For auto dealers at the end of the industrial chain, in the face of challenges such as the "best war" in the automobile market, electrification and digital transformation, only by doing a good job of "reducing the burden and improving efficiency" can they grasp the market initiative. And this often requires closer cooperation with the automobile vertical represented by the car emperor. The picture shows the FAW Toyota 4S store in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, where consumers are buying new cars.
Regardless of whether it can hit the all-time record of 30 million new car sales per year, the Chinese auto market in 2023 will undoubtedly leave a deep impression on people. For tens of thousands of car dealers across the country, summarizing the experience and lessons learned in 2023 is a more urgent task at the moment.
According to data released by the China Automobile Dealers Association, in the first half of 2023, the loss ratio of dealers will be 503%, with a profit ratio of 352%, with a flat ratio of 145%γIt is worth noting that due to the high loss of dealers in recent years, the relationship between many OEMs and dealers has changed. As one of the main providers of automobile sales leads, the automotive vertical has also had to embark on the road of transformation with dealer customers and play a more important role in automobile sales.
As early as August 2022, Knowing Chedi, which announced the launch of the CPS model for all dealer members, seems to have anticipated these challenges.
It is understood that the CPS model is "cost per sales", which means that car companies and dealers pay lead fees according to the volume of transactions. Compared with the previous CPT method of simply selling lead services and settling according to the time cycle, the CPS model of Chedi obviously needs to overcome more problems.
At the ** communication meeting held recently, the report card of the promotion of the CPS model in the past year was posted: as of October 2023, the scale of the CPS business has exceeded 260,000 brands, covering more than 110 brands. It is estimated that among the more than 30,000 automobile 4S stores in the country, the product penetration rate of Chedi CPS has been close to 80%.
The left hand is to reduce the burden of the physical store, and the right hand is to improve the efficiency.
CPS has become a form of weights and measures. It measures whether a sales channel generates more value throughout the new car transaction. Mu Yinfei, general manager of Ju Che dealers and effect products, said, "Let dealers invest less energy and generate more transactions", which is the original intention of Chedi to launch the CPS model. In order to cope with the challenges of this year's automobile market and the poor profitability of dealers, the CPS model of Chedi will continue to be upgraded to help auto dealers continue to reduce their burden.
Lu Lansheng, strategic planning manager of Judong car dealership, said that starting from 2021, Knowing Chedi will take the lead in launching the CPS model in the industry and carry out pilot operations in Chongqing.
"For more than three years, we have been studying the needs of car dealers for marketing channels and online services under the new model," he said. This year, our core idea is to act as a booster of growth measurement tools to support the automotive terminal sales process to achieve 'burden reduction and efficiency improvement'. β
Lu Lansheng explained: "The reason why we insist on taking the CPS model as a new standard is because we believe that only based on real cost-effective output can auto companies and dealers see the real contribution of platforms and channels, so as to grasp the initiative to control costs." β
Only when we have crossed the redundant processes and ineffective actions such as low-quality clues and ineffective follow-ups, can we say that the CPS model can help auto dealers 'reduce the burden and improve efficiency'. He said that through the CPS model, dealers can optimize customer acquisition channels, improve sales conversion efficiency, and allow merchants to focus more on improving transaction revenue.
According to the statistics of Chedi, in 2023, the sales contribution of the top car dealers will increase by more than 50%. In order to verify the importance of lead quality and online operation, the company also announced the use of a single dealer group: after applying the CPS model, the dealer's bicycle sales cost has decreased by 10%, and its local market share has increased from 42% to 53%.
After this year's practice, we know which dealers are doing well and what successful experiences are worth promoting. Mu Yinfei said frankly that he hopes to replicate the successful experience in the whole industry and help more dealers improve their operating efficiency and profitability.
When announcing the 2024 dealer membership policy, Knowing Chedi announced that it would upgrade the CPS model of dealer membership products. The relevant person in charge said that on the basis of maintaining the advantage of low transaction costs in the same industry, we will ensure that partners will "improve efficiency and reduce burden" in 2024 through clue flow and efficiency, platform service expansion, assessment index exemption, etc., so as to achieve "real results and real money savings".
