Peer at the car aftermarket business,iCARCOMM

Peer at the car aftermarket business

In the face of the messy automotive aftermarket O2O startups in 2015, it can be described as appalling.

Perhaps some people still hope that in 2016, these fallen martyrs can be reborn. Don't be fooled, after a year of market economic verification and trial and error, it is obvious that post-market entrepreneurship cannot be overpowered. It is time for us to calm down and figure out what kind of motivation makes us go to the aftermarket to start a business without hesitation. What is our original target?

The cause of death of aftermarket door-to-door service is the loss of the source of value

The pioneers of any industry are rushing to solve practical problems and cater to market demands, and to VC projects in the pure sense will not last long. In the past 2015, the most popular entrepreneurial projects in the aftermarket were concentrated on door-to-door O2O, not only the entrepreneurs were full of pride, but even the investors were "sucked" into it. Door-to-door car washing, maintenance, inspection and repair, etc. At that time, most people generally believed that high frequency and low frequency, occupying the track, building barriers, and then cutting into auto insurance to do auto finance was a viable business model with a bright future. In fact, the direct cause of the collapse of a large number of aftermarket door-to-door services is not that capital has no money to spend the winter, but that such models have lost value competitiveness.

Value competitiveness is different from the competitiveness of other dimensions of enterprises. Even if the Internet economy develops rapidly, it is still an efficient model within the scope of market economy operation. The Internet solves problems such as information symmetry, increased efficiency, reduced costs, and compression of redundant industrial chains. It is precisely because these problems are solved that the Internet will become popular today. If the so-called way of thinking, such as burning traffic and grabbing shares, goes against the reasonable relationship between supply and demand, the consequences can be imagined. There is a topic that has been very hot recently - the nature of business. Pseudo-demand that lacks value competitiveness will obviously be "metabolized" by the market. The world is bustling, all come for the benefit; the world is bustling, all goes for the benefit. Doing business, profit is the essence and the fundamental driving force of business development. One of the characteristics of the Internet economy is asset-lighting, but this does not represent the robber logic and speculative logic of "Gains with no pains".

According to Analysys Think Tank's "China Automotive Aftermarket E-Commerce Special Research Report 2015", in 2014, on-site services in the post-market segment have poured into hundreds of start-up companies (excluding the transformation and new business modules of traditional after-market enterprises). In investment and financing cases, door-to-door service projects accounted for 50%. In 2015, the proportion of door-to-door service investment and financing dropped to 12.6%. Although the capital market investment in 2015 is quietly shrinking, it has been able to see the clues through the collapse of a number of door-to-door services. With the rise of door-to-door service, under the banner of O2O, there is no strong demand and stickiness for unilateral scene construction, and there are also bottlenecks in service quality and level. The capital winter can be said to be the fuse. The real problem lies in the increase of operating costs of enterprises, inconsistent service levels, low conversion rate, reduction of user stickiness with subsidies, and difficulty in realizing the profit model envisaged in the early stage. This shows that O2O that loses its value competitiveness will inevitably become "020", and a seemingly market demand is just posted on the scene, and in the end, it can only have nothing and start from scratch.

Auto finance is not the only gold nugget in the aftermarket

The aftermarket door-to-door service mentioned above is just a subdivision of the aftermarket. In the whole broad concept of the aftermarket, the related services after the new car is sold belong to the aftermarket, such as auto finance, leasing, after-sales service, auto parts, repair and maintenance, modification, learning to drive, refueling, parking, travel, used cars, cars service tools, etc. According to public data, in the entire auto industry chain, the auto finance segment has the highest profit margin, followed by auto parts, repair and maintenance, vehicle manufacturing, used cars, vehicle sales, and leasing. Among the several types of models that are common in the market now, entrepreneurs almost all focus on auto finance. No matter which industry segment they are in, the ultimate profit point will be in auto finance. We do not comment on whether this is appropriate or not, but it is certain that auto finance is an important step in the establishment of an enterprise ecosystem. If you are not sure, you should not try it lightly. Enterprises pursue profit, "like flies chasing odor", and often the most lucrative places are full of traps and thorns.

