Tucki is going to start a 4S shop, and it will finally sell cars seriously.

Not long ago, there was a news in Tucki. There are media reports that Tucki is going to start work on its direct stores and transfer them to dealers.

At first glance, it sounds wrong. Is Tucki preparing to break away from the new forces?

After all, the direct mode is a unique label of Internet car makers. You see, Tesla, Ideality and Weilai are all proud of their direct stores.

Isn’t it only those traditional car companies that like to make such old-fashioned things as dealers?

But in Brother Neck’s view, this is definitely a good thing, and it just shows that Tucki knows how to sell cars.

First of all, it must be made clear that Tucki is not 100% directly operated. As early as 2019, Tucki opened up dealer cooperation, but direct sales have always been a big deal. By the beginning of this year, the ratio of direct sales stores to dealer stores in Tucki was 7: 3.

This time, Tucki is going to cut down some direct stores with poor performance, and then increase the number of dealer stores, and change the ratio to 5: 5, or even more dealer stores.

So it is not to give up direct marketing, but to engage in both.

Why do I say it’s a good thing? Because these two models have their own advantages and disadvantages, they can complement each other when combined.

At the beginning, car companies sold cars. As we all know, there is only one model of dealers, which is what we call 4S shops. This is also the most mainstream sales model now.

Dealers such as 4S shops buy cars wholesale from car factories and then sell them to consumers.

This benefit is obvious. Car companies only need to build cars, instead of spending cost and energy to find customers and open stores. Sales, maintenance and repair are all done by dealers.

Dealers who sell cars also make a lot of money. Some leading enterprises have a revenue of hundreds of billions a year.

However, this model has a problem of egg pain. In order to sell more cars, dealers give different incentives. The same car has the same configuration, and it is normal for different 4S stores to have different prices.

I am a person who wants to buy a car. Before buying a car, I don’t have to shop around (brands). After I finally choose the model configuration, I have to shop around (dealers). It’s tiring to think about it. . .

The price is opaque and the service is not uniform, and everyone has long been tired of this sales model.

At this time, Tesla took the lead in developing a direct sales model: unified pricing nationwide and transparent after-sales service. I won’t talk to you about those petty tricks.

The key is that for new brands, the direct marketing model can promote themselves well.

Dealers’ 4S stores are generally located in the automobile city on the edge of the city. At that time, the automobile city was full of powerful fuel vehicles. If Tesla goes there, it will take a long time to get it accepted by the public.

Therefore, in order to make a name for itself, Tesla opened the store to the mall. Where there is a large flow of people, drive there, and highlight one to show yourself.

The sales in self-operated stores are also their own employees. They are not only selling cars, but also responsible for promoting their own brands, which is also an important difference between direct sales and distribution.

When you go to a traditional 4S shop, there is only one purpose for sales around you, that is, to let you buy a car; But when you go to a direct store, even if you don’t buy a car, the salesman is willing to tell you what kind of company this is and what the product concept is.

In this respect, Brother Neck has a deep understanding. Once before, in a Tesla store, sales chatted and introduced the company’s vision to me. . .

Therefore, after Tesla, those new power brands that have just debuted have started the direct mode. Today, if you walk around the mall, there are more shops selling cars than mobile phones.

However, the direct mode has not always been a fragrant bun.

When you first joined the company, the more direct stores, the better. But when the number of shops reaches a certain level, the cost-benefit problem of these shops has to be considered.

The store manager of a supermarket told me that their store rents more than 3 million yuan a year, and this piece can’t be earned by selling cars. If we count the manpower and other costs in the store, it is simply beyond our means.

　"None of our supermarkets make money, and everyone is losing money. "　

According to statistics, a new brand needs nearly 1 billion yuan to cover more than 200 major cities in China. This is only the initial cost, and the continuous operation in the later period is even more bottomless.

Even Tesla is adjusting the layout of direct stores.

In 2013, Tesla opened China’s first store in Beijing, Beijing Qiaofufang Grassland Store. Last year, Tesla took the initiative to close the store.

According to the statistics of Sohu Auto, from September 2021 to December 2022, Tesla’s experience stores were reduced from 60 to 40 in the four major cities of Guangzhou, Guangzhou and Shenzhen.

Even Tesla can’t carry so many stores, so it is conceivable that Tucki needs to start work on the sales side. Well, at this time, the benefits of the dealer model are reflected.

Dealers, like reservoirs, can share the pressure of direct stores for you, and you don’t have to consider the stores and sales costs.

Moreover, dealers bring stable cash flow.

General dealers pick up cars, and hundreds of millions call car companies in minutes. Car companies collect money here, but they don’t have to pay the parts suppliers immediately. There are at least a few months or even a year between accounts.

In this way, Bai Piao’s cash-flow car companies can do more with money.

In addition, for car companies, dealers can hold the risk of inventory for you.

You must know that even if you are 100% direct, you can’t guarantee that you have no inventory at all. Compared with the old model, the price of the new Model 3 has increased by 28,000. Many people think that Tesla should clear the old stock first and then reduce the price.

More importantly, more people will help you sell your car, which will help you to increase sales. After all, since last year’s "Waterloo" of G9, Tucki’s sales have been sluggish for a long time.

These benefits should not be too fragrant for Tucki.

