[vc_row][vc_column][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner][thb_border][vc_column_text]The takeaway
In 2016, bike-sharing startups became the most heated topic of the year. Everyone wants to know who will be the winner, but few pays attention to the plight of those relevant industries. [/vc_column_text][/thb_border][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_column_text]
If the online market has gone into its second-half stage, it must be bike-sharing startups who waged the opening battle.
Since the second half of 2016, bike-sharing startups in China has become a wild beast. After the war flame being set off in Lujiazui, Shanghai and Wudaokou, Beijing, it has burnt its way through all first-tier cities and is now going down to everywhere else in the country. Dozens of brands have engaged in the raging war.
You see, everyone here is like a special operation warfighter, ready to enter the battlefield with full ammo. Their greatest concerns are money, time, and scale. However, when everyone fix their eyes upon these soldiers, few pays attention to the condition of non-combatants involved in this war and the surviving challenges they are facing.
Today, we will take you into stories of these people.
Bike shop owner
“They doomed us to death. Now I am losing all my business.” bicycle shop owner Wu Xi complained.
Twenty years ago when bicycles were still the major traveling tool, Wu Xi and his wife came to Guangzhou and have been earning their life by repairing and selling bicycles. Relying on the skill he learned, Wu Xi settled down in Guangzhou and had a stable life.
But beyond his expectation, this wave of bike-sharing surged directly into his front yard.
Some day in the second half of 2016, several sharing bikes appeared in front of Wu Xi’s shop out of nowhere. Wu Xi didn’t take it seriously. Although sharing bikes had the government supporting them, he didn’t think they would make much of a difference, just like their predecessor piled public bikes.
However, after sharing bikes were introduced into Guangzhou, they harvested a large number of users with the advantages of low price, convenience in parking, and ease of payment. Looking around, you can find the streets full of sharing bikes of various colors. Both office workers and students are busy in scanning the code to unlock the bike.
While sharing bikes are enjoying their rapid development, traditional bike selling business is suffering a disastrous decline. Their sales volume dropped from four to five bike per day to less than one. Besides bike selling shops, bike parts and accessories suppliers and bike renting service providers in scenic areas are also the victim of this disaster. Only months after the invasion of sharing bikes, practitioners in traditional bike industry are now on the edge of going broke.
With the main income source cut off from bike shop owners, now they can only make some living wages by selling non-mainstream bikes (children bicycles and sport bicycles), but this is far from enough to sustain the daily expenses for a whole family. In China, thousands of bike shops are facing such plight.
A month ago, a sharing-bike program invited Wu Xi and other bike shop owners to join them as maintenance service (such as assembling and repairing sharing bike) providers. Wu Xi turned down this invitation without hesitation. This is a world where winner takes all. As disadvantaged group in this war, they only have two options in the last: join their opponent or get eliminated. But these bike shop owners chose the third option: wait and see. Their reasons are complex. Apart from low benefits and great difficulty in maintenance, the most important reason for them seems to be mere unwillingness. They knew well– once they are in, they could never go back to where they were.
Under this circumstances, Wu Xi and other bike shop owners can only grit their teeth and wait for the changes to come.
Upon our departure, Wu Xi was still playing with the screwdriver in his hand and kept mumbling: “Just stop messing up the business. Just stop it…”
I can’t help feeling sad hearing this. Actually I wanted to tell him that there is no stop button for all these. With so many people and capital engaged in this game, they were cut off the retreat the moment that bike-sharing startups pressed the start button
“It is said that a bike-sharing program was turning to the substitute driving market. I just hope that was not true…” a frightened shop owner who sells electromobile for substitute driving said.
Motorcycle taxi drivers
“90 percent of the motorcycle taxi drivers has quitted. Of course we are compacted.”
It is certain that motorcycle taxi would be influenced by sharing bicycles. But who knows it would be this cruel?
Motorcycle taxi has given city administrative department a headache for its obstinacy and wild growth and has given hope to passengers who are waiting to go home. It is hard to imagine it being in a desperate situation in first and second tier cities in China.
For recent months, motorcycle taxi driver Zhou Yao went through a great change.
18 orders a day.
That used to be the maximum working volume for Zhou Yao.
Now it became 6 per day, which means Zhou Yao spends most of his time waiting for orders every day.
“My income dropped by two third. I used to earn two to three hundred a day. Now I only got seventy or eighty.” Zhou Yao earned much less after sharing bicycles appeared.
As a full time motorcycle taxi driver, after having breakfast Zhou Yao would drive his clean and shiny motorcycle to the major bus and subway stations to wait for orders. At noon, those stations would be crowded with motorcycle drivers and callings and whistles would make the place as lively as the food market.
But after sharing bikes appeared, motorcycle taxi could only stand defenseless against it. There are only a few scattered motorcycle taxi drivers around subway station. “Our business has been bad since sharing bikes appeared. 90 percent of the motor drivers abandoned the full time career.” Zhou Yao said with slight tiredness after a day’s working.
Apart from those who don’t know the way and those who are in a hurry, most passengers chose to travel with a sharing bike instead of a motorcycle taxi. Facing the huge impact, Zhou Yao feels nothing but helpless, “Alas, this is a tough way to make a living now. Perhaps I will change to another career next year.”
Ironically, the industry that once grew obdurately against the elimination of administrative departments is now driven off the stage by the invisible hand of market, all of its prosperity are fading away.
Taxi drivers
“Sharing bikes took up our short-distance business and our benefits declined a lot.”
Speaking of taxi industry, it has just gone through a bloody war.