Auto finance is a good way to make money. Before that, should start-up autos build their core business to be healthy? For auto parts, details such as parts quality, after-sales guidance, distribution and installation are the key points. Platform or self-operated When the flow of the channel has increased, we must not forget to build a reservoir and retain data for precipitation. When the data has accumulated to a certain amount, it will be a matter of course to start car financial services such as auto insurance, car loan, and leasing. Accumulating word-of-mouth and hard-quality service system is the premise of auto financial services. Don’t rush to launch auto financial services when you see that the platform has good orders and user reviews are getting better. In case of improper operation, it will be a hot potato and even become a "disaster" for the enterprise. This is a matter of steady and steady progress. Infrastructure construction is particularly important. Don’t be in a hurry to achieve success.

Modes are not barriers, services don't mean 2C only

The self-operated or matching diversion platforms of B2B and B2C models have similar operation methods. The advent of the cold wave of capital has caused a large number of companies that burn money to subsidize the C-end to die one after another. The capital market is a little scared. The C-end is a bottomless pit, and companies that survive on financing without guarantees no longer exist. The money-burning cases of Didi and Uber are not applicable to other markets, and the pain points and needs of industries are also different. E-commerce platforms such as auto parts have the advantage of perfect price and service evaluation systems. The use of the nature of the Internet can compress the original lengthy transaction links, so that unnecessary intermediate transaction links lose their living environment.

From the post-market production resource end, to the channel supply service end to the user end, no matter how the entrepreneurs change, they will not jump out of these links. Some models believe that they can monopolize the resource side and can control the price with peace of mind. Once the manufacturer finds a new channel provider in the high-profit range, he will be put on hold. Those companies that arbitrarily extend the industrial chain to gain profits will gradually lose their market significance.

In terms of model, everyone can copy each other, but not everyone has supply chain capabilities and offline store integration capabilities. After that, those start-ups in the supply chain will have a short period of happiness. Instead of directly serving the C-side, they will streamline and optimize the industrial chain. C-end service providers don't have to be sad. They focus on the community and become a community chain store to digitize and standardize the entire service and transaction.

The market capacity of the aftermarket is objective and there are many opportunities

According to public data, there were nearly 170 million cars in China in 2015. According to the annual maintenance and other consumption scale of about 5,000 yuan per car, the automotive aftermarket also has a super large market capacity of nearly one trillion yuan. It is estimated that in 2017 over a trillion scale.

Aftermarket services are actually in a seller's market, and high-quality offline service stores are still scarce. There is still a phenomenon of "bullying people" in unified and standardized 4S stores. Inflated prices are often replaced by replacements. For users, there is no other choice but to recognize "slaughter". Not to mention roadside shops that are not in the 4S system, prices and services are difficult to guarantee. Perhaps because many entrepreneurs saw this market pain point, they rose to the challenge and optimized the industry transaction process in the "Internet +" way. We can see that under the pressure of these entrepreneurial teams and new models, the traditional Market service providers are no longer our only option.

A car is a means of travel, and its performance is closely related to driving safety, so it is imperative not to be careless in key services. The way of online platforms fighting traffic and orders is completely different from the real user needs. After-car service is a heavy consumption offline, and everything should be focused on the specific service items that the center gathers offline. Unlike light services such as car washing and beauty, you can wash it again if it is not clean. If there is a problem with maintenance or repair, the consequences involved are unimaginable. After-car service, especially in service links such as auto parts and sheet metal, price will not be the decisive factor for consumers. Relatively speaking, assured and guaranteed service is the future.

In short, those who encounter a crisis in the post-market start-up in the early stage need to focus on the offline, and place the core scene of the service offline. We can predict that after-market entrepreneurs with offline resources and capabilities will see hope in 2016. Those traditional aftermarket service providers who understand that online is only the entrance will also usher in the spring.

What excites the majority of entrepreneurs is that so far, there are still no giants in the aftermarket, and no players with absolute resource advantages have emerged.

At present, the entire automotive aftermarket is still very imperfect. First, there are no giants; second, there are no standards; third, traditional service providers have not been completely transformed. Fourth: the above problems are still industry problems and need to be solved. In 2016, mergers and acquisitions, the establishment of vertical trading platforms by traditional service providers, the stop of burning money, and offline resources being king will become trends. The market has its own development rhythm. Whether entrepreneurs can step on the midpoint depends on the market's sense of smell and Professional judgment.

Entrepreneurs that do not have the ability to expand their territory do not need to die. The starting point determines the direction. The original intention of starting a business is to solve problems reasonably. Those martyrs who have fallen have used their deaths to prove that they were out of time and eliminated. The "metabolism" of the market mechanism confirms the progress of the industry.