Liu Yuanju: deposit, this model of rolling development at the time of prosperity, will become a vicious circle when recession.The social problem brought by the deposit has become an important cause of this round of sharing economic environment from loosening.

As China's first shared economic project, shared bicycles have gradually resumed rationality in 2018 after experiencing radical expansion.Since July 2017, the active users of bicycles have fallen from 125 million. In 2018, the user scale stabilized at about 93 million.With the decline of the user scale, it is a fierce change in market competition.

Qianlang and back waves

On the morning of April 4, 2018, Meituan CEO Wang Xing issued an internal letter, announcing the official acquisition of Mobike with a wholly -owned $ 3.7 billion.Wang Xing said in the internal letter that Mobike continued to maintain independent brands and independent operations. In addition to Meituan CEO Wang Xing as the chairman, the original management team remained unchanged.However, as most of the other acquisitions, this organization is destined to be unable to last long.

Just 7 months later, the founder Hu Weiwei and investor Xia Yi completely withdrew the average. Wang Xing and Meituan co -founder and CTO Mu Rong became the only two major shareholders.Among them, Wang Xing held 95 %, and Mu Rong held 5 % of the shares.

Mobike was acquired and caused a lot of impact on old opponents who insisted on not selling.In early May, the founder David made a profit plan called Victory Day.In this plan, ofo sells its advertising space: APP open screens, pop -up windows, discovery pages, and offline body advertisements.Among them, offline body advertisements include car baskets, car seats, handlebars, triangle areas, rear wheel triangle boards, and brand customized cars.This plan is very strong, but because the conditions of the car are generally poor, this business is moving average.

In fact, the more important limit comes from this format itself.The shared bicycle APP has a short period of contact with users. Although the driving process is long, it cannot disturb the customer and affect the safety. In addition, the unit price is low and the drainage effect is limited. The profitability of shared bicycles is not too good.

The first echelon was acquiring and self -rescue, and the second echelon was not idle.

After a series of problems such as the difficulty of refund of the deposit, Xiaolan Bicycles was finally taken over by the leader in the field of travel.Little Lan Bicycles' brands, deposits and arrears, etc., still belong to Xiaolan Company.However, at the same time, Didi also provides alternatives of deposit, privilege cards and recharge balances to equivalent of Didi bicycle coupons and travel coupons. Due to the high -frequency use characteristics of Didi, this is a win -win situation.The plan, Xiaolan Bicycles solved the refund, the user was compensated, and Didi added the user.

In January 2018, the Didi APP joined the small blue bicycle under the Bicycle option.One month later, Didi withdrew from his own brand of Qingji, and went online in Dongguan and Foshan.There is a bicycle brand that is exactly your own, which can better upgrade the short -distance travel strategy and improve its first -stop travel ecosystem.For competitors, Didi has a complete ecology in travel, occupying the user's mind, and is a strong opponent.

Another strong latecomer is Haro bicycle.In fact, as early as November 2016, the first bicycle of Harro's bicycle landed on Ningbo.In the fierce struggle of the 2017 severe head giants, Haro bicycles chose the strategy of surrounding rural surrounding cities. At that time, Mobike and OFO, which was fighting in the front line market, had no time to take care of the third and fourth -tier cities, which gave Harro's precious living space.In October 2017, Yongan Bank's shareholding company Yongan Xingxing Low Carbon Technology Company was transferred to all equity of Haro Bicycle Operation Company, and Yang Lei, the founder of Haro Bicycle, was the CEO of the new company.

Two months later, Yongan Xing's low -carbon technology financing was about 3.3 billion yuan. Shanghai Yunxin Venture Capital, a subsidiary of Ant Financial, became its largest shareholder. Ant Financial included Haro bicycles into its under its own.

To some extent, Ali and Didi have a subtle relationship with ofo, but the independent plot of the founder of OFO, David, did not eventually make the choice that was most conducive to themselves, shareholders, and enterprises.As a result, Xiao Lan, green oranges, and Haro bicycles, such a pro -son appeared one after another.These backs of Didi and Ali's descendants are very strong, and their additions have changed some gameplay in the field of bicycle sharing.

With the deepening of market competition and the strengthening of supervision, the experience has become more important than the number. Shared bicycle companies have also transformed from the original number of fighting to service and use of households.

According to the 2018 Chinese bicycle -sharing user experience report, Mobike, ofo, Green Orange, and Haro bicycles were scored 35.6, 35.4, 36.2 and 35.6 points for the survey of the comfort satisfaction of users.In addition to operation, another more typical example is the deposit.

Battle of deposit

The deposit is an important driving force for shared bicycles.A shared bicycle can correspond to several users.Most users have not withdrawn the deposit as soon as possible after the end of the car, which gives shared bicycle companies a lot of capital precipitation.This means that if you invest in a car, you can immediately recover the cost of a car through the deposit, even more.Enterprises put this money into the production of bicycles, which can realize the cycle of the car-more deposit-more extensive regional layout, supporting rapid expansion.Of course, this may also be a vicious circle of burning money.

