According to the new plan of founder Yang Haoyong, Guazi changed the offline mode of YEATION store and moved the second-hand car trading online. Yang Haoyong said that this change will make melon seeds live longer. He didn't want competitors to use this model to fight melon seeds in the future, so he decided to take the initiative to adjust.
Yang Haoyong's worries are well documented. In the United States, the market value of an online trading platform for used cars called Carvana is more than twice that of Carmax, a used car retailer focusing on offline mode. The share price of the former has risen by more than 600% in the past three years, and its latest market value is $465,438+$60.4 million.
However, in this adjustment, the challenges faced by melon seeds are also enormous.
According to the previous fermentation mode, melon seeds are expected to be profitable this year. Now with the adjustment of business, employees need to adapt to the new pace and way of work. Secondly, the transformation of melon seeds into a pure e-commerce model is to convince the original car dealers to settle in the melon seed platform. Finally, whether consumers can accept pure online car purchase is also a new topic for melon seeds.
This is a kind of redistribution of interests, and it is the resolution of contradictions among all parties concerned with melon seeds.
All along, the execution of the melon seed team has been highly recognized by the industry.
From the beginning, Yang Haoyong led this team to "hold high and fight high" and enter the used car industry. During this period, they experienced fierce advertising wars, multiple mode changes and business adjustments. Almost every adjustment, Yang Haoyong and his team suffered many questions, but in the end they became the only ones who survived.
Yang Haoyong told visiting media many times, "The melon seed team is famous for fighting tough battles. Looking at the entire Internet circle, the combat effectiveness of melon seeds is also in the forefront. "
However, no matter how strong the execution is, frequent changes will have an impact on the team for any organization. Especially for melon seeds, it means that the team needs to take a new road to decide the transformation when it is about to make a profit. Business processes, performance appraisal and organizational structure are all facing adjustment.
Therefore, when an organization decides to transform, the first problem to be solved is "people's heart".
"In order to let employees recognize the new direction, before the model adjustment, Hao Yong took his colleagues above the senior director level to lunch almost every day and told them what the new model was about." An insider of Guazi told Titanium Media App that not everyone recognized the road of online transformation at that time, and Yang Haoyong tried to convince everyone that e-commerce was the future of used cars.
In the training room on the second floor of Guazi, Yang Haoyong told different teams about the new models in batches, and each employee listened at least once for two or three hours. Yang Haoyong believes that only by unifying people's thoughts and understanding the internal logic of this model can we proceed to the next step.
After that, the HR department of melon seeds also participated and went to various cities to preach. From management to front-line employees, there have been many rounds of communication to clarify what the company's strategic goals are.
At the same time, investors in melon seeds are also testing whether this pure online second-hand trading model can run through.
"An investor also found someone in the United States to compare the user experience of Carvana and Carmax." According to the above-mentioned sources, after the test, investors found that Carmax's trading model was more confined to the local area, while Carvana's e-commerce model really broke the geographical restrictions and the trading efficiency was much higher than Carmax's.
More importantly, the online mode experience is better, and the trend of users flowing to Carvana is becoming more and more obvious. Carvana's customer satisfaction is 96%, and NPS (net promotion rating) is 83.
In June 5438+10, Guazi chose Tianjin to take the lead in the closed-loop test of e-commerce model, and then expanded to 10 city. After realizing the unification of business model and employees' ideological level, Guazi began to push the e-commerce model to the whole country in May.
Under the new model, employees of Guazi's previous business in YEATION were transferred to online sales, delivery, logistics and so on. The offline stores were demolished from big to small, becoming the city warehouse for offline performances.
In June, in the latest round of $300 million financing of melon seeds, investors also chose to continue to follow up.
Another challenge of melon seeds is foreign-how to make friends with car dealers who opposed it before.
Before melon seeds entered the used car industry, the initial trading mode of this industry was basically "information difference to make money". Because used cars are typical non-standardized goods, the transparency of car conditions and the professionalism of consumers will greatly affect the price of the same car. For a long time, consumers' trust in used car dealers is relatively low.
