Those "invisible" opponents

When Flower Pig came to Changsha, he thought Li was "finished".

He is the head of the operation of "Zhengzheng E Line". This network car company was initiated in Ningxia, and with the high-tech taxi aggregation model, it went from the west to the whole country. At present, it has set up operating points in more than 30 second-tier cities such as Hangzhou, Changsha and Chengdu.

This achievement is not worth mentioning under Didi's offensive.

After Hua Zhu stormed Changsha with huge subsidies, Li and his "Tuo E Line" had no choice but to lose nearly one-third of the drivers and half of the passengers' bills.

The loss and impact also occurred in the "Henghao Special Car" launched in Hangzhou and the "Journey Special Car" launched in Kunming.

These small online car companies have almost no names. They are hidden under the taxi option of the transportation platform. The only scene that intersects with passengers is the check box. The car you started at random may be the service provided by these platforms.

Although this group is hidden, it is big enough.

According to the enterprise survey data, since 20 15, the number of registered enterprises related to network car has increased geometrically. At present, there are 7879 enterprises related to network car. Among them, there are less than 200 online car platform companies that have obtained business licenses.

In terms of market share, Didi is 84%, followed by Cao Cao's trip, T3 trip and the first car about the car. They have capital, background and are already in the spotlight. Ali's maps of Gaode, Meituan and Tencent entered the taxi market in aggregate mode.

According to the forecast of PricewaterhouseCoopers, the market scale of online car rental in China will reach 503.6 billion yuan this year. This market is big enough to flood into multiple players.

And what impact will this group of secret players attached to the traffic platform have on the market structure of online car?

0 1 grew up locally and went to the whole country.

Tuotuo electronic bank was established at the suggestion of Ningxia government.

20 18, Tu Tu e line was originally intended to be an enterprise car in Ningxia. After the evaluation, I felt that the market was too small, so I set my eyes on the 20 19 taxi platform.

First get the national network car business license, and then break through one by one.

Li recalled that there were 30 entrepreneurial groups at that time, and the preparatory work was divided into two lines. Policy line, responsible for docking with the local government, obtaining the local network car business license, and preparing the compliance materials of the opening city; Marketing line, go to the local car rental company to talk about cooperation and persuade drivers to settle in.

After nearly half a year's preparation, Xi became the first city to go online.

"Journey by Car" is an exploration of Kunming Automobile Passenger Transport Group, a transportation group established in 1997, after its performance declined due to travel habits. "From 14, the ticket sales of all buses are declining. It used to be10 billion a year, and now the ticket may have fallen by half. "

I want to be a business van at first, but I still want to do round-trip transportation between two points. But to do this, the only suitable thing is to get a license to operate the network car. Mistaken by mistake, officially entered the game.

Policy is the first threshold to enter the online car market.

Manager Zhou of Tianzhi Hangzhou Branch was deeply impressed by this meticulous supervision. "There are more than 700 pages like system operation, payment method and proof of our fund pool. After handing it in, people from seven departments, including traffic control, should review it at the same time. After the review, these seven departments will take the law enforcement recorder to the branch on the business license for inspection. After meeting the requirements, you will be issued a city card. "

The supervision of a place is the threshold to decide whether to open a city, while the financial strength and business model decide whether to go to the whole country.

The journey is backed by the passenger transport group, and the parent company's business supports more than 60 cities across the country; With limited financial support, Tu Tu E-Bank has only settled in more than 30 cities, avoiding the highly competitive first-tier cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou.

Aggregation mode is the most important entrance of this kind of platform. Both eRent and Didi Taxi claim to be the first wave of access platforms after Gaode launched aggregation taxis.

"At first, we wanted to do a good job in Yinchuan, Ningxia, and then after entering Gaode, we found that the whole country could do it, and we started to do the national market." The operator of e-banking told e-commerce online.

The first attempt about the journey of the car is self-operation. After doing the APP client, I found that the aggregation platform brought more orders. "Now we are not only accessing Gaode, but also doing things like Ctrip and Flying Pig. In the future, the US Mission does not rule out entry. "

02 binding with traffic platform

To aggregate traffic platforms, rules must be established first.

"The first one is about the violation evaluation of service quality, the second is our response evaluation, and the other is the evaluation of the total number of our compliant drivers."

Proper e-line gives people the impression that the score of the assessment will directly affect the ranking of the small platform when users call a car. Insiders of Gaode also responded that in addition to the distance between drivers, the service level will also affect the ranking of the platform in front of passengers.

This makes the connection between the network car company and the traffic platform closer, and E Bank temporarily gives up considering entering other platforms. "What we want now is to be more closely integrated with a big platform to temper our service level."

Zhengtu Automobile also showed its dependence on big platform data and security system. "For example, in terms of driver safety, the big platform will have a security subsystem that can prove whether there is a criminal record, including your credit rating. This system is very powerful and strict. "

There are also many feelings about the assessment of customer complaint rate. "The platform will have an assessment of the customer complaint rate, and each of our brands must have their own customer service."

Corresponding to the scale of the company, there are more than 30 customer services on E-line, and Zhengtu Automobile is equipped with nearly 150 customer service.

In addition, models and service standards also have corresponding requirements. "For example, the pick-up mode of Ctrip and Flying Pig, the mode of urban immediate response, and the service standard have different detailed regulations."

Rules are mainly the bondage of one party to the other. What better reflects the binding relationship between the two sides is "subsidy".