As a result, the deposit, this model that can rolling rapidly when it is prosperous, will become a vicious circle when it recession.The social problems brought by the deposit have also become an important cause of the development environment of this round of sharing economy from loosening.Today, the long refund deposit lined up outside ofo is marked that the shared bicycle war ended.

According to data released by the China Internet Information Center, at present, including sharing cars and various items lease, the existing deposit scale in the field of sharing economy is estimated to exceed 15 billion yuan.Yuan.The use of these deposits makes users doubt and leaves a problem for supervision.During the National Two Sessions this year, the sharing economy was mentioned twice in the government work report of the State Council. At the same time, it also further emphasized the implementation of tolerance and prudent supervision, showing a high attention to the issue of deposit.

The deposit can actually have another form.If the initial deposit is a member fee, the situation will be very different.Suppose that the user spends 50 yuan to become a member, the price is 1 yuan, but the consumer who does not enter the club is double the price.This also enables the company to obtain a lot of initial funds.CAR2GO, a subsidiary of Daimler Group, piloted in Chongqing, is also required to pay a 100 yuan admission fee for registered users, and it is not refunded.

However, this model is difficult to appear in shared bicycles, or in all Internet+entrepreneurship.This is because the competition of capital -driven is bound to cater to consumers to obtain the size of the user.So since the deposit is inevitable to replace the fees, then the deposit -free will inevitably replace the deposit model.At this time, the scale of funds and user credit data became the capital of competition.This is also the advantage of the latecomers.

In January 2018, Didi hosted Xiaolan Bicycle.After the sesame credit certification is performed on the Didi platform, users can be exempt from deposit and cycling small blue bicycles.In March, Haro bicycle announced the opening of the nationwide -free service.According to the rules, users with a sesame credit score of more than 650 can be exempted from the deposit. At the same time, Alipay also saves the steps of downloading the app, and users can directly scan the code to use.

Next, on June 11, Mobike announced that there were no thresholds for no thresholds in hundreds of second- and third -tier cities across the country. It is worth noting that one hundred exemption cities do not include first -tier cities, including Beishang, Guangzhou and Shenzhen.Including HangzhouIn the second -tier cities such as An, instead, there are more third- and fourth -tier cities such as Shaoxing and Yangzhou; MDASH; and these sinking cities are the main battlefields of the latecomers.

The battle of deposit put new pressure on ofo.Three months later, ofo went opposite, and completely canceled the original 25 city sesame credit exemption.Although ofo announced its own new generation of credit points system, the outside world generally regards it as a symbol of funds.In fact, green oranges and Mobike are also building their own credit systems. They quietly separate from sesame credit in some cities, but unlike ofo, there is no need for sesame credit.

In the following months, although the official said that the deposit can be returned normally, the news where the deposit is difficult to refund from time to time.At the end of November, ofo issued a notice in the APP that after the OFO 99 yuan deposit users upgraded to a new user of PPMoney, they could achieve permanent deposit -free cycling.

At this time, the war of deposit was completely defeated.In fact, the impact of 100 yuan deposit has little effect on users, but under rumors, the price -sensitive users will inevitably exit the deposit and turn to the shared bicycles of other companies. The rapid expansion model becomes a mode of rapid decline.

However, the days of the post -entry are not good, because they encountered a new bottle of old problem Mdash; mdash; license system.

License reproduction

In recent months, citizens in many cities have discovered that the number of bicycles has been significantly reduced, and during the peak, good cars are difficult to find.

There are many reasons for the decrease in vehicles.First of all, some enterprises are negligent in management, and many faulty vehicles have not been repaired and used in time. Second, some operating companies withdraw from the shared bicycle market, resulting in further reduction in the number of bicycles sharing; third, government departments are also cleaning up the launch vehicles. ActuallyIn the last, the bicycle -sharing cemetery was not the result of unable to keep up, but the government forced to collect vehicles.

Fourth, and the most important reason, since last year, many cities across the country have issued ban on investment and suspended new bicycles in the urban area.On the one hand, the stock has continued to decrease, and on the other hand, the increase is zero. Then, the number of bicycles in some cities decreased sharply, and the dilemma of finding cars for citizens to find cars is not difficult to understand.

The brutal growth of the initial period of bicycle sharing invades public resources, so total control is necessary.Under the total control, supervision and enterprises adapt to each other, shared bicycle companies have also begun to strengthen the operation and management of cycling, reasonably plan and launch, and improve operation and maintenance efficiency.

However, this kind of ban is prohibited at the moment, and the total amount of the total amount has not been considered, and the total amount of the total amount is distributed between various enterprises. This causes the first to come to the market.First, the first model will inevitably limit the competitiveness and openness of the market, and the first entry of the market will not have the motivation to improve the service.There is no new thing under the sun. In fact, the taxi license system is essentially the first -to -come -first -first -first -been model of public resources, which has troubled Chinese cities so far.

The public resources distribution model of shared bicycles not only affects the future competitive situation of shared bicycles, but also affects other innovations involving public resources. For example, unmanned airplanes and unmanned public resources are well -equipped.If the license system is implemented first, then in the future, the enterprise will first engage in a bunch of low -cost and low -quality things to occupy public resources.

