BEIJING/SINGAPORE: Brand trust is “currency” in China’s booming automotive category, according to a senior marketer at Uxin, an online automotive marketplace.
Uxin, which secured a US$500m funding round in early 2017, has facilitated more than a million car sales in China, benefitting from more consumers looking online to purchase big ticket items like cars as the country’s sharing economy takes off.
But brand trust is critical to capturing Chinese consumers, who are uneasy about buying second hand products. “In [the sharing economy] business model, the supply and demand sides are all strangers,” said Cindy Wang, Chief Marketing Officer of Uxin, at the recent Millennial 20/20 conference in Singapore.
Establishing trustworthiness has been a core focus for Uxin, which has sought to build its own infrastructure in the category to build brand trust, she added. (For more, read WARC’s report: ‘Trust is currency’: Navigating China’s online automotive market.)
“The China market is very unique because it’s very different from the Western world. You don’t really have a very well established credit system, for example,” she said.
“Uxin set up a full record system to track all the cars and also to track individuals’ credit history… That is very important for us to promote this type of business in China.”
Consumer education is also important to the company’s success – just because a car is second hand, it doesn’t mean it is less trustworthy.
“In China, everybody wants new stuff. You want to buy new houses and new cars. It’s a sign of your success,” Wang explained.
“It’s not like when you are young and you get a key from your dad and your dad is, ‘This is my old Mercedes’… it's not like that. Everybody wants a new Mercedes, a new Ferrari,” she said. “That’s why we need to educate a lot about this business model.”
Uxin, which secured a US$500m funding round in early 2017, has facilitated more than a million car sales in China, benefitting from more consumers looking online to purchase big ticket items like cars as the country’s sharing economy takes off.
But brand trust is critical to capturing Chinese consumers, who are uneasy about buying second hand products. “In [the sharing economy] business model, the supply and demand sides are all strangers,” said Cindy Wang, Chief Marketing Officer of Uxin, at the recent Millennial 20/20 conference in Singapore.
Establishing trustworthiness has been a core focus for Uxin, which has sought to build its own infrastructure in the category to build brand trust, she added. (For more, read WARC’s report: ‘Trust is currency’: Navigating China’s online automotive market.)
“The China market is very unique because it’s very different from the Western world. You don’t really have a very well established credit system, for example,” she said.
“Uxin set up a full record system to track all the cars and also to track individuals’ credit history… That is very important for us to promote this type of business in China.”
Consumer education is also important to the company’s success – just because a car is second hand, it doesn’t mean it is less trustworthy.
“In China, everybody wants new stuff. You want to buy new houses and new cars. It’s a sign of your success,” Wang explained.
“It’s not like when you are young and you get a key from your dad and your dad is, ‘This is my old Mercedes’… it's not like that. Everybody wants a new Mercedes, a new Ferrari,” she said. “That’s why we need to educate a lot about this business model.”
Sourced from WARC