Based on this industry background, as soon as melon seeds entered the market, they adopted the marketing method of holding high and hitting high, and quickly occupied users' minds by using the overwhelming advertisement of "no middleman to earn the difference". This also means that the relationship between melon seeds and car dealers has since gone to the opposite side. So for a long time, melon seeds and car dealers are competing in all aspects of the transaction.
For example, the earliest C2C direct sales model of melon seeds, car dealers disguised as individual users, or bought and sold a large number of high-quality car sources on the platform of melon seeds. In order to prevent this behavior, Guazi later launched an offline YEATION store to control the source of the car in his own hands, so as to counter the car dealers.
"Before melon seeds come in, car dealers can earn a difference of about 25%. Since melon seeds came in, car dealers can only earn 6%-8% difference. This is why car dealers always hate melon seeds. " A melon seed employee told Titanium Media App.
Now, with the transformation of melon seeds to online mode, the quantity and richness of vehicle sources have become the key to the success or failure of the platform. This also means that melon seeds need car dealers to join in and expand the scale of car sources.
"It is relatively easy for us to change careers ourselves, and the bigger challenge comes from more than 4,000 car dealers we have worked with before." Yang Haoyong once said that at first, almost 80% of car dealers were unwilling to accept the new rule of "seven days without reason" on the platform. So melon seeds can only arrange car dealer BP to convince car dealers.
"The first thing is to talk about feelings, let them believe us and tell them the long-term trend of e-commerce in the future." Yang Haoyong said that in fact, car dealers all know that they want to do business. Originally, car dealers could only sell cars locally, but now melon seeds have the ability to help him sell cars nationwide. Since the era of open platform 1.0, many car dealers have chosen to follow melon seeds.
Believe. They found that the car return rate was acceptable and the sales volume was rising. As a result, I regained the trust of car dealers little by little.
Now, there are more than 6,000 car dealers on the melon seed platform, and the sales of the melon seed platform have accounted for about 30% of the total sales of car dealers. Yang Haoyong believes that when more and more car dealers can earn more money on the platform, the contradiction between melon seeds and car dealers will naturally be resolved, and the road will be easier and easier in the future.
When internal and external interests and contradictions are redistributed, the last link of melon seeds' online success is whether consumers are willing to pay for it. In this regard, the countermeasure given by melon seeds is-dissatisfied, there is no reason to return the car for 7 days. This is also what melon seeds are good at, constantly breaking through the level of after-sales protection in the industry.
Since the beginning of this year, melon seeds have resumed large-scale advertising, including planting in talk show conferences, and invited Luo Yonghao to speak for them. Users can see the slogan "Buy a new used car, try it for 7 days, and return it in full if you are not satisfied" everywhere in subway stations, bus platforms and video websites.
This brainwashing advertisement, after blowing the horn of melon seeds into used cars last time, also opened the door to the transformation of melon seeds e-commerce this time, allowing consumers to re-understand melon seeds.
"You gave me a car, and then I drove for seven days. When I say I don't want it, you'd better not ask me why or argue with me. I don't need to make up excuses, I just don't want them. There is no reason for us to offer such a choice now. We have about 30% of the sales that users have returned and bought again, which is a good experience. " Yang Haoyong told Titanium Media App that this is their future consumption trend. This experience makes melon seeds feel that it should be the end of this industry.
Yang Haoyong believes that in the next five or ten years, the main consumers of used cars will be people aged 25 to 35. When these post-95 s and post-00 s grow into the main consumers of used cars, they will say-why do I need to go to the used car market? Isn't that the way to buy a used car?
Now, after the melon seeds are transferred to the e-commerce mode, the latest buyer user NPS (net promoter score) reaches 43 points. There is still a big gap between this and Carvana's 83 points, but the latter has been doing it for nearly 10 years. Both Guazi and Yang Haoyong are betting on a certain future, and the beginning of the adventure is not bad.
(This article first appeared in Titanium Media App)
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