The ride-sharing companies and the subsidy battle they set off brought tremendous impact to taxi industry and this previously main travel mode was closed to distinction. The 4-year-long battle did not come to its end until Didi merged Uber China in August, 2016. The sharing cars’ finally coming to senses just gave taxi drivers a sigh of relief, but then the sharing bicycles industry fell into craziness right after.
“There were always several short-distance passengers to pick up every time I passed a subway station. But now these passengers all turn to sharing bicycles…” Wang Jie, a taxi driver, said.
This winter is colder than ever and sharing bicycles no doubt add to the coldness taxi drivers have to suffer. In just few months, 20-30% of short-distance orders for taxi drivers were lost. Wang Jie said with a bitter smile: “Passengers used to take a taxi for short trips because of its convenience and speed. But more have turned to sharing bicycles now. Why not? It cost only 0.5 RMB or 1 RMB for half an hour’s ride only after all…”
Some said that taxi industry is at its Mercury Retrograde period. Lost and helpless as taxi drivers already are, they have yet more challenges to face other than the one from sharing bike. Sharing taxi, unmanned driving etc., there are a lot more unknown challenges awaits for them.
Spring Festival being right around the corner, a driver from Fujian province said with a resigned sigh: “All my families are relying on me. I used to think that there were more opportunities in big cities. But now I am not sure whether I should stick to this career after all these…”
Didi drivers
The gunfire of sharing bikes sent an alarm for Didi in the second half of 2016. Someone described this ever-escalating “arm race” of travel apps as the “baseball game going into the 14th inning”.
“It never comes to me that bicycles can be used like this.” Luo Feng, a Didi driver, said with a smile.
After being a taxi driver for ten years, this 37-year-old man from Hebei province joined Didi as a full-time driver right away after ride-sharing became the new fashion.
This is already the fourth year for him as a Didi exclusive car driver. He still remembered that at the beginning he was not familiar with the way it worked and did not set the working range. As a result he drove wherever the passengers asked and went around the whole Guangzhou with 5 hours. He drove 250 km and the gross profit he got was 378 RMB from which around 60 was taken by the platform as commission and 320 was left for himself. That was not a very good deal for him. Gradually, Luo Feng got familiar with the mechanism of the system and increased his income pretty much after a month.
But for the recent months, Didi drivers including Luo Feng realized that there are fewer short-distance orders.
However Luo Feng disclosed that Didi drivers as a whole were not under much influence of the fewer short-distance orders. Unlike users of sharing bikes, most users of Didi are white-collar workers who seek comfortable travel experience rather than convenience and low price. Therefore the differentiation between sharing bicycles users and Didi users is at a quite high degree.
Campus agents
“Sharing bike haven’t formed its own system yet. Many parts of this system are still in grope.”
There are more than 2500 colleges and universities and more than 40 million college students in China. These campuses are the key territories that every party want to set foot on.
Zhang Xixin, a normal college student and the campus agent of a sharing bike startup, is now in charge of promotion of this program.
Every day at noon, Zhang Xixin would hand out flyers in front of the canteen entrance. The contents on the flyer are basically telling that registered users can enjoy some special offers. This job has been a matter of common practice to Zhang Xixin. Occasionally he would also organize small activities to attract students to sign up for the platform.
When it comes to later maintenance, Zhang Xixin said that there were Wechat groups in every college and if any bike went wrong you could tell the service agent in the Wechat group the serial number of the broken bike then they would sent maintenance personnel to repair. Besides, maintenance personnel would also check bike in the campus regularly. You may find their repairing hut in some corners as if workers in it want to stay away from the outside disturbance.
Aside from the problems in promoting, big problems also exist in the institution. “The existing supervisory system in maintenance is a complete neglected mess. At the beginning the maintenance personnel would put disorderly parked bike back into the places they should be. But now they are just thrown here and there.” Zhang Xixin disclosed to us.
In the last part of interview about operating model, Zhang Xixin told us with a bitter smile that operating models differed among Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. In some cities the sharing bicycles could only be ride in the campus. We could say that the platform was still in the grope.
Our interviews of these people tell their bitter-sweet feeling towards the bike-sharing system. Although there is an undeniable impact on them, all of them admit that regardless of their personal interest, sharing bikes undoubtedly changed people’s travelling method through its clean, green, and convenient nature.[/vc_column_text][thb_gap][vc_raw_html]JTNDYSUyMGhyZWYlM0QlMjJodHRwcyUzQSUyRiUyRnR3aXR0ZXIuY29tJTJGc2hhcmUlMjIlMjBjbGFzcyUzRCUyMnR3aXR0ZXItc2hhcmUtYnV0dG9uJTIyJTIwZGF0YS1zaG93LWNvdW50JTNEJTIyZmFsc2UlMjIlM0VUd2VldCUzQyUyRmElM0UlM0NzY3JpcHQlMjBhc3luYyUyMHNyYyUzRCUyMiUyRiUyRnBsYXRmb3JtLnR3aXR0ZXIuY29tJTJGd2lkZ2V0cy5qcyUyMiUyMGNoYXJzZXQlM0QlMjJ1dGYtOCUyMiUzRSUzQyUyRnNjcmlwdCUzRQ==[/vc_raw_html][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_cta h2=”” h4=”Credits”]Translation: 虫洞翻翻
Source: 竹青朋友们
Original article (Chinese): 我采访了50位“朋友”，他们说共享单车是一剂毒药[/vc_cta][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_cta h2=”” h4=”Related articles”]
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China’s “Uber for bikes” startups are being taken for a ride by thieves, vandals, and cheapskates – Quartz[/vc_cta][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”3″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1489415241130-4ca141a5-d39b-6″][/vc_column][/vc_row]