According to reports, in terms of burden reduction, while comprehensively optimizing the service sub-index model, we have launched a digital analysis system to help dealers achieve "management burden reduction". In terms of efficiency improvement, taking the customer acquisition link as an example, we decided to launch a new DCC workbench, which can realize the flexible deployment and real-time response of sales consulting services, and accelerate the efficient flow of clues in different places.
Play a combination of "online + offline" to save yourself.
With the adjustment of the industrial structure, China's auto market is showing new changes, and the auto dealers at the end of the industrial chain have been greatly impacted.
This year's ups and downs are eroding the profits of the entire automotive industry. In the view of Shen Jinjun, president of the China Automobile Dealers Association, excessive production capacity release and relatively insufficient market demand have become the main contradiction in the automobile market at this stage, which has led to fierce competition between sellers in the automobile market this year, and finally manifested itself in the form of "** war".
He also said that the new energy vehicle market is developing by leaps and bounds, and the trend of eliminating the advantages of traditional fuel vehicles is becoming more and more obvious, and the OEMs and dealers of traditional fuel vehicles are feeling unprecedented operating pressure.
Previously, the "Insight Report on the Consumption Behavior of New Energy and Fuel Vehicle Users" released by the China Automobile Dealers Association and Chedi showed that among the users of new energy vehicles, users under the age of 30 accounted for 43%. These younger consumers tend to be more receptive to simpler and more transparent ways of selling cars. This means that the Internet platform, the car vertical** and the dealer's offline 4S store must cooperate more tacitly.
According to reports, Knowing Chedi has carried out data co-construction cooperation with nearly 20 auto brands. Through data co-construction, we can not only reasonably label and classify user behavior, but also obtain forward information based on algorithms to capture target users and sales leads more accurately.
After the data is co-built, the entire distribution efficiency is higher, and the burden on the entire dealer side will be lighter in the complete system of data upload and anti-cheating. Mu Yinfei said that the effect of data co-construction on improving the customer arrival rate and transaction rate is very obvious.
On the one hand, consumers are increasingly accustomed to obtaining new car information from online, which requires dealers to improve their online service capabilitiesOn the other hand, automobiles, as bulk commodities, are different from any FMCG, and the final transaction must be completed in 4S stores or showrooms, so offline services cannot be left behind.
For example, many consumers are very concerned about the auto finance policy, and many dealers' comprehensive gross profit margin of vehicle sales rely on financial derivatives, but can the sales consultant explain all the auto finance policies in the store?Mu Yinfei believes that whether online or offline, these service details will directly affect consumers' trust in dealers.
In his view, no matter how the car market develops and evolves, the role of car dealers is still indispensable, and it is necessary to be a good "center of trust" for consumers.
In the era of mobile Internet, the core demand of users is instant gratification. If the consumer completes the selection of the dealer and has a direct contact with the 4S store, it means that the trust relationship between the buyer and the seller has taken a big step forward. Mu Yinfei believes that in this sense, the launch of the CPS model by Chedi is actually to help car dealers extend the "trust center" from offline to online.
As he said, if dealers can fully demonstrate their strength and sincerity and attract the attention of as many users as possible, it is very likely to establish a relationship of trust in advance and greatly improve the probability of the final transaction.
Looking back on the various phenomena of the automobile market in 2023, the running away of auto dealers and the closure of their 4S stores not only seriously affected the development of upstream and downstream enterprises in the automobile industry chain, but also directly led to panic among car owners, which adversely affected the auto brand, which is undoubtedly a signal worthy of vigilance.
Whether it is understanding that Chedi launched the CPS model to drive the transformation of the industry, or the car companies formulated business policies realistically, and the 4S stores actively helped themselves ......In 2024, all parties in the automotive market will reach at least one consensus: only when dealers successfully "reduce the burden and improve efficiency", and the upstream and downstream are harmonious and win-win, can the automobile market achieve profitable, sustainable and healthy development.
China Youth Daily, China Youth Network reporter Xu Yajie text and photo **China Youth Daily.
*: China Youth Daily Travel Weekly.