Shared bicycles will continue to rise

From the starting price of 50 cents to the current one-hour riding fee of 5.5 yuan, what frustrations and challenges are hidden behind the price increase of shared bicycles? In the future, how will shared bicycles find new profit models and survival space? This article will deeply explore the phenomenon of shared bicycle price increases and the deep-seated reasons behind it.

Shared bicycles, known as one of the “new four great inventions,” have also evolved from being cheap and convenient in their early days to being criticized by netizens for being “expensive.”

In 2016, shared bicycles can be easily unlocked for only 50 cents. In addition to riding, if the accumulated mileage reaches 5 kilometers, you will have a chance to grab a red envelope.

According to media reports, recently in cities such as Chengdu, Guangzhou, and Wuhan, the starting price for shared bicycles from brands such as Hello and Qingju has been adjusted from "1.5 yuan for the first 15 minutes" to "1.5 yuan for the first 10 minutes" on weekdays.

After 10 minutes, the charge is 1 yuan per 15 minutes.

After the adjustment, the cost of one hour of riding increased from 4.5 yuan to 5.5 yuan.

In some cities, the starting price on holidays and weekends is 1.8 yuan.

In Changsha, the starting price of Hellobike on weekdays has been adjusted from 2 yuan/30 minutes to 2 yuan/20 minutes.

If the time period exceeding the starting price is adjusted from 1.5 yuan/30 minutes to 1.5 yuan/15 minutes, the riding fee for one hour will increase by 3 yuan after the adjustment.

From the initial 0.5 yuan/30 minutes for a single ride to the current maximum of 3.8 yuan/30 minutes, the price has skyrocketed more than seven times in just eight years!

However, there are outliers. Amid price increases in many cities, Meituan Bike has lowered the starting price in Guangzhou to 1.5 yuan on weekdays, and the starting time has been extended from 15 minutes to 20 minutes.

Why did Meituan lower its prices?

Why have other shared bicycles increased in price?

In this regard, Upstream News reporter Qi Xin and Shu Le had a discussion. I think:

Meituan lowered its prices just to attract customers and to create more consumption scenarios for people to go to Meituan, that’s all.

Overall, shared bicycles have gone through a period of wild growth. In the early days, they relied on subsidies to achieve coverage, which resulted in huge losses.

Shared bicycles are actually the online version of bicycle rental, and rental is their main source of income.

In addition, the strategy of using rent as an investment proved to be extremely risky, and the remaining scenarios were only limited advertising income or joint marketing revenue, which was better than nothing.

Therefore, after the basic market stabilizes and enters the stock market, shared bicycles will inevitably make profits by raising prices.

Overall, shared bicycles rely on rental income to break even, and the price will probably discourage most users.

After all, maintenance, replacement and labor costs are real, and relying solely on the Internet as a long tail to attract customers is not enough to flatten the rent to the extreme.

Finding new profit scenarios is the key to the survival of shared bicycles. Raising prices is only short-sighted and helpless.

At the same time, with the emergence of driverless taxis and the further convenience of public transportation, in addition to the difficulty of profit scenarios, shared bicycles are facing internal and external pressures, such as:

• Maintenance problems, layout and land occupation, road occupation issues;
• The cost-effectiveness of short-distance travel compared to public transportation;
• The lack of dedicated bicycle lanes leads to road safety issues;
• Usage bottlenecks in heavy rain, extreme heat, or even inclement weather;
• It is also difficult to expand the incremental market in counties.

At present, it is difficult for shared bicycles to solve the above problems. They are only a supplement for short-distance travel, not the mainstream.

It can be used as a chain of shared travel platforms, that is, online car-hailing and shared bicycles can be used as a drainage channel to connect scenic spots and consumption scenarios.

In the O2O scenario, consumption derivatives are formed and more value-added service scenarios are added.

But for now, shared bikes can only compromise and survive.