As the end of the year approaches, the smoke of a "price war" in the domestic car market is intensifying, and the pressure on car dealers is doubling. However, Autohome has decided to further expand its "selling cars" business in the future.
"In 2023, Autohome Space Station completed its offline layout in 20 cities across the country. Next year, we will continue to expand our layout and plan to complete the offline layout of 50 Autohome Space Stations nationwide. By the end of 2025, we will complete the offline layout of 100 cities." On December 21, the day the 20th Autohome Space Station settled at the Beijing Automotive Museum, Yang Song, Senior Vice President of Autohome and Chairman of Tiantian Paiche, said in an interview with the Daily Economic News.
In Yang Song's view, the characteristics of the automotive industry determine that offline terminal stores are a necessity, but new energy vehicles have a decrease in after-sales revenue based on the characteristics of electric vehicles, and the cost of selling terminal stores is very high.
"In the past three years, there have been over 5000 stores of various brands that have entered supermarkets in China. The profit and loss point of these supermarket experience stores is about 40 vehicles per month. Currently, very few single brand stores can reach this number, and a large number of stores are operating at a loss," Yang Song told reporters.
Xiao Zhengsan, Vice President and Secretary General of the China Automobile Distribution Association, has also publicly stated that the current automobile distribution industry has entered a period of deep adjustment, with high dealer inventory and forced to trade price for quantity. This growth in sales comes at the cost of sacrificing benefits or profits.
Even though dealers face significant cost pressures, the existing car purchasing experience for consumers is not user-friendly on the consumer end: there is a lack of multi brand aggregation scenarios, a lack of publicly available product technical parameters, inability to compare products from different brands horizontally on site, and the need to spend a long time traveling to multiple stores to purchase a car... This resource mismatch has become a clear obstacle to car marketing, and is also a pain point for users, It is also a pain point for OEMs and distributors.
"At present, the cost of acquiring customers is becoming increasingly high for automotive OEMs, and more effective and efficient conversion methods are needed to maintain profitability. The previous value of Autohome was to be able to sell higher quality 'seawater' to OEMs and 4S stores, that is, lead delivery; while Autohome's space station goes further, directly delivering orders and conversions for them. In other words, directly delivering results, that is, purified 'sea salt'." Yang Song believes that this is the significance of the existence of the Autohome space station.
Since September 2022, the first Autohome space station has been established in Shanghai. Based on the local penetration rate, market size, population, and economic data of new energy vehicles, Autohome has been exploring for a year. In May of this year, the second space station was opened in Haikou. Subsequently, it quickly replicated from September and completed offline layout in 20 cities across the country in about three months.
According to the reporter's understanding, at the Autohome space station, consumers can experience naked eye 3D 1:1 car viewing in the holographic cabin, gaining a deep understanding of the interior of the car model and the three electric systems, and experiencing on-site comparative test drives of more than 40 mainstream car models... By promoting some pre-sales marketing and service work, consumers are encouraged to submit car purchase orders.
However, as the price war in the car market intensifies, dealers and consumers often engage in a game process when purchasing cars. So, how can Autohome Space Station ensure that consumers receive the lowest local prices, while also allowing dealers and car companies to obtain reasonable profits, and still be profitable?
In response, Yang Song said, "For OEMs and dealers, we can reduce the single unit sales cost of past advertising and sales lead purchase models; for consumers, we have the empowerment of a safe ecosystem, which can know the selling price of any local brand or car over a period of time, allowing consumers and 4S stores to achieve a win-win situation."
In Yang Song's view, this sales method can increase profits and reduce costs by handing over the screened and confirmed orders to the host factory or store, who will pay the agreed price. This way, we can help the host factory and dealers reduce unnecessary intermediate links.
"For example, in the past, it used to take 10 customers to enter the store to sell a car, but now if 5 people enter the store to sell a car, the increase in sales conversion rate can increase profits." Zhou You, Vice President of Autohome, revealed to reporters that the monthly operating data of Autohome's space station stores is 5-10 times the industry average monthly sales of car dealerships.
According to reporters, in addition to expanding its presence in the domestic market, Autohome Space Station also plans to go global in the near future. "The overseas business map of the space station will be expanded to five continents to help more domestic host factories conduct business overseas," said Yang Song.