This article**: Times Weekly Author: Wu Kai.
Recently, Autohome's 20th space station was located in the Beijing Automobile Museum. Autohome said that in 2023, the Autohome space station will complete the offline layout of 20 cities across the country. In the next year, Autohome Space Station will continue to expand its layout across the country, and plans to complete the offline layout of 50 cities and 100 cities by the end of 2025.
Photo by a reporter from Time Weekly.
As the main body of Autohome's offline retail business, Autohome's main business includes one-stop shopping services for new energy vehicles and one-stop services for second-hand car trading. In terms of new energy vehicle business, there are many new energy vehicle brands and models in the Autohome space station, and consumers can learn about the status of multiple models in the store at the same time, compare and purchase.
Regarding the role of the space station in the car distribution system, Yang Song, senior vice president of Autohome and chairman of Tiantian Paiche, said: "The core value of the space station is to build a bridge between consumers, OEMs and dealers, and to unite convenient one-stop car life services, efficient marketing and sales paradigms, real consumer needs and innovative user experience in the same space. ”
The car platform ended up "selling cars".
It is not common for car platforms to sell cars offline, and Autohome space station has attracted much attention as a new retail model.
The Times Weekly reporter learned that the products in the space station are mainly new energy vehicles of various brands, and consumers are urged to submit car purchase orders by promoting part of the pre-sales marketing and service work. Essentially, the space station does not sell vehicles to consumers, but rather the respective car companies or dealers deliver the products and provide after-sales protection.
The Autohome space station will hand over the screened and confirmed orders to the main engine factory or store, and the latter will pay the fee according to the negotiated **. Yang Song told the Times reporter: "In this way, we can help OEMs and dealers reduce unnecessary links in the middle." ”
In a nutshell, the space station is mainly responsible for "processing" consumption leads into orders, and providing orders to OEMs or stores. In addition, after the order is provided on the space station, the delivery and after-sales work of the vehicle still needs to be completed by the corresponding dealer.
We've just evolved from a lead delivery model to an order delivery model. We deliver the order, and the car company or dealer gives us a return. Yang Song said, "The latter work is still completed by dealers." ”
Before the launch of the space station, Autohome had two main business models: on the one hand, there was a large number of advertising cooperation between Autohome and OEMs, and it advertised to enterprises through the Autohome platformOn the other hand, Autohome will provide consumer leads to sales outlets.
In the eyes of industry insiders, the business model of Autohome's space station can be regarded as the evolution and upgrade of the latter business model. But essentially, the space station still plays the role of an intermediary platform.
The role of the Autohome space station and the Autohome online app is the same, which is a platform connecting OEMs, 4S stores and second-hand car dealers. Autohome Space Station provides consumers with an intermediate hub and platform to connect consumers with local 4S stores and second-hand car dealers of major OEMs. Yang Song explained the positioning of the space station.
Backed by Ping An, the information advantage is obvious.
Compared with the traditional car dealership system, the Autohome space station has obvious information advantages.
According to Yang Song, the auto retail market under the Autohome space station** has a number of unique advantages. The most prominent thing is that in terms of **, Yang Song said that the Autohome space station has the lowest transaction of local models**, which can provide consumers with more preferential car purchase information.
The above transaction price information** is provided by Ping An Property & Casualty, a property and casualty insurance company of Ping An of China. According to public information, in June 2016, Ping An invested US$1.6 billion to acquire the shares of Autohome and became its controlling shareholder. Autohome's 2022 annual report shows that Yunchen Capital, a subsidiary of Ping An of China, owns 45 of its own6% of the shares.
In addition, in November this year, Ping An Property & Casualty announced that from November 13, 2023, Long Quan, the former chairman and CEO of Autohome, will officially serve as the chairman and CEO of Ping An Property & Casualty. Subsequently, Autohome announced that Longquan would resign as CEO and retain the chairmanship. The new CEO of Autohome is Wu Tao, who previously served as the deputy general manager of Ping An Property & Casualty.
Autohome said that under the leadership of Longquan and Wu Tao, Autohome will accelerate its integration into the Ping An Group's automotive ecosystem and strengthen the integration of resources within the group.
At the opening of the Beijing space station, Yang Song said that the space station obtained the latest transaction price of local new energy vehicles with the advantage of Ping An Property Insurance, and 80% of the online passenger flow of the space station came from Ping An Property Insurance channel. It is reported that Ping An Property & Casualty is one of the leading auto insurance companies in China. In the first three quarters of this year, the premium income of Ping An Property & Casualty's auto insurance business was 1,5466.1 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 62%。
Some industry insiders told the Times Weekly reporter that property insurance companies can obtain real transactions of regional vehicles through car insurance business, which may provide a more accurate reference for the space station.
In addition to having the transactions of all new energy vehicles in the local area**, Yang Song said that the Autohome space station also has the real driving data of all new energy models, such as battery life, charging speed, power consumption, etc., which can present consumers with the most realistic car use situation. However, he did not disclose any further details**.
Is it friend or foe with the dealer?
The arrival of the Autohome space station has sparked two major thoughts.
The first is the relationship between the space station and traditional dealers, whether it is a competitive alternative or a complementary cooperation.
In this regard, Yang Song said that Autohome's space station is a cooperative relationship with car companies and dealers, rather than a competitive relationship. "We have only evolved from the lead delivery model to the order delivery model, and the rest of the work is still done by the dealer, and we are not a substitute relationship with the dealer, we are an enabling relationship. He told a reporter from Time Weekly.
In addition, the original negotiation between dealers and consumers has become a tripartite cooperation, how to balance their respective interests?
Zhou You, vice president of Autohome, explained that Autohome's mission is to reduce decision-making and transaction costs in the automotive industry, and that the Autohome space station can increase profits and reduce costs by changing the way it is sold.
An increase in sales conversion can increase profits. In addition, we will also reduce additional marketing costs as much as possible through model innovation, including online advertising, offline flyers, in-store service and labor. Zhou You said.
Yang Song added: For OEMs and dealers, the space station can reduce the cost of a single unit sold in the past advertising model and sales lead purchase model. For consumers, with the help of Ping An Property & Casualty, the space station can disclose transaction prices, financial service fees and other information to consumers. "We will not deliberately lower the ** of dealer stores, but give priority to recommending the most cost-effective stores to consumers, so that consumers and dealers can achieve a win-win situation. ”
Autohome revealed that the offline passenger flow of the existing space station is very impressive, with an NPS (Net Promoter Score) of 73%, much higher than the industry average. In terms of car sales, Autohome claims to be able to achieve 5-10 times the sales of local single-brand stores in any city.
Industry insiders believe that in the current stage of accelerated change in the domestic automobile industry, the new business model may bring more inspiration to the industry, which is conducive to improving the operation efficiency of the industry.
The auto dealership industry and dealers at large need to adopt more flexible and innovative business models to boost the current demand for automobiles and accelerate the flow of new and used car markets. Wang Du, assistant to the president of the China Automobile Dealers Association, said. In his view, the Autohome space station has a positive significance for promoting the circulation of the automobile market.
At present, Autohome has opened Autohome space stations in Shanghai, Haikou, Chengdu, Chongqing and other places. According to Yang Song, the Autohome space station will continue to expand its layout nationwide, and plans to complete the offline layout of 50 cities by the end of 2024 and 100 cities by the end of 2025.