Li Jiaqi is popular. With the support of his "all girls", on the day of "Double Eleven" in 2019, the number of online viewers in his Taobao live broadcast room reached 36.82 million, leading to a transaction volume of more than 1 billion yuan.
So, under the leadership of this "top streamer", anchors are doing their best on Taobao, Pinduoduo, Douyin, Kuaishou, and any platform you can think of. Selling goods everywhere. After all, if you can become the next Li Jiaqi, selling short a month or even a quarter of inventory in fifteen minutes is not a dream.
Under this trend, cosmetics, clothing, daily necessities, snacks... almost any product that can be used in life can be put into the live broadcast room. Even on Douyin, a live broadcast of an Internet celebrity dog ??sleeping can receive hundreds of thousands of online views at the same time. During this period, the number of orders for dog food and other pet supplies is also increasing. It seems that for a while, no matter what you sell or how you sell it, as long as you put on the mask of online live broadcast, you can achieve good results.
And recently this strong wind has also blown into the automobile industry. Now affected by the epidemic, selling cars online has indeed become the most important thing for various car companies, whether they like it or not.
Since the resumption of work on February 3, many brands have launched online car sales businesses for a month. So this month, has the emerging live broadcast industry played any role in the traditional car selling industry?
Sales are still falling sharply
But unfortunately, judging from the current data, the effect of live broadcast is not obvious for cars.
According to recent data released by the Passenger Car Association, from February 1st to 9th, the average daily sales volume of passenger cars in China was 811 units, a year-on-year decrease of 96%; from the 10th to the 16th, the average daily sales volume was 811 units, a year-on-year decrease of 96%. 4,100 units, although there was an increase, it was still a year-on-year decrease of 89%; from the 17th to the 23rd, the average daily sales increased again to 5,411 units, a year-on-year decrease of 83%. As of the first three weeks, cumulative sales in February were only 73,876 vehicles, a year-on-year decline of 89%.
If the 18% year-on-year drop in China's auto sales in January was just the tip of the iceberg, then the nearly 90% drop now is enough for people to see the true power of the epidemic. Under such a market background, the sales volume of various car companies is naturally self-evident.
The actual role of live broadcast at this stage is far from the original intention of the car companies.
In fact, a month ago, when major car companies just launched their online businesses, automotive industry analyst Zhang Xiang told First Electric Network that the e-commerce model is very important to the automotive industry. , the effect will not be very great, especially during the special period of the epidemic. During the current epidemic, everyone is responding to the central government's call to reduce travel as much as possible. No matter when, the purpose of buying a car is to travel, so the proportion of online car purchases is very small.
At the same time, aside from the epidemic, there are also big problems from the perspective of the automobile e-commerce model. Zhang Xiang believes that at present, car companies have relatively large investments in dealers. To establish a physical store requires an investment of several million yuan or even hundreds of millions of yuan. Therefore, car companies still have to give priority to the interests of dealers. What is obvious is that , the higher the sales volume of the dealer, the more money he will make. So this is a very difficult problem to solve in the short term.
"Offline + online" may become the mainstream in the future
However, just from the sales results of one month during the special period, it cannot be concluded that online e-commerce and the automobile industry will really be the same. "Bazi incompatibility". In fact, for Chinese people who have long been accustomed to online shopping, "online car buying" is still a model that has yet to be developed.
McKinsey Consulting Group conducted a survey on Chinese consumers in 2019. The results showed that when consumers are ready to buy a new car at a dealership, they have already obtained 90% of the vehicle's information. Among them, in-person test driving is still an important factor in deciding whether consumers buy a car, and more than half of the respondents said they hope that dealers can send cars to their homes for test driving.
Just imagine, after you have collected a lot of information and comments from people around you, and set your sights on a car model, if the dealer or manufacturer can deliver the test drive vehicle to your door, then For most consumers, there is really no need to go to the store.
A study of global automakers by KPMG also showed that by 2025, 30% to 50% of retail locations around the world will be cancelled.
Judging from the current seriousness of various car companies in live broadcasting, perhaps the online car sales model will continue to be retained after the epidemic is over.
For example, Yu Jingmin, deputy general manager of SAIC Motor Passenger Vehicles, who left the company in person some time ago, said, “In the face of the epidemic, we must fight the epidemic with all our strength and communicate well with our users, so I pulled Let’s try it together, including live broadcasts and short videos.” Although Yu Jingmin believes that it is not yet possible to answer whether they have any real effect, but from the original intention, even after the epidemic, “live broadcasts and short videos” can still play a role in promoting brands. And the role of "good communication with users". "Online live broadcast is a very typical way of direct communication. The epidemic will play a boosting role. This has become a trend."
The leadership of SAIC is over here, and the Volkswagen over there is more comprehensive.
In February, Volkswagen specially hired experts from Alibaba Group and Taobao to provide a three-day online training course for its 50,000 sales staff to show dealers how to use social media, produce videos and live broadcast events.
Geely Automobile seems to have already tasted the sweetness when it comes to live selling cars. Geely, which also launched online ordering and door-to-door delivery services in February, said that in the first week of operation, its online sales orders increased five times compared with the same period last year, and searches for related models on Geely's official website increased by 75%. times.
As for the conflict between the interests of e-commerce models and dealers, developed regions such as the United States and Europe have set precedents for us. In the United States, franchise agreements require major car companies to sell cars only through dealers, even shutting out Tesla, which adopts a direct sales model. Under such circumstances, many automakers have adopted online sales through their dealers, such as General Motors' Shop Click Drive.
In Europe, Volkswagen spent two years negotiating with dealers and reached consensus on a model in 2018. Under this sales model, Volkswagen will distribute Integrate merchants into the company's digital service channels and share 10% of online revenue with them. Although most car buyers still prefer to buy cars in person, it must be said that these are very powerful attempts.
Source: First Electric Network
Author: Wang Rui
This article comes from the author of Autohome Chejiahao and does not represent the views and positions of Autohome .