In order to get you to buy a car, car manufacturers have even started fabricating order numbers.

Brother Neck has lost count of how many times I've come out to complain about the outrageous marketing of car companies.

However, perhaps due to the intense competitive pressure nowadays, the marketing departments of car companies can always come up with even more outrageous "new ideas", refreshing people's lower limit of cognition regarding the marketing in the automotive industry.

After the drag coefficient, crash tests, range and energy consumption, and intelligent driving capabilities have all been overused, the order volume, which should objectively reflect the market performance of a car and indicate people's preference for a new car, has now completely become a part of the car companies' marketing play and lost its due reference value.

The fuse of this incident was a Weibo post made by Wu Pei, a senior automotive journalist, on his Weibo account a few days ago.

He said that the achievement of a certain new car "reaching over 10,000 small orders" was actually pre - determined several months before its release, and it was only announced after the launch to please the leadership.

The so - called "small order" here actually refers to a partial deposit paid by users after the release of a new car, usually around 2,000 to 5,000 yuan. Paying this money is equivalent to notifying the car company that you want to buy a car, and you can ask the car company for a refund at any time if you change your mind.

As soon as the Weibo post was published, it immediately sparked various discussions.

After all, according to his statement, the good small - order achievement of a certain car company wasn't actually due to good sales, but rather a marketing move pre - determined long ago just to show off in front of the leadership!

Which car company can predict the order volume of a new car in advance? And with so many new cars being released recently, almost all of them have released posters about their order achievements. Do they all have some exaggeration to some extent?

My answer is that as an unfalsifiable data, the large - order and small - order numbers of car companies are completely a black box.

01

Whether the data is true or not depends entirely on the conscience of the car company.

After years of promoting based on sales volume, indeed, many manufacturers have resorted to underhanded tactics to save face.

Yes, that's right. Sales volume marketing is not a new concept in recent years. It is a very old - fashioned but popular tactic in marketing.

After all, nowadays, people believe that the more people buy a product, the better it is. An eye - catching sales volume data may give people more confidence to place an order than various configurations of a car.

Actually, as early as the era of fuel - powered cars, car companies started to beautify their sales volume figures. The difference is that the sales volume marketing methods back then were quite simple, which was forcing 4S stores to sell more cars.

To achieve this goal, car companies would set annual sales targets for 4S stores. If the targets were met, the latter could receive a substantial cash reward; otherwise, they would get nothing.

This is why even now, at the end of the year, various joint - venture brands still offer a variety of discounts. Because even if they make a loss when selling cars, they can recover their losses through the manufacturer's rebates.

This method is more like a large - scale promotion rather than inflating sales volume. People get real discounts, and the cars are actually sold. Although it has also given rise to many other problems (such as dealers running away due to financial pressure), it can't really be called "faking" sales volume.

However, starting from the second wave of the trend to boost sales volume, some car companies with ulterior motives began to tamper with the authenticity of the data.

Since 2023, China has stopped the subsidy policy for new - energy vehicle manufacturers. Originally, for each green - license plate car produced, car companies could receive 4,000 to 12,600 yuan in cash subsidies. After the subsidy was stopped, these car companies had to bear the cost themselves.

For new - energy vehicle startups that have to be very frugal, this could be the last straw that breaks the camel's back.

Many car companies chose to raise prices to share the cost, but a small number of car companies came up with a devious way. That is, before the subsidy ended, they produced and registered as many cars as possible to take advantage of the subsidy.

So they first transferred the cars to the names of their employees or suppliers using their car - purchase quotas, pretending that the cars had been sold. Then they attracted users with lower prices and some preferential policies. When a real consumer placed an order, they would cooperate with the transfer.

As this kind of behavior became more common, the "sales volume" of car companies became extremely inflated. If you don't believe it, you can go back and look at the sales volume in 2022. The data of many car companies were actually abnormally high.

And this idea has evolved into a well - known volume - inflating tactic used by many car companies: zero - kilometer used cars.

02

If you see that a brand has a consistently high monthly sales volume, but there are still many nearly - new used cars being sold by used - car dealers or in showrooms, it's very likely that the car company is inflating its sales volume by registering new cars under the names of dealers or employees.

In essence, this kind of behavior is pre - consuming future sales volume figures just to save face in the present.

Some people may think that it's a good thing that people can buy cheaper new cars, right?