The license system is to abuse the waste of public resources, but it lacks a corresponding mechanism to allocate public resources, which will eventually cause inefficient and waste in public resources.It is not conducive to innovation and long -term development, and it is not conducive to the improvement of consumer benefits.

It is worth noting that before the lessons of taxi licenses, public resources cannot be easily auctioned, because this will not only form huge rent -seeking benefits, but also squeeze consumer surplus, and even stifle innovation and budding.

In 2009, the Nobel Prize winner Ostrom believed that the independent action of the occupation of public resources changed to a coordinated strategy, which could obtain higher returns or reduce common losses.There are three elements of reaching coordination strategies, namely the supply of new systems, credible commitments, and mutual supervision issues.In actual public management, the government's external supervision is also essential.

In other words, the participants of shared bicycles are united to formulate a public space distribution method based on the vehicle management, maintenance, parking, and operation of each enterprise.Between the new admission players, according to the fair, transparent, fair, efficient, and dynamic distribution of rules, it can enhance the coordination and efficient use of public space in the shared bicycle industry.Obviously, the most important of this is that cars with poor vehicle conditions appear on the market, and public spaces are inclined to market participants who provide more consumer benefits.

Is shared bicycles a waste of resources?

The city's bicycle graveyard is shocking. With the withdrawal of some shared bicycle companies, and even ofo's upcoming failure, many investors have nothing to do.This makes people see the huge bubble and waste of the market.Then there are more and more criticisms for the phenomenon of waste sharing, sharing economy, and even risk investment, and even market economy.

However, these criticisms are not completely correct.

In the 1980s, economic prosperity and nationalism prevailed, allowing Japan to try to surpass the United States through the fifth -generation computer and establish a leader status in the information field.Japan has formulated an ambitious fifth -generation computer plan, but after 10 years of cost more than $ 400 million, the plan fails.In the same period of the United States, Intel launched the 80286 chip in 1982; Apple launched the LISA graphics system in 1983; Gates launched Windows in 1985.These three companies that are unknown today are small private enterprises, full of passion for innovation.

For example, when it comes to artificial intelligence, you will think of the GPU chip that is good at performing parallel operations. Its job is actually a graphics chip.In this field, everyone is well known to NVIDIA and AMD, but when the multimedia calculation was initially rose, there were 3DFX, PowerVR, TridentNGT, SIS, 3D Labs?, Matrox, S3. These were all active manufacturers in the computer market at that time at that timeEssenceToday, they are acquired, or they turn to other fields, or they disappear.

But this is not a waste. In the fertile ruins of the market, giants such as NVIDIA and AMD have grown, leading the technological development of this field.The same is true in the software field. Apple's bottleneck was discovered by Microsoft. Microsoft's bottleneck was discovered by Google and Apple. It was not a government or Facebook that found the bottleneck in Google's social field.The company's 10 -year gradual trial and error.

The VCD war in China was also fierce or even fierce, but in the competition, talents were trained and formed the industrial chain. The entry of this Foxconn and other giants has consolidated the foundation, and Huawei and ZTE have grown soil.

In the real market, many companies are competing and tried and error in the market to meet the needs of consumers.The cost of this mechanism is extremely great. There are huge R & D investment cannot be collected, the project fails, and even the company bankruptcy.The planned economor has always been a deep disgusting about these wastes, and unlike the planned economic concept, the concept of market economy believes that these wastes are a necessary process for technology and market development.In fact, among the many economic systems of human beings, the market economy is the least wasteful system.

The upcoming patent dispute

As the Chinese Internet enters the second half, more and more projects involve hardware.Moreover, with the improvement of China's patent consciousness and intellectual property protection, patents will become a threshold that cannot be bypassed.

2018, the boilingThe bicycle patent blocks the Yongan Bank's listing incident and ended with the private reconciliation of both parties.Patent holder Gu Tailai and Yongan Bank have reached a patent authorization.According to the patent authorization contract between the two parties, within 100,000 vehicles, Yongan Bank pays 13 yuan per year with each car, that is, each shared bicycle operation is about 3 cents per day;The fee is reduced to 1 cents per car every day.This means that Yongan Bank needs to pay about 4 million yuan per year.

But this does not mean that things are completely over. Since Yongan walked down, Gu Tailai was likely to issue a patent lawsuit to head companies that shared bicycles such as Mobike and OFO.He has said that many bicycle -sharing companies in the market are suspected of infringement.Now, there is a precedent for success, and other shared bicycle companies may also bow their heads and pay for it.And after Yongan Bank got authorized, in addition to using it by himself, of course, he can also be used as a tool to hinder competitors.Therefore, Gu Tailai's patent impact on the bicycle sharing industry is far over.

In addition, new models, new car locks, and new methods will involve patents. Between several big players in the market, future patent lawsuits will inevitably be very fierce.

(This article only represents the author's own point of view, responsible editor: Yan Man [email protected])