Recently, the price of shared bicycles and shared charging treasures has increased-
Why "shared" consumption is not cheap
Our reporter Wang Wenzheng
Shared bicycles, shared cars, shared power banks, shared offices, shared umbrellas, shared massage chairs... The development of the shared economy has facilitated the lives of residents and improved the allocation efficiency of social resources.
However, recently, consumers have discovered that major sharing economy brands have successively adjusted prices, and many "sharing" consumption is becoming more expensive.
What are the reasons behind the price increase?
How to promote the long-term healthy development of the sharing economy?
This reporter conducted an interview.
"With the money of renting two charging treasures, you can buy a new one"
Shared bicycles are a representative form of China's sharing economy, and many consumers have formed stable consumption habits.
In major cities in China, the scale of shared bicycle operation is very large.
Taking Beijing as an example, according to statistics from relevant departments, in the first half of 2022, the operation scale of Internet rental bicycles in Beijing reached 995,100, with a cumulative number of 418 million riders and an average daily ridership of 2,311,700, a year-on-year increase of 14.52%.
The average vehicle turnover rate was 2.92 times per vehicle, a year-on-year increase of 24.52%.
All enterprises actively responded to the local government's order management needs, with an average daily operation and maintenance force of 1,474 people, 139,800 vehicle-times stacked, and 72,600 vehicle-times dispatched.
In Guangzhou, the average number of daily orders for shared bicycles increased from 1.02 million in the second half of 2019 to 1.72 million in the first half of 2021, and the average daily turnover rate of vehicles exceeded 3.5 times per vehicle.
"Shared bicycles are the most efficient connection tools between homes, companies and subway stations and bus stations, connecting the 'first mile' and 'last mile' for commuters to commute." He lives in Haidian District, Beijing, and works at his workplace He Yifan, a Beijing citizen in Xicheng District, said that he scans and rides bicycles with his mobile phone almost every day, which is indeed convenient for travel.
At the same time as the speed of travel, the price of shared bicycles has recently changed.
Wang Xiao, a white-collar worker in Shanghai, started riding shared bicycles in 2015. "It was very cheap at first. It only cost a few cents for a ride in college, and a monthly card of 9 yuan can be used to ride. The money on shared bicycles is more and more, it first rose to more than ten yuan, and now it has risen to tens of yuan, which is not cheaper than taking the bus." Wang Xiao really feels the increase in the cost of shared bicycles.
In January of this year, Hello Travel took the lead in adjusting the price, increasing the 7-day card to 15 yuan and the 30-day card to 35 yuan.
Since then, other brands of shared bicycles have also adjusted their prices.
The reporter learned that the current riding cost of several mainstream shared bicycle brands has risen to about 10-15 yuan for 7 days, 25-35 yuan for 30 days, and 75-90 yuan for 90 days.
In the field of shared consumption, it is not just bicycles that have increased prices.
The reporter combed and found that before 2019, the hourly rent of charging treasures shared by mainstream brands was mostly about 1 yuan per hour. After 2019, the industry rent level has entered the "2 yuan era", and now it is entering the "4 yuan era" from the "3 yuan era". ”, the free time limit has been reduced from 30 minutes to 3 minutes or even shorter, and the capped price has risen from 20-30 yuan to nearly 100 yuan.
"The charging time is slow, the price is high, and the duration is uncontrollable... Just like the 'ice cream assassin', the power bank also has an 'assassin'." Zhang Xuan took the whole family on a self-driving tour around Beijing not long ago.
"I am most afraid of running out of power on my mobile phone when traveling, but the shared charging treasures in restaurants, supermarkets, scenic spots and other places are very expensive, and 'it's easy to borrow but not easy to pay back'. I often encounter charging cabinet failures, no vacancies, etc., so I can only continue Billing." Zhang Xuan said, "The money spent on renting a power bank twice can buy a new one."
Rising costs, increasing concentration, and jointly promoting price increases
Why the price increase?
Several major shared consumer brands have mentioned the cost factor.
Some institutions estimate that the transaction scale of China's sharing economy market will be nearly 3.7 trillion yuan in 2021, a year-on-year increase of 9.2%.
At the same time, the cost of production, operation and maintenance, and depreciation in the operation of the sharing economy has risen, thereby driving up the price of shared consumption.
In addition, behaviors such as maliciously destroying shared consumer goods, privately locking shared bicycles, and occupying shared massage chairs not only waste resources, but also increase operating costs.
Industry analysts take shared bicycles as an example. Since the beginning of this year, the prices of upstream raw materials such as metals and plastics have risen, and factors such as the fluctuating epidemic situation have led to poor logistics, which have pushed up the manufacturing and maintenance costs of shared bicycles.
The huge number of bicycles scattered all over the city requires a lot of manpower for inspection, repair, transfer, etc., which also constitutes a considerable rigid cost.
Public financial data shows that the industry's leading companies are suffering huge losses.
Regarding the price increase, Hello has explained that the increase in costs such as operation and maintenance and depreciation is an important reason for this round of price increases.
Master Wu, an operation and maintenance staff of a brand of shared bicycles in Chaoyang District, Beijing, said that the parking regulations of shared bicycles are getting stricter and stricter, and it takes a lot of manpower and material resources to place, schedule, and send for repairs.