In these online car companies, there will be special activity operation departments to cooperate with the activities launched by taxi aggregation platforms in various cities. Subsidized money, platforms and taxi companies will pay.

Tu Tu Online Banking said that in their company, the cost of subsidizing drivers is almost equal to the labor costs such as operation and customer service. The driver of "Walking with China", another online car-hailing platform, told E-commerce Online that after Didi launched Flower Piglet, Gaode's subsidy was even easier to get than the online car-hailing company.

At all levels, both sides are becoming the same stakeholders, and the same opponents are also obvious.

Hit-and-run driver, humanized service

There is no doubt that Didi is the largest platform for online car rental, with the highest market share, but high cost and low income. The 7-to-7 attendance restriction puts some drivers who yearn for freedom on the opposite side.

Escape and job-hopping began.

Master Zhou is nearly 50 years old and has been running for four years. He drove his own car for the first two years, but later found it uneconomical to rent a car. The rent is 3000 yuan a month, and you can get 1 000 at ordinary times.

The epidemic broke this stability. "If the order is reduced by half and the rent is paid, it will not make money at all." He had to change the car rental company, from BYD to a car subsidized by new energy, slightly smaller than the normal car, and the rent changed from 3,000 yuan to 300 yuan. "Ordinary passengers don't pick cars, especially if they take a taxi alone."

But this kind of car, Didi won't let you run, you can only change the platform. Master Zhou calculated an account. "Although the unit price and order number of Didi are higher than those of small platforms, the rental cost is much higher. After leaving, I can earn two or three thousand more every month. Counting the fuel cost, you can earn an extra 4,000 yuan a month. "

Compared with Master Zhou's diligence and age, people in their twenties care more about the freedom of sports cars.

Didi stipulates for each driver how many orders to take during peak hours, how many days to drive in a month, and how long the sports car should drive at least. "Service score, attendance rate and turnover rate ... if you don't meet the standard, you won't get the list, or the list is getting less and less. Didi makes us look exactly like punching in at work."

Some masters also complained that using their own cars to run Didi will be marked as "drivers on the high seas" in the system, and it is difficult to compete with drivers who rent Didi cars. "People say they are self-employed. How do you compare? "

Small companies find their own value in this gap.

Henghao used cars evaluate their advantages in the competition with big platforms like Didi. "We are more humane."

The E-line gives a more specific explanation. "If it is a big company, the past 400 calls are all robots, and we all communicate with people. For example, the driver said,' I can't get the bill today'. When he said this, his core was hoping for more orders, but he didn't know why. At this time, we will have special operations to help him analyze, look at his account status and find out the reasons. "

Zhengtu Auto also told E-commerce Online that they would set up an operation group in each city, including regional managers, city managers, car controllers, drivers, security officers, bus captains and many other people who communicate with drivers.

The value of another small platform is that drivers who are marked as tails by Didi's entire algorithm system have the opportunity to do it again on different platforms.

"They are compliant drivers themselves, but if their scores are not high for various reasons, they will not take orders at Didi. Coming to our platform may be like playing a game. I may not do well in this respect. I'll start another one. "

Survival and passive competition

Even if there is competition in fact, no platform is willing to put itself on the side of Didi's opponent.

Expanding the market is their common aspiration, and sinking is the best way not to disturb each other. "Our biggest space now is the third, fourth and fifth tier cities."

Henghao Automobile, which originated from Tu Tu E line in Ningxia and headquartered in Hangzhou, took the initiative to avoid first-tier cities from the beginning.

Li feels that the maturity of the sinking market now lies in the changes in the structure of residents. "Those high school students and college students will actually return to their hometowns after finishing college in other places. After returning from first-and second-tier cities, these people will get used to using tools such as online car rental, and the market will start slowly. "

This is also the idea of Didi launching Flower Pig.

In March of this year, Didi launched a low-key pig and entered the sinking market through subsidies and social fission. In July, after four months of operation in Linyi and Zunyi, it began to be promoted nationwide.

The small network car platform, including the proper e-line, has also fallen into this competition.

Some people in the industry who did not want to be named accused China Piglet of disrupting the market. "As we all know, China Piglet attracted a large number of non-compliant drivers from the beginning."

There are also insiders of the small network car platform who believe that the launch of Flower Pig is to counter the share that Didi has been seized by small companies in the aggregation mode.

The impact is obvious. Except Changsha, Tu Tu E-bank responded that the order volume and the number of drivers in almost every city were impacted by Flower Pig.

The only thing that is fortunate is that "the core drivers are still on the platform, leaving those drivers who want to make quick money, because everyone knows that the subsidy will definitely not last long."

Even without pigs, small platforms are still passive in the market. There are giants in the advance, and there are still opponents in the convergence mode in the retreat. Except for a few well-run companies, losses are still the status quo of most people.

In a limited space, the only thing a small platform can do is to improve the degree of refinement of operations. Control costs and provide good service. "In this way, passengers will at least check us next time they take a taxi."

At present, taking Hangzhou market as an example, there are 25 online car brands in Gaode and 9 brands in Meituan. On September 22nd, Tencent Map also announced its entry into the aggregate taxi market. For these small companies, it is still a huge unknown whether the more uncertain competitive relationship of the giants will bring opportunities or challenges. But what is certain is that one vote in their hands can determine the direction of this pattern to a certain extent.

(Original title "Those" Invisible "Opponents", edited by He Shuangling)