Securities Times reporter Chen Shuyu Pei Lirui
Fund direct sales is the "white moonlight" that fund companies have always loved.
In the fund sales market, public funds have never been able to get rid of their dependence on agency sales channels since their inception, first with banks and securities companies, and then with independent sales agencies represented by Internet giants.The profit model based on subscription fees and trailing commissions in the agency sales channel not only erodes the operating profits of fund companies, but also exacerbates the industry’s redemption and frequent redemption.
Therefore, developing direct sales channels, directly serving customers, and cultivating private domain traffic has become the direction of continuous exploration of public funds, and is even regarded as an important starting point for public funds to extend from asset management to wealth management.
But at the same time, problems such as high customer acquisition costs, low input-output ratio, and lack of traffic sources have also hampered the development of fund direct sales for a long time.Among them, some frontrunners have achieved a