At the beginning of this year, Tesla's high-profile announcement of price cuts triggered a lot of "shock" in the new energy automobile industry. In March, the price reduction of "Dongfeng series" fuel vehicles set off a "price reduction tide" in the automotive industry. Today, the "price reduction tide" of new cars is still continuing, and more than 3 car brands have "entered the war".
The price reduction of new cars will inevitably affect the retention rate of second-hand cars. Therefore, the price fluctuations in the new car market were quickly transmitted to the second-hand car market, and some second-hand car dealers said that they were afraid to collect cars casually.
March was originally the peak season of the market, and as the weather warmed, people's travel demand was also increasing, but the actual situation in the market was that some consumers held coins and waited and waited, and second-hand car dealers were more cautious in collecting cars. According to the survey, the price war in the new car market led to an average price drop of about 3% in the used car price in March. According to data from the China Automobile Dealers Association, the trading volume of the national second-hand car market in March was 3.5 million units, an increase of 3.156% month-on-month, and the growth rate was lower than the same period in history.
However, some experts said that the impact of the new car price war on the second-hand car market is mainly reflected in the quasi-new car, and the price of second-hand cars with a longer age is relatively stable, and the overall market impact is controllable. After the end of the limited-time subsidy, it is expected that the market will gradually recover in the future. In addition, compared with external factors such as new car price reductions, internal factors in the used car industry have a greater impact.
For a long time, the lemon effect of "bad money driving out good money" in the second-hand car market has always been a pain point restricting the rapid and high-speed development of the industry. At present, the domestic second-hand car industry transactions are still dominated by the traditional second-hand car market, and are still dominated by more than 10,<> small, medium and micro car dealers, but their business scale, vehicle condition standards, trading methods, transaction efficiency, and after-sales service levels are uneven.
In February this year, the China Consumers Association released the 2 National Consumer Association Complaints Acceptance Analysis Report, showing that second-hand car transactions are not transparent, such as second-hand car intermediaries deliberately concealing information such as the true mileage, maintenance records, accident records and other information of the vehicle, or failing to fulfill verification obligations, resulting in damage to consumers' rights and interests.
In the eyes of the industry, to solve this pain point, the second-hand car industry needs to accelerate its transformation, continue to improve in terms of service, and help build market integrity. Among them, large-scale data accumulation is crucial, without large-scale second-hand car condition, transaction and maintenance data accumulation, it is difficult to provide consumers with guaranteed services.
At present, the industry is also working hard to eliminate consumers' concerns about buying used cars. For example, recently, Guazi second-hand car has been fully upgraded to a third-party trading platform, working with 10,000 certified merchants across the country to bring new car purchase services to consumers, and the platform provides real car condition protection, transaction protection and after-sales protection.
In terms of ensuring authenticity, the platform strives to avoid major accidents, fires, and flooded vehicles by restricting merchants to disclose real vehicle conditions, supervising merchants' 1-to-1 video inspections, providing free claim records, and conducting free re-inspections of vehicles before departure. In terms of transaction protection, the platform intermediaries guarantees, and the test drive is not satisfied for seven days without reason to return the car, and only after satisfaction will the platform call the merchant. In terms of after-sales guarantee, the platform promises a 30-day comprehensive warranty, a 1-year/2,<>-kilometer warranty, and a full lifetime refund of major accidents, fires, and water-soaked vehicles.
It is worth mentioning that the policy level is also making efforts to promote the healthy development of the second-hand car industry. From the implementation of the second-hand car transaction registration "cross-province through-office" and the "electronic" file transmission in 2021, to the national cancellation of the National V second-hand car restriction last year, to the implementation of policies such as separate endorsement of transfer registration and issuance of temporary number plates from October 10 last year, a set of policy combinations to promote the development of the second-hand car industry has been formed, breaking through the key blocking points of the large circulation of the second-hand car market in the national market.
Industry insiders pointed out that under the promotion of policies and the efforts of industry enterprises, the second-hand car market will gradually change the stereotype of consumers and achieve coordinated organic interaction with the new car market. In addition, when the "price reduction tide" of new cars recedes, the collection and sale prices of second-hand cars will fall, and their consumption threshold will be reduced accordingly. Driven by many factors, second-hand car sales are expected to show an upward trend, thereby better promoting consumption growth.
Yang Zhaokui