But as we mentioned at the beginning, inflated high sales volume can convey false market information to people. In my opinion, it is basically the same as false advertising. On the other hand, the disguised price - cut promotion of zero - kilometer used cars is essentially a form of involution and price war.

Blindly pursuing low prices will ultimately lead to poorer product quality and a harsher survival environment for suppliers. It is not a healthy competition route.

Therefore, a few months ago, the Ministry of Commerce led a closed - door meeting and said that it was necessary to rectify the chaos of zero - kilometer used cars, which had become quite excessive.

At this time, some car companies started to think again. Pressuring dealers to stock up and dealing with nearly - new used cars both have many side effects. Is there a sales volume marketing method that is convenient, effective, and risk - free?

Informal small - order and large - order bookings seem to be perfect at this time.

They can not only reflect people's "enthusiasm level" for a car (usually the pre - order starts after the press conference), but also don't require the car to be actually sold!

Moreover, since the amount is not large and can be refunded at any time (originally, large - order bookings were non - refundable, but starting from a certain car company, large - order bookings can also be cancelled), there is a lot of room for manipulation in small - order and large - order bookings.

For example, a senior public relations practitioner known to Brother Neck said that when he was working on a project for a car company, if it was a press - conference project, he must place a certain number of orders after the press conference, otherwise, he couldn't get the full project payment.

Another supplier manager also said that his company was bound by the so - called intention - deposit quota (essentially a small - order) set by the car manufacturer.

After the official announcement of a new car, he alone placed 23 intention - deposit orders. Even many internal employees of some brands were required to "voluntarily support" an order with their own money when a new car was launched.

Adding these orders to the orders from real customers who really want to buy a car, it's easy to reach a nice or even extremely exaggerated number, which can easily convey the message of Wow, this car is selling so well.

03

This will also bring many problems.

On the one hand, this trend will surely lead to inflation of order numbers over time.

After all, once a car starts inflating its order numbers, subsequent new cars have to achieve a higher and more exaggerated result in order to surpass the previous one and look better in publicity. And to surpass this already - inflated number, it will probably also choose the above - mentioned order - inflating methods.

In such a cycle, the order achievements announced by car companies will only keep rising and become more and more exaggerated, and it's very likely to happen that the small - order result is pre - determined as we mentioned at the beginning.

It would be best if it can reach the target. Can't reach it? Bro, it's impossible not to reach it, you know.

On the other hand, the models that are most affected by this trend are actually those models that have truly received orders and are really popular in the market.

After all, even if a model is really selling well, its achievement may not be as eye - catching as those of other models with inflated numbers. If it's a model in the same class, it may give the outside world the false impression that the market favors other models more, resulting in a loss of orders.

Of course, it's not difficult to identify this kind of order - inflating method.

First, check whether the car company will announce the order - cancellation rate after small - order and large - order bookings and the conversion rate of orders, that is, how many people who placed orders finally picked up the cars.

If it is announced, it means that the car company has confidence in the authenticity of the orders.

Second, we can look at the relationship between the order number at the time of release and the monthly delivery quantity. If the parts supply is smooth and the factory's production capacity is not a problem, but a model has tens of thousands of orders but only delivers one or two thousand cars per month, it's very likely that the order number is inflated.

To put it simply, like the previous marketing tactics such as drag coefficient and crash tests, in the current situation where product homogenization is serious and the competition in the new - energy vehicle market is intensifying, the order number is no longer just a simple indicator reflecting the market sales volume for many car companies.

Instead, it has become a tool to give market expectations.

And it has also lost its original meaning.

Here, I don't want to tell you that from now on, you should just take the order marketing of car companies as a joke because they are all fabricated.

Because among all the exaggerated data, there may really be one or a few phenomenal new cars. The market recognition they have gained through design, configuration, and pricing should not be easily denied.

But at the same time, just like every time I complain about excessive marketing, Brother Neck still wants to tell car companies that all marketing methods are essentially just ornaments for the product.

Without them, people can still judge the value of a car.

A good product will attract a large number of users to place orders even without announcing the order number, pre - selling, or even holding a press conference.

If a product is not good, even if it has a seemingly good result in the short term, it will eventually backfire and hit the company in the face.

After all, a product that is not confident enough to announce its order number can't be that good, can it?

This article is from the WeChat official account "Chaping X.PIN". Author: Brother Neck. Republished by