The sharing economy is almost a term that has spread all over China. Especially in the past two years, around the concept of 'sharing', from cycling to charging treasure, from car to umbrella, the entrepreneurial myth of sharing economy one by one. Even For a long time, for some people, as long as the word 'share' is hung, their entrepreneurial dream will be realized.
But the dream will eventually wake up, and the sharing economy is not a stable sale. Whether it is the frequent sharing of bicycles in Waterloo or the shared charging treasure that has gradually disappeared, let us see a reality. Sharing is indeed a slogan, but the market will not The mind is always hot. The lack of industry standards, the integrity system and the lack of product quality are all restricting the deep development of the sharing economy. But this does not mean that the sharing economy has lost its way, and with the recent launch of Haier' After sharing the model of air conditioning, its understanding and exploration of sharing should be worthy of our consideration.
Multi-party resources to build a shared ecosystem
In the whole 'shared market', sharing home appliances has been controversial. On the one hand, the sharing of home appliances itself makes this market full of possibilities; on the other hand, the loss and quality assurance of home appliances make the industry full of doubts. In fact, looking at the existing shared home appliance brands, most of them stay at the level of selling products with the fresh gameplay 'fancy', and its own business model can be said to be minimal.
When talking about the reason for doing 'shared air conditioners', Feng Zelei, general manager of Haier's home air conditioning ecosystem, said that the core reason is to explore the pain points of users. For Haier 'shared air conditioners', it is different from other brands' wide nets. It is the first to cut the core community of the middle school student group and deepen its needs.
Specifically, the primary application scenario of 'shared air conditioners' lies in the campus, which includes students, universities, operators and other three parties. For students, the demand for air conditioning is almost the need of campus life, but quite Many colleges and universities are not equipped with air-conditioning; for colleges and universities, for the reasons of financial constraints and other reasons, the allocation of air-conditioning for students often does not have priority; from the perspective of operators, the campus service content needs to be updated, but lacks standardization. Mode to improve service quality. Based on the three-party pain point, Haier 'shared air conditioning' model came into being. In other words, Haier 'shared air conditioner' changed the habit of blind shop in the industry, but from the user side, accurately positioned its own service community. .
Jeremy Rifkin, author of Zero Marginal Cost Society, once believed that the future economy will be based on resources and form an inter-connected, shared model. In fact, the original intention of sharing the economy lies in the resource dimension. However, the current status of the industry that is excessively pursuing venture capital financing has neglected the importance of pooling resources. I think this is one of the reasons for the demise of many shared products.
Feng Zelei believes that the construction of an open ecological circle should be regarded as the embodiment of the 'shared air conditioning' differentiation advantage. It is understood that by building a sea-free rental platform, Haier 'shared air-conditioning' will be students, universities, operators, capital parties, credit institutions. And so on, a variety of social resources come together in the same ecosystem. And this state of resource symbiosis is also the core of the 'shared air conditioner' platform model.
On the sea rental platform, users can not only complete online renting, renewal, retreat, relocation, repair, intelligent control, and authority sharing. With the empowerment of funds, credit institutions and other resources, 'shared air conditioners' also solved The problem of assembling air-conditioning funds; in the past, air-conditioning, schools need to purchase and spend a lot of money, but after the introduction of resources, colleges are only providers of application scenarios, and the cost of introducing air-conditioning is the responsibility of the resources.
At the same time, Haier 'shared air conditioner' as the platform builder, it also takes the responsibility of optimizing the ecosystem. In the entire ecosystem, Haier 'shared air conditioner' has realized the transparency of the whole process to ensure that all resources are on the platform. Realizing resource sharing and mutual supervision. Feng Zelei said that this is actually breaking the traditional serial mode of 'product-supplier-user', paralleling users as the center, and the resource parties are no longer separated from each other. So far, The sea enjoyment platform has gathered more than 300 resource parties in 8 major categories.
Mass customization and ecological income appreciation
Let the resource side symbiosis on the platform, the core reason is naturally to obtain user needs and quickly respond to the best solution. 'In fact, for young people, buying home appliances is no longer a hard indicator, especially the student group, the average person per year only Need to bear about 100 yuan, far more cost-effective than buying an air conditioner directly. 'Feng Zelei said that while calculating this account for the student group, Haier 'shared air conditioning' is also changing the mode of the entire product process.
From the manufacturing side, in the past we emphasized that there are orders after the first products, but in the Internet of Things era, destocking and reverse logistics put the user core on the stage, which means that the products should produce non-inventory production for users. The mode of 'shared air conditioner' is precisely the thinking mode that jumps out of the core of the product, and the order is the user as its core. According to Feng Zelei, in the process of 'shared air conditioner' development, it is often first obtained. The specific needs of colleges and universities, and then the production end began to produce. What is more noteworthy is that in the college scene, air-conditioning orders generally have scale, but the product demand between universities must be different. This requires the manufacturing end to differentiate according to the needs. Module customization, the final realization is a mass customization smart manufacturing model.
In the income link, 'shared air conditioners' also jumped out of pure hardware revenue and rental expenses, and explored to a deeper level of ecological income. In fact, since 2018, Haier has begun to practice in the field of ecological income, the so-called ecological income. We can simply understand that it is not limited to hardware revenue, but continues to interact with users to obtain value-added services and value enhancement. That is, as one of its internal words: 'In the future, our products may be free, and value-added value is the core. . '
The exploration of 'shared air conditioner' is just like the cooperation between the funder and the operator on the platform. Haier 'shared air conditioner' brings the funds and credit service to the operator through the sea rental platform; at the same time, it is the fund. The party has opened up user channels and provided services such as asset supervision and fund supervision. In this process, operators and funders are naturally willing to pay for these services, instead of having a value-added point in addition to a hammer sale in the past.
Continuous iteration from air conditioning to air
The Haixiang rental platform provides services for all resource parties, and in fact optimizes the entire solution. For the student group, this has improved their sharing experience. Facing the traditional price war model of the home appliance industry, Haier 'shared air conditioner' emphasizes It is a value war mentality.
In the era of the Internet of Things, users need air conditioners that are most suitable for their needs rather than the lowest price. We provide services to all parties to optimize the entire value chain and make the students feel comfortable and convenient when using air conditioners. Feng Zelei said that regardless of the 'shared air conditioner' or the sea rental platform, it is undergoing continuous iterations to bring the students, schools and operators the ultimate experience; and through creating a win-win mechanism for all brands, enterprises, universities , users are empowered together.
As college students move toward society, their community identity has evolved from a pure student to an increasingly independent social person. The iteration of 'shared air conditioning' is also built around the evolution of the community. It is understood that Haier 'shared air conditioner' Launched the 'Building Family Plan' to extend the 'shared air conditioning' model from the school scene to the apartment scene.
'As the age increases, the student's identity will change, their life scene will change, then our service will evolve with them.' In Feng Zelei's view, 'shared air conditioner' is not a metaphysical mechanical model. The realization is to continuously interact with users and evolve together, so that these students will eventually evolve from users to life-long users. At present, 'shared air conditioners' have entered many apartment scenes across the country.
What needs to be seen is that the 'shared air conditioner' model is only the beginning, and it is also useful for the entire home appliance industry. In fact, the continuous iteration of 'shared air conditioners' is also for its new ecosystem. Evolution and fission. Feng Zelei said that the 'shared air conditioner' business has also tried to gradually expand from air conditioners to mobile air conditioners, maternal and child air conditioners, purifiers, humidifiers, etc., and finally create a complete set of air solutions. In other words, 'shared air conditioning' is only a phased product. As the user scene evolves, it will also evolve toward 'shared air'.