“Expand the Jinan light truck market”.

During the past three years, the market has fluctuated with the epidemic. But this is the goal of a young dealer to strive for.

Meng Chen is from Jinan, Shandong Province. In 2020, he resigned and founded Shandong Mingqi Trading Co., Ltd., officially becoming a light truck dealer. In the first half of the year, the company sold more than 300 light trucks, and sold 630 vehicles in 2021.

In 2018, Meng Chen was optimistic about the light truck market and resolutely changed the track from the international trade field to light truck sales. Now, Meng Chen has become a high-quality partner in Jinan, Shandong Province. In the rising period of the company’s start-up, he has forged an indissoluble bond with Shaanxi Auto light truck.

What is Meng Chen’s secret to selling light trucks when his identity changes? It’s not easy to start a business. How does he cope with market changes? Let’s listen to the story of this young boss and the truck.

01 Seize the moment and grasp the opportunity of community group buying

When it comes to the hardships in the early days of entrepreneurship, Meng Chen also experienced many ups and downs. Jinan is a land port type and commercial service type logistics hub, and is also one of the regional logistics centers, with very fierce light truck market competition. Shandong Mingqi is the last dealer in Jinan Kuangshan Truck City. As a latecomer, to achieve a breakthrough in sales from “0”, it is necessary to take more efforts than ordinary people.

In order to quickly stand firm in the Jinan market, Meng Chen knew that he needed to find the key to market demand and take action. With his own experience in selling light trucks, Meng Chen is keenly aware of the sensitivity of the light truck market to “dead-weight” and “load”. Therefore, from the beginning of his entrepreneurship, Meng Chen has been committed to the promotion of Shandong Mingqi in light standard load power.

In September 2022, the transition period of the new blue card regulations ended and was officially implemented. Under the background of dual carbon, compliant light trucks that meet the national VI emission standard and meet the new load regulations have become the first choice in the market.  

“The biggest signal released by the new regulations is that the light trucks in the future will be positioned in the market of light standard and city accessories that do not require too much horsepower. Shandong Mingqi has focused on this aspect from the very beginning, and now all Shaanxi Auto light trucks we sell are absolutely compliant and legal, without the right of way problem.”

In November 2020, Jinan entered the market off-season. Once four customers came to the store and asked to install the tailboard, Meng Chen immediately caught a new opportunity to sell light trucks. Affected by the epidemic, community group buying has become a trend. The customized container with tailboard can be matched with the small carts at the loading station and pickup point after being opened. The carts can be loaded and unloaded directly into the container by using the tailboard.

Meng Chen realized that the community group buying of supply vehicles is a potential growth point of the market. As a result, he customized a large number of tailboards, chassis and cargo boxes according to the needs of users, and expanded their influence in the short term through the introduction of old customers, the spread of kayou friends and transportation platforms.

“At the beginning of our business, our desire for orders was more urgent than that of dealers in the same industry, and it was easier for us to notice the details that were ignored by others.” Meng Chen was somewhat lucky, “we were also gambling, but fortunately, community group buying in Jinan was really popular in 2021. We ordered a large number of tailboards in advance, taking the lead in the market.”

By taking precautions and taking the lead in community group buying and supply of vehicles, Shandong Mingqi won 630 orders in 2021, achieving rapid growth in the entrepreneurship period.

02 Deeply cultivate channels and “make friends” with users

In 2022, Meng Chen made a retreat. When other dealers swarmed in, Meng Chen gave up actively to continue to compete for the “customized” market. “Last year, community group buying was very popular, but now other dealers have joined in, so there are more people sharing the ‘cake’.” Meng Chen told www.find800.cn: “This year, we have done some deeper work——to open up channels and ‘make friends’ with users”.

Compared with the goal of simply seeking more orders, now Meng Chen has lost his reckless enthusiasm when he started his business and has become more rational, prudent and pragmatic. “I think we should not only have a business relationship with users, but also ‘make friends’ with them.” In the process of communication with users, Meng Chen learned about customers’ real needs, captured market trends, and even learned about industry policies in advance.

Even under the background of this year’s sluggish market, Shandong Mingqi, under the leadership of Meng Chen, still maintained a positive growth. Meng Chen told www.find800.cn that so far this year, Shandong Mingqi has sold 330 Shaanxi Auto light trucks. In the last quarter of this year, Shandong Mingqi will strive to sell 200 Shaanxi Auto light trucks.

Gather the strength of the crowd to ride the wind. Although Shandong Mingqi is a latecomer, it is the first merchant in Jinan to provide customers with “fine cleaning” service for car delivery. When customers are ill and hospitalized, Shandong Mingqi will send condolence money; when the customer had a driving accident, Shandong Mingqi will go to help him at the first time……

“Our team is like the ‘Weichai SDAC Z1’ of Shaanxi Auto Light Truck, we are all the post-85 generation, young and energetic.” Meng Chen is proud to mention the team: “We respect users very much no matter in terms of service attitude or work efficiency, and we have good user feedback, which may be the reason why we can emerge as a new force.”

“If the customer picks up the car, our employees often take the initiative to work overtime at midnight and remit the money to the factory audit quickly to ensure that our customer can pick up the car faster or even the next day, and it can be said that we take the lead in terms of car picking-up speed in the industry.” According to Meng Chen, a few days ago, Shandong Mingqi held a six dimensional round trip training exam for Weichai SDAC Z1 light truck of Weichai new energy commercial vehicle, and all sales personnel took part in it with full marks gained.

Adhering to the service attitude of making friends with users, Shandong Mingqi not only won the trust and good feedback of customers, but also continued to increase the number of “old bring new”.  

Two months after the implementation of the new regulations, the inventory of pre-listed vehicles in the old regulations is redundant; the market was not as expected, and the number of logistics drivers switching to second-hand cars increased. These factors have added a lot of uncertainty to the operation of Shandong Mingqi this year.

“The market is sluggish, but I think we should keep calm.” Meng Chen said, “Shaanxi Auto Light Truck is equipped with Weichai engine+Fast gearbox+Hande axle, and the quality of the gold power assembly is highly trusted by users. In addition, Weichai new energy commercial vehicles continue to have new products on the market, with extremely strong product competitiveness.”

Meng Chen told www.find800.cn that in the future, a single marketplace may no longer be applicable. We should pay attention to the synchronization of online and offline resonance, anchor promotion and exhibition tour. “This year, we still focus on opening up channels in the last quarter to prepare for the improvement of the market next year.”

During the National Day holiday, Meng Chen successfully developed two secondary dealers and further expanded his B2B sales network. “Through the secondary customers newly developed, join us to jointly sell Shaanxi Auto Light Truck, and the brand awareness of Shaanxi Auto Light Truck will be higher, and the end users will also be more recognized.” By the end of the press release, Meng Chen told www.find800.cn that “secondary dealers” have delivered new cars in October.

 Looking into the future, Meng Chen said: “With the end of the 20th CPC National Congress, I believe there will be more measures from the national policy level in the future to boost the market for all of us. In December, Weichai SDAC Hybrid Light Truck will also be launched, injecting new vitality into Weichai’s new energy commercial vehicles. Next year,  it is promising that the market will return to the rising channel.”

Meng Chen’s WeChat avatar is an eagle. It is just like him and his team. In the future, it will fly high and surge into the era of “Weichai SDAC Z1”.