Shared bicycles competition problem

电子科技大学 格拉斯哥学院 2017级 邢珂诚
Shared bicycles competition
Shared bicycles have been operating in China for a few years. The market for shared bicycles has been basically stable during this time. But the problems that are exposed and the areas that need to be optimized are also increasing. At present, the number of shared bicycle apps is close to 20 (not counting local public bicycle apps); but from the data that libra can monitor, there are only 6 apps in the vertical field of bicycles with active users of a certain scale. Before analyzing the problem, let’s take a look at what features are shared by the shared bicycle user community.

The amount of users is large. The absolute number and production of bicycles in China ranks first in the world. Among China’s 1.3 billion people, 78% of households own bicycles. According to incomplete statistics, China has a total of 450 million bicycles. Bicycles are already a way of life.

The bicycle app is a high frequency product. According to Libra’s data, users who used Mobai on the same day opened more than 8 times, and ofo was close to 6 times. The high frequency can be compared with social products.
It can be seen that sharing bicycles has great market potential. You can know the huge advertising value from the app clicks. In 2016, at least 25 shared bicycle brands rushed into the market. The reason why the shared bicycle can be bigger and stronger is because it has a very good business model .So the problem that how to keep the market is very important:

Price problem

The price war between the shared bicycle giants Mobai and ofo was quietly suspended after the Spring Festival in 2018.
Many users have noticed that the small yellow car ofo has closed the purchase channel for 1 month, and the discount for the monthly bicycle card of the Mobai bicycle in Beijing has also stopped. Both of them have recovered the price of 20 yuan per month and 240 yuan per year. Compared with the previous ride, you can earn red envelopes, even if the monthly subscription costs only 1 yuan to 3 yuan. Today’s prices make users who are accustomed to the low-cost era feel uncomfortable. Many people began to vomit the price increase, but the service did not keep up.

In the first half of the shared bicycle, the money-burning war was fierce, but at that time, the war was more about who could spend more money(the customer)

Mode problem

The mechanism of sharing bicycles is also an important factor in determining whether it is competitive in the market. Over the past year or so, the first echelon’s ofo and Mobai have their own advantages and problems. The Mobais deposit is 299 yuan, reflecting the heavy model and high cost. Ofo entered the market with a deposit of 99 yuan, initially from purchases, second-hand acquisitions and regular bicycles donated by some students.

But then, ofo specifically launched version 3.0, version 3.1. And Mobais continues to enrich its bicycle structure, and the shortcomings of bicycle comfort are gradually being added. Reasonable settings can not only improve user comfort, improve word of mouth, but also effectively enable companies that operate bicycle sharing to get more effective etiquette. Here are a few examples of improved shared bicycles.

Electronic fence: solve the problem of disordered parking
According to public statistics, the total number of shared bicycles in 2017 exceeded 20 million. The increase in the number brings about management problems. Because of the disorderly parking, the workload of bicycle maintenance personnel has greatly increased. At this time, electronic fence parking equipment appeared. The so-called electronic fence is a technology that uses the IoT chip to transmit signal coverage technology to provide a voice message reminder to a rider who is not parked in a designated area. Only when parked within the specified range can the vehicle lock be closed and the billing ended. In addition to this, there are also intelligent management such as credit deductions. This development has greatly reduced the load on the staff.

Smart lock: the core of the user experience
The Mobike bicycle is equipped with a smart lock with “GPRS unlocking + GPS positioning”, which has high development and production costs, while the OFO is the first to take the ordinary bicycle password lock.
However, in this market-occupied competition, the shortcomings in the operation of simply using mechanical locks to reduce the cost of bicycles have become prominent. It is no advantage compared setting the smart lock on the shared bike, from the user experience level to the offline maintenance cost. Now that the Internet of Things is more developed, the optimization of smart locks will also be the core of the competition in the shared bicycle market.
In a word , Shared bicycles competition has become more fierce and who grasps the Internet of Things first, who will grasp the future of sharing bicycles