In order to find out Tucki’s operation this time, Brother Neck visited some Tucki stores and chatted with some related people. I found that Tucki’s purpose this time is simple — — Just to open the market in the third and fourth lines.

You know, most of the sales in Tucki now come from the first and second tier.

Take P7 as an example. According to the statistics of Geshi Automobile, from January to August in 2022, the TOP10 cities contributed 52% of the sales.

In these cities with good sales, Tucki’s outlets are close to saturation.

Tucki official website shows that in Guangdong and Zhejiang, where first-and second-tier cities are densely populated, almost every prefecture-level city has Tucki outlets; In places like Guangxi and Anhui, only two or three cities have outlets.

A self-operated store staff in Tucki, Zhejiang Province told Brother Neck:

　"Tucki, a first-tier city, basically comes by itself, and about 90% of the shops are self-operated; In second-tier cities such as Ningbo and Shaoxing, the proportion of self-operated and dealers is almost half.

Now the places that sell well are basically divided, and there may not be many areas in Zhejiang Province that are open to join. "　

Another Jia Ge, who works in a dealer in Tucki, said that those who can get these good positions are all the top big dealer groups without exception.

Jia Ge’s dealer joined Tucki four years ago. Interestingly, what this dealer is doing in the local area now is a supermarket that doesn’t make money.

According to Jia Ge, their company keeps this Shangchao store, in fact, it is more to maintain a good relationship with Tucki, because they have stores that can make money in other first-and second-tier cities.

After the saturation of the first and second tier, what Tucki wants to expand now is basically the third and fourth tier cities.

Brother Neck directly consulted the staff in Tucki in the name of opening a store. The other party said: Now it is mainly like the third-and fourth-tier cities. In small and medium-sized cities that have no outlets, you can apply for a try if you don’t reach the official threshold. We will conduct several rounds of evaluation before deciding whether to let you do it.

Conditions set by Tucki for dealers

In order to attract dealers to join, Tucki has also provided some policy support, such as giving some subsidies to open a shop.

Because of the national unified pricing policy, dealers sell Tucki vehicles and earn commissions. People in Tucki said that if the quarterly sales volume reaches the target, there will be a rebate. At present, dealers can get an average commission of 6 points, and the highest one can get more than 9 points.

A former employee of the sales department of a car company told me that this commission ratio is a good level in the industry.

In addition, Tucki also loosened some holes in after-sales service.

In fact, for most dealers, selling cars is not their main source of money, but after-sales business is the bulk of profits, which often accounts for 70% of the total profits of a 4S shop.

For new energy vehicles, after-sales is a fragrant bun. Because there are a lot of restrictions on the current car warranty, you can only go to the official after-sales point for maintenance and car repair.

Previously, the dealers in Tucki had to start from Shangchao Store, and only when they had done a good job could they gradually come into contact with after-sales. Now, Tucki has released the authorization of the 4S store which integrates sales and service. Of course, if you want to do after-sales service in Tucki, you must sell it cars first.

In third-and fourth-tier cities, Tucki also knows that it may be difficult for dealers to sell cars at first.

Therefore, they allow you to carry out light capital operation first, and you can open a small store first without having to start the whole large 4S shop. At the same time, after-sales maintenance can be operated together with other brands, which means that while you are repairing Tucki cars, you can also repair other vehicles and do business together.

Brother Neck learned from an insider that this kind of operation is not common in the brand of new power.

As far as these open policies are concerned, I think Tucki’s idea of sinking the market is no problem, because it is different from Weilai or Ideal, and the unit price of models is not that high.

Some time ago, it also had a wave with Didi PY, going to the 150,000 level to seize the market.

For Tucki, the sooner the channel sinks, the better.

However, as far as I know, some dealers are not willing to go to the third and fourth lines.

Jia Ge (not his real name) said that his company basically wouldn’t go to third-and fourth-tier cities to do business in Tucki, because a 4S shop has a high investment, and in those small places, it may not be able to sell 20 cars a month, making it difficult to make money.

But in any case, Tucki’s open policy is a positive signal.

As for whether to go direct or distribution, it is necessary to dynamically adjust according to the current situation. There is no difference between the two sales models in essence. Whether it is a white cat or a black cat, it is important to catch mice.

Fortunately, during this period, some positive changes are taking place in Tucki.

In January this year, He Xiaopeng invited Wang Fengying, the former second-in-command of Great Wall Motor. This traditional autobot is also helping Tucki to get on the right track.

Let me give you an example. Tucki, which emphasizes intelligence, didn’t even give you an ACC adaptive cruise on the entry-level model of G9 that went on the market last year.

This year, we saw that the definition of models, whether the P7i, the 2024 G9 or the G6, has been much better, and there are not so many complicated and difficult configurations, and the advantages of product strength have also come up.

And this time, the adjustment of sales channels was also done by Wang Fengying.

In the past two days, some media reported that Tucki was carrying out anti-corruption in the supply chain, and the head of the procurement department had been suspended.

All these signs indicate that Tucki has found its own rhythm and is getting better.

Therefore, the sales volume in Tucki has also followed up. According to the data disclosed by Weibo blogger @ Sun Shaojun 09, the order in Tucki in September was close to 30,000.

It seems that in the remaining months of this year, Tucki is really going to rush.