"The depreciation speed of shared bicycles is much faster than that of private bicycles, and the cost is also much higher. The positioning system and electronic locks alone are not cheap. The broken cars and scrapped cars are dealt with every day. It is not uncommon to see rolling deformation, electronic lock failure or even the whole vehicle falling into the river."
A similar situation also exists in the field of shared power banks.
The reporter learned that, as a kind of energy storage device, the shared charging treasure will have problems such as serious attenuation of charging efficiency and increase of failure rate at high frequency of use, which not only reduces the user experience, but also increases maintenance costs.
In KTVs, bars, tourist attractions and other places with large traffic and few charging facilities, the update and depreciation speed of shared charging treasures is amazing.
At the same time, in order to meet the needs of users to return to other places, platform companies also need to invest in building large-scale rental outlets, and pay a certain percentage of revenue to the business premises where the outlets are located.
Enterprises emphasize the cost factor, and from the outside, the sharing economy has entered the stock competition stage from the previous stage of "staking", which is also an important factor in price adjustment.
Chen Wenfeng, a researcher at the Hunan Academy of Social Sciences, analyzed that the sharing economy platform companies relied on the strong funds of investors in the early stage, and generally adopted competitive strategies such as "subsidies" and "profits", competing to attract consumers with low prices.
When platform companies obtain a stable passenger flow and make users stick to a certain extent, companies want to pursue profitability and often increase prices to cover costs and make profits.
From this perspective, when the concentration of shared consumer brands increases, price increases are expected.
Effectively improve the openness and transparency of pricing rules
What do consumers think about price increases?
"Objectively speaking, the consumption experience of shared bicycles is much better than when they first came out seven or eight years ago. It is more comfortable to ride, and the failure rate is much lower. It is understandable that companies want to make money and raise prices moderately. The key is quality. To keep up." Wang Xiao said.
In the interview, many consumers of shared bicycles said that they can accept price increases within a reasonable range, but they are only worried that when consumption habits have been formed, companies will increase prices substantially or continuously.
"Having a shared bicycle is very convenient, but if it goes up too much, you can't ride it," said a consumer.
Consumers are more dissatisfied with the increase in the price of shared power banks.
Ms. Liu from Beijing said that the price of shared charging treasures of different brands and places varies greatly.
Especially in some restaurants and shopping malls, sometimes when you are in a hurry to charge, you scan the code to take out the power bank, only to find that the price far exceeds expectations when you return it.
"It cost more than 10 yuan to charge for one hour. Is the price a bit high?" In her opinion, the pricing of some shared services lacks standardization, and the pricing rules are not transparent, which makes consumers uncomfortable.
Wen Xingqi, deputy director of the China Industry-University-Research Cooperation Research Center of Wuhan University, analyzed that there is currently no sustainable business model for products or services in the sharing economy, and a complete regulatory system has not yet been established in terms of information disclosure, competition regulation and standardized management.
With the increasing market concentration in some sharing economy fields, some platform companies, relying on their strong market positions, raise prices for goods and services, which may have a negative impact on market order and consumer welfare.
Sustainable "sharing" requires all parties to work together.
How to realize the sound development of stable operation of the enterprise, good user experience, reasonable price fluctuation, and controllable depreciation speed?
Improving the consumer experience is the key.
"The price of shared charging treasures has risen sharply, but the quality has not improved significantly. This is the reason why consumers generally accept the price increase of shared bicycles but are not satisfied with the price increase of shared charging treasures." said Zhang Yi, chief analyst of iiMedia Research.
Platform companies should cherish user resources, work hard to improve service levels, improve user experience, and cover costs in a variety of ways.
During the interview, many experts said that, on the one hand, the sharing economy format should make reasonable use of public resources, and scientifically set the total scale based on market demand and urban carrying capacity to avoid blind expansion and waste of resources; on the other hand, platform enterprises It can improve economic benefits by expanding usage scenarios, increasing usage frequency, reducing operation and maintenance costs, and developing value-added services to achieve a win-win situation for users and platforms.
For example, many bike-sharing companies are currently adjusting their revenue structures and seeking new growth points by optimizing their distribution patterns, placing advertising information, and refining user groups.
From the perspective of the industry as a whole, the healthy development of the sharing economy requires the creation of a fair and orderly market competition mechanism.
Previously, the State Administration for Market Regulation explicitly required some shared consumer brand management companies to clarify pricing rules, strictly implement clear price tags, and regulate market price behavior and competition behavior, including 5 shared charging companies such as Monster, Xiaodian, Caller, Jiedian, and Soudian. Treasure brand.
Since the beginning of this year, the State Administration for Market Regulation has repeatedly emphasized that enterprises in the shared consumption industry must follow the "Price Law", follow the principles of fairness, justice, legality and good faith, and establish a good market price order; strictly implement the main responsibility of enterprises, improve internal governance rules, Effectively improve the openness and transparency of pricing rules, and consciously accept social supervision.
Experts believe that as the sharing economy enters a new stage of development, platform companies, users and regulatory authorities also need to seek a new balance, forming a platform in which platform companies continue to improve supply levels, users consciously care for shared consumer goods, and the regulatory system and industry self-discipline are continuously strengthened. New situation, so as to achieve sustainable development of the industry and truly return to the origin of "sharing".