, capital is becoming more rational in 2018. An executive from a listed investment bank previously revealed that the financing news released by some leading second-hand car e-commerce companies this year is actually a time lag. The money is still from the previous round of financing. No second-hand car e-commerce company has really raised money this year.

The reason is that the current input-output ratio of used car e-commerce has not improved. This year, investors are not actively affected by the performance of listed used car e-commerce. As the industry develops to a certain stage, it will enter the deep water zone. The competition in the deep water zone is all money-burning business. For example, one of the current general directions of used car e-commerce business is to deploy offline.

Recently, Guazi used car strictly selected direct sales stores have opened in Chongqing and Kunming. So far, Guazi carefully selected direct sales stores have opened more than 100 stores across the country. Renrenche launched its second-hand car selection mall in September this year and plans to open hundreds of offline stores within a year; Dasouche recently signed a strategic cooperation agreement with PetroChina Kunlun Hospitality Co., Ltd. and plans to launch innovative new retail layouts at Kunlun Hospitality's more than 20,000 gas station outlets.

But the offline layout is extremely expensive. According to Blue Whale TMT, by the end of the year, Guazi used cars will open about 100 large-scale offline stores with a total area of ​​nearly 1.3 million square meters. The total investment is expected to reach 1.5 billion yuan in 2018. This cost only includes site rental and decoration.

From a logical point of view, although the offline layout costs money, it has its reasonable side, because today, offline car purchase is still the mainstream for consumers.

According to the "2017 China Automobile Consumption Trend Survey Report", when consumers purchase cars, physical stores are still the most mainstream car purchase channel, accounting for more than 70% of the total, while e-commerce platforms only account for 10%. This continuous and stable user consumption habit has forced second-hand car e-commerce platforms to shift from online to offline, becoming a new trend in transactions.

At the same time, the advantage of the new retail model of used car offline stores is that it can reconstruct the consumption scene of used cars. For example, big data analysis can be applied, and algorithms can be used to predict which area the car will be placed in with a high sales rate, and then allocate the car to regional stores for sale. This will reduce customer acquisition costs through accurate matching. It will also help to solve the problem of user trust in the used car e-commerce platform and may lead to more profit models in automobile aftermarket services.

Another big reason is to snatch high-quality cars from dealers. Because the current 4S stores and manufacturers have realized the competitive threat of e-commerce platforms, they have begun to reject cooperative e-commerce, and the current high-quality car sourcesMost are still in the hands of brand dealers. The layout of offline stores also means that second-hand car platforms have to compete with dealers in person.

To a certain extent, this may be a new concept of the OMO model that is currently more popular. OMO stands for Online-Merge-Offline, which is a comprehensive integration of online and offline, and the boundaries between online and offline disappear. The heavy presence offline is also a manifestation of the upgrade of second-hand car e-commerce from O2O to OMO model.

Secondly, the second-hand car market will have an increasing demand for logistics services. Second-hand car e-commerce companies including Uxin, Guazi, and Dasouche have begun to build their own logistics and warehousing systems. This is mainly due to consumers' demand for cars purchased in different places. Due to differences in the number of cars, demand and new car prices in different regions, the transaction prices have obvious cross-regional differences.

The cross-regional price difference of second-hand cars is an important source of profit for second-hand car transactions. The lifting of the restriction policy on the relocation of second-hand cars will promote the prosperity of the off-site car purchase market. Data shows that platform quality assurance, national vehicle source acquisition and national logistics capabilities are the three most important capabilities that users perceive e-commerce platforms to have; in terms of logistics, safety and price are the two most important factors of concern.

Financial leasing layout for new cars, new money-burning game

The third is the new car business. According to predictions from the China Automobile Dealers Association, the number of vehicles will reach 29.2 million by 2020, and the transaction ratio of second-hand cars to new cars will be close to 1:1. By then, it will be a large market with an annual transaction volume of nearly 15 trillion. The new car business layout has also been a tacit action of all major platforms.

On October 31, Guazi used car direct sales network announced that through the integration of existing businesses, the company would be upgraded to Chehaoduo Group and implement the dual-brand strategy of Guazi used cars and Maodou new car network.

Uxin also announced the launch of the "Uxin New Car" business, and Dasouche announced the completion of US$335 million in Series E financing. It also stated that the funds will be used to build new automobile retail and new financial platforms. It will become a trend for second-hand drivers to enter the new car market and may even become a standard feature of second-hand car platforms.

All major players are trying to seize the new car business in advance, but this business requires a lot of funds to lay out logistics, warehousing and stores. Due to a large funding gap, platforms often deploy new car business through financial leasing.

According to a popular explanation of financial leasing in the industry, financial leasing itself is a game of borrowing chickens to lay eggs, selling eggs to repay the rent, and then renting out the chickens. Once the sales of the new car business are not as good as expected, there is still a lot of suspense and risk in terms of whether the rent can be cleared. This will bring capital chain risks to the auto finance link of the second-hand car e-commerce platform, which in turn requires a large amount of financing to continuously fill this money-burning game.

With more wolves and less meat, 2019 will be a difficult year

As the business and competition of second-hand car e-commerce extends to the new car business, offline stores, new retail, and logistics and warehousing, the business is getting heavier and heavier, and the overall fundamental expenditure and cost investment will expand. This means that the competition for second-hand cars is not determined by burning money, but burning more money.

Therefore, in order to determine the outcome, after burning money to expand the overall size of the online market, it is necessary to extend to the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain to consolidate more shortcomings. It is necessary to invest more money in online and offline links. By constantly adjusting the business model and extending productionindustry chain to find a more stable survival model.

It can be known that the financing needs of second-hand car e-commerce will become increasingly strong in the future, but the industry is still far from a winner and the patience of capital is limited.

The used car e-commerce industry has gone from the outbreak stage to the mature stage. So far, there has been no platform that covers the entire industry chain and has the potential to monopolize. This means that the battle will continue. In the second-hand car market, there are more wolves than meat, and no one is convinced. Guazi Second-hand Car was fined 12.5 million yuan for advertising one year after its establishment, and its transaction volume has been far ahead.

If the leading camps are evenly matched, it means that the competition time will be lengthened, investment will be more, and the profit time node will be delayed. 2018 and 2019 will be more difficult, and the "money shortage" in the capital market may occur earlier. As early as 2015, more than 20 used car e-commerce platforms received investment, but since then more than 15 used car e-commerce platforms have closed down. Although after the market selection, the survivors are all elites, but the lessons learned from the past warn that risks are not far away.

Used car e-commerce has entered the second half. Some say it is a competition related to operational efficiency and profitability. This is true, but amid the war of words over model and market share, it is still difficult for us to find a profitable second-hand car e-commerce platform on a large scale.

If we carefully sort out the current stalemate situation of used car e-commerce and the current layout of many new cars, logistics, offline direct stores, new retail, etc., if we all do this, it means that each company has no differentiation, and it may be possibleThe decisive point of the battle is increasingly leaning towards whether there is enough money to fight a long enough protracted war, which means that the competition between the leading camps may fall on the money bags of the capital market.

We may vaguely see the shadow of shared bicycles in the battle of second-hand car e-commerce. Once online business is brought offline to fight for urban coverage, it often means risks, burning money for financing, financing and burning money again. Sisyphus pushing the stone up the mountain situation is constantly being played out, but each company has not established a core moat and an effective profit model to end the battle. If there is no sign of stopping this vicious cycle of raising money quickly and burning money faster, crisis will be imminent at any time.

2018 is coming to an end, but the next year may be a more difficult year for used car e-commerce players.