In the past, driven by Tesla and new forces, the direct marketing model entered the public’s field of vision.
Since then, in order to enhance awareness and other reasons, traditional car companies have also invested in the direct camp when building new brands.
However, with the in-depth contact, the car companies found that the direct operation model is too “laborious”, which is becoming more and more voluminous.
At a time when car companies are forced to land to increase efficiency, it is obviously inappropriate.
As a result, car companies began to reflect on this model.
In the past two years, more and more car companies or brands, such as Teng Teng, Avita, Xiaopeng and Zero run, choose to travel light, re-activate or expand the dealer model, and form a two-track system with direct operation, in order to achieve the goal of complementary advantages.
The cooperation mode of direct marketing and dealers has become a new choice for car companies.
recently, BYD’s Tengli and equation Leopard Automobile brands have announced that they will launch the first batch of channel investment for the whole society and recruit dealers to join.
This means that momentum and equation Leopard will officially return to the dealer model.
Xiong Tianbo, general manager of the Division of equation Leopard, explained to him that equation Leopard has completed 185 stores across the country, and behind each store is a complex site selection, design, construction and other huge projects.
Although it has reached the speed of landing an average of 1 store a day during the peak period, it still receives user information about too few stores to experience.
She believes that the lack of channel points has limited the efficiency of the new brand to users.
Zhao Changjiang, general manager of the Tengli sales Division, has a similar explanation, saying that it is because Teng Teng sales are growing rapidly, the construction of direct stores is slow, and for higher product sales targets, in order to provide services to more and wider regional users, channel transformation is imperative.
According to the data, Tengli has 351 stores in more than 130 cities, mainly in first-and second-tier cities.
After the introduction of dealers, Tengli can quickly enter the sinking market, thus increasing the scale of sales.
Avita, a high-end new energy brand owned by Changan Automobile, also recently announced its return to the dealer model.
According to sources, Avita will change from a direct business model to a dealer model.
At present, Avita will basically turn direct stores into dealer stores, leaving only a small number of direct stores in first-tier cities.
Avita insiders said that it is because this year is the big year of Avita’s products, many products will be launched in the second half of the year, and extended technology products will also come, so they need to be laid out in advance in terms of channels.
Chen Zhuo, president of Avita Technology, revealed during this year’s Beijing auto show that Avita will expand 120 stores this year, and the number of stores is expected to reach about 470,500 by the end of the year.
The new power car companies also began to choose the direct marketing + dealer model.
In September last year, Xiaopeng launched the “Jupiter Project” to adjust the proportion of the two channel models of direct operation and authorized franchise.
the core measure is to gradually replace the direct operation model with the dealer model.
Ledao, the brand of Ulaizi, also plans to open up the dealer model.
In contrast, Great Wall, which had been a dealer model before, chose to expand the direct operation model.
In April, Great Wall launched its direct service brand Great Wall Smart selection, which will test the waters among its two major brands, Wei and Tank, and about 200 retail centers will be launched by the end of this year.
It can be seen that in terms of marketing channels, the above-mentioned auto companies do not adopt an one-size-fits-all approach, but adopt a cooperation model of direct marketing + dealers.
In fact, this is also the result of the actual verification of car companies, the direct operation and dealer model is not a black-and-white mutually exclusive relationship, reasonable use may be able to maximize benefits.
Photo source: the Great Wall wisely selected, how do car companies strike a balance? Since Tesla opened its first new energy car store in Beijing in 2013, new power brands such as Wei Xiaoli have followed suit, opening a new direct racing track for car sales.
Why does the new power tend to run directly owned stores? The reasons include serious solidification of dealer model, opaque price, and high user access rate of direct operation mode, transparent and unified price, which is also conducive to the building of high-end brand image.
The direct operation model was once regarded as an excellent improved paradigm for the construction of automobile channels.
Musk once said, “working with dealers will not end well.
” He Zhiqi, senior vice president of BYD Group and chief operating officer of passenger cars, said after the launch of equation Leopard 5 last year: “equation Leopard and momentum are all high-end brands.
” High-end brands must emphasize the connotation of brand core culture, and all links should be extreme.
Direct management system in all aspects of management, more able to reflect the company’s strategy, more customer experience or customer interests first.
” This is the reason why not only BYD, but also traditional car companies such as Changan Automobile, Great Wall Automobile, Geely and other traditional car companies build high-end new energy brands.
However, with the in-depth understanding of car companies, it is found that direct stores invest too much and lay slowly, which is not conducive to the expansion of channels, and even affects the scale of sales.
Honda China once estimated that the average annual cost of operating a store in China is 4 million yuan.
If you open three stores in all the key cities, the annual operating cost will be as high as 3 billion yuan.
Whether it is the “second generation” such as momentum, equation Leopard, Avita, or new power brands such as Xiaopeng and Zero run, they have all pointed out the problem of high cost of direct operation.
