Car Business: As long as done well, are the winner

1. Among the three forces that are interested in developing e-commerce, the auto vertical website is more advantageous than the integrated e-commerce and traditional car companies.

2. In essence, "car e-commerce" is still the guide to the sales leads, which is a form of online marketing. However, this form does greatly improve the conversion rate of the transaction;

3. In the transparency of price information, as well as online and offline service regulation, auto e-commerce still has some difficulties to be solved.

Preface · Automotive e-commerce competition intensive

Last year, "Double 11", the turnover of car e-commerce has greatly stimulated the entire auto industry. From vertical car websites to traditional auto makers, all tried to promote car sales as a more conventional means. In the first half of this year, competitions around automobile e-commerce have also become more intense and intensive.

Who can be a car e-commerce

Car e-commerce players, there are roughly three categories: First, accumulated in the industry chain for many years vertical Web sites, such as car home and easy car; second is the massive traffic e-commerce giants such as Lynx and Jingdong; finally There is also a small part of the traditional car manufacturers, such as SAIC car network. So, who can make a car e-commerce this matter?

From a transactional perspective, e-commerce sites such as Lynx and Jingdong that have a large consumer base appear to be a step closer to car e-commerce. But in fact, the difference between buying a car and buying daily necessities is very large. In addition to the basic configuration information and parameters, potential car users usually pay more attention to the actual experience evaluation such as car performance, fuel consumption and maintenance. At the content level, the integrated e-commerce platform has no advantages. Although there are a large number of users, but the distance from the car is still far away from the environment. At the same time, integrated e-commerce providers lack the long-term accumulation and resources at the dealership and manufacturer side.

At about 11 am last year, the transaction data of several car e-commerce participants also showed some problems. Lynx eventually did not disclose the day's turnover of automotive categories, but Lynx Dongfeng Citroën's highest volume orders for the day but also 21.14 million, the same day orders car home FAW-Volkswagen - Volkswagen Audi up to 246 million yuan. Speculated from the performance of celebrity products, Lynx's car sales are far behind the car home, easy car, Sohu car these vertical sites.

For the traditional car manufacturers, they have realized that Internet marketing is an important part, but how important it is to do and everyone is still groping for it. For example, SAIC car enjoy the network, more or traditional car prices in the Internet to explore an exploration process. Due to lack of traffic, car network now mainly through and the car home, Sina car and other vertical site to diversion.

Logically combing, comprehensive e-commerce platform and traditional car manufacturers, want to make a car e-commerce is very difficult. On the contrary, such as car home, easy car in the automotive field such as long-standing vertical site, on the one hand, has accumulated a large number of dealer resources, on the other hand also through the content and services gathered a large number of potential buyers, have more opportunities to car through electricity Business this new way to create new value for the entire industrial chain.

Second, the value of car electricity supplier where

Auto e-commerce, can be seen as a vertical car site to further explore the transaction guidance. Previously, whether it is a car home or easy car, the guidance of the transaction is through the dealers to bring together sales leads.

In the car home, for example, the current car home more than 70% of the revenue is still part of the ads from manufacturers and distributors. Remaining revenue from the dealer membership income, this part of the revenue can be seen as a preliminary exploration of the transaction. When the user picks up the model online, he can see the dealers and their quotes in close proximity, while paid dealer members have a priority in ranking.

This type of lead can also lock some users into automakers and distributors, but the final conversion rate is not high, usually less than 10%. Based on some of the previous data, E-Car is able to reach the level of 3 million monthly sales leads for dealer partners with an average sales conversion rate of more than 8%.

In accordance with the current car e-commerce to play, online booking can better import users to dealers and manufacturers. Although such "car e-commerce" is still essentially a guide to sales leads, you can think of it as a way of online marketing, but this new play really improves the conversion rate of the deal to dealers And manufacturers have brought more users.

Also need to pay attention to is that at 11 o'clock last year, Car House adopted online pre-delivery of 499 deposit, easy car is locked by SMS transactions do not need to pay any fees online. These two forms also caused the transaction volume of the car on the same day to be significantly higher than that of the car home, but there was a clear gap in the actual conversion rate.

Since last October 11, both vertical car websites have regarded "car e-commerce" as an important direction this year. At the same time, they tried to normalize this marketing method. Car home and easy car in the first half of this year, an independent car on their own e-commerce platform, at the same time spread across the country e-commerce activities.

Third car electricity supplier what are the difficulties?

Car e-commerce, to the user, car sites and manufacturers have brought tangible benefits. However, in actual operation, there are still some difficulties.

1. Difficult to achieve price transparency

One of the attractive features of car e-commerce to consumers is information transparency, mainly price. However, due to the fact that the final pricing power is not in the hands of e-commerce platform, some problems often occur in online transactions. In some cases, the dealer can not honor the price displayed online or the consumer found the price given online is not the reserve price.

In this case, Car House this year's car activities changed before the "one price" approach, instead using the package form, that is, through online deposit to help consumers lock some of the benefits, such as pay 500 deposit received 5,000 yuan offline The car discount, the specific price is still determined by the dealer and the user online. This approach can solve part of the problem of online and offline is not uniform, but without the transaction price of this information, consumers are difficult to get the price reference.

2. online to offline process is not good to do

Online display, and offline transactions are not difficult, the difficulty is online to offline process. If the car electricity supplier just completed a collection of intents, then the value of the consumer will be discounted. Consumers online to communicate with the dealer, confirm, deal, and follow-up of the car process, there may be a series of problems. For example, the number of online booking too much, the actual dealer stock can not be delivered on time, or to the store to mention the car to find there are additional costs. Similar problems have actually taken place in the activities of car dealers, and solutions to such problems require better communication and matching online and offline.

If the car website you want to be made into electricity business this thing, we must break through online and offline service difficulties, improve the entire purchase link, and make supervision of offline transactions.

3. Business model exploration also takes time

Although the model of "auto e-commerce" is a step closer to the transaction, is it required to charge commission according to the final transaction amount or still pack with the marketing expense in the specific profit mode? To this question, auto e-commerce water test themselves can not be sure. The current situation, the basic case by case, different vendors and distributors may favor different modes of charging.

From the popularization of last year's concept to the intensive promotion of various houses this year, the auto electricity supplier is still in the groping stage from the concrete realization of the transaction to the actual effect monitoring. Therefore, it is still likely that it will take some time to look forward to a clear business model for car dealers.

Conclusion · "Four wins" in the future

Whether traditional manufacturers or car sites, are well prepared to embrace the car business. Everyone knows what to do, but everyone is vague about how to do it.

What we can be sure is that the car e-commerce business is one step closer to the transaction direction, but there are still more uncertainties and unknowns in the concrete realization.

The positive factor is that for the e-commerce platform, offline dealers, car manufacturers and car buyers, car e-commerce is beneficial and harmless. In such a "win-win-win" scenario, auto makers may have far-reaching changes to the automotive industry in the next one to two years.

- This change will even exceed the sales itself, to promote the evolution of the entire industry.