In addition, the switch to the dealer model is also a key link for car companies to reduce costs and increase efficiency.
As we all know, the competition in the car market is extremely fierce this year.
In order to survive, car companies have no choice but to reduce costs and increase efficiency.
In this context, Zhi Ying stores have become an “encumbrance” of car companies.
Changan Automobile disclosed in its 2023 financial report that Avita lost 3.
693 billion yuan.
For the reason for the loss, Changan Automobile explained that because Avita is in the strategic investment period, it has invested a lot of resources in product research and development, channel building and so on.
If you choose a dealer, or you can reduce the loss caused by channel building.
A dealer pointed out that all along, the automobile industry has followed production and marketing, using prices and promotions to adjust the elasticity of downstream demand, which can maximize benefits and minimize risks for mainframe factories.
When there is a contradiction between supply and demand, the 4S store is the “reservoir” to adjust production capacity.
Take Tesla as an example, although the Tesla-style direct operation model is efficient, the investment cost of the enterprise is high and the fault tolerance rate is low.
Once the product is unsalable, it will be faced with the problem that the factory will stop production immediately and thousands of retail staff will be paid.
Photo source: Tesla, therefore, a channel reform is imperative.
According to industry analysis, direct marketing + dealers aim to complement each other’s advantages.
Dealers can reduce capital investment and management costs, while expanding storesNetwork, covering more second-and third-tier cities, increasing brand exposure and market penetration.
On the other hand, direct marketing is the facade of the brand, which not only ensures high-end tonality, but also has close contact with customers.
However, this is also a great test of the coordination ability of car companies.
Xiaopeng Motor has devoted itself to the reform of sales channels in the past two years, changing from direct marketing to direct marketing + dealer cooperation mode.
Xiaopeng’s operating loss in the first quarter of this year was 1.
646 billion, a significant improvement from last year’s loss of 2.
585 billion, one of the major reasons is the channel reform.
However, the disadvantages caused by this measure are also obvious, including non-uniform pricing, great pressure on dealers, non-uniform service standards and so on.
Prior to this, Xiaopeng Automobile was exposed to the problem of grabbing orders within direct stores and authorized franchise stores.
For example, some users have received sales calls from different dealers many times, and some authorized stores will invite customers to change their car purchase locations on the grounds of greater welfare.
This has also greatly affected Xiaopeng’s brand image and sales situation.
With a lesson from the past, how to avoid going back to the old path of Xiaopeng Motor will be a problem that auto companies need to face in their channel reform.
Does the dealer see hope again? Car companies have returned to the dealer model, which is a rainy day for dealers after a long drought.
Since the beginning of the year, China’s auto market is experiencing a price war, with auto companies driving down terminal prices and further shrinking the profit margins of dealers.
In addition, dealers have to bear the risk of devaluation of inventory cars.
According to the 2023 National investigation report on the living conditions of Automobile Dealers released by the China Automobile Circulation Association, only 27.
3 percent of dealers achieved their annual sales targets in 2023, and the proportion of dealers’ losses was as high as 43.
5 percent.
More and more dealers are in the competition of new energy transformation.
According to incomplete statistics, from 2020 to 2023, more than 7000 car dealers across the country withdrew from the network, including some medium and large dealer groups.
In June last year, the huge group of “first shares of car dealers” was delisted sadly.
At the beginning of 2024, Guangdong Yongao Investment Group encountered a serious crisis, and many of its 4S stores suspended business and suspended the delivery of new cars.
In the face of competition from car companies, dealers of Porsche and BMW can no longer sit still.
In May this year, it was exposed online that some Porsche dealers accused Porsche of “pressing the warehouse” and openly asked the headquarters in Germany for senior executives to give subsidies.
At the heart of the protest is that dealers such as the US East Group want Porsche China to compensate for losses on the sale of new cars.
After the Porsche incident, a blogger revealed that BMW suddenly sent a letter to all dealers and stores, and decided to offer a number of substantial subsidy and relief policies to BMW 4S stores in view of the market background and the huge impact brought by domestic brands.
A related person said: designed to help dealers overcome short-term difficulties and ease business pressure.
Photo: FAW-Volkswagen, and with more and more car companies opening up the dealer model, dealers finally have a chance to catch their breath.
However, it takes good blacksmiths to make good steel, and although car companies open up the dealer model, the barriers to entry are also increasing.
It is understood that Teng Teng in the dealer recruitment stage, higher requirements for the overall quality of dealers, more willing to throw olive branches to BBA dealers, hoping to undertake high-quality dealers from BBA.
Xiaopeng Automobile will merge the automobile trade team of the direct operation system and the user development center team of the dealer system to implement unified management.
In Avita’s channel system, the prices of dealers and directly operated stores are the same, and the role of dealers is more like an intermediary, providing users with better test driving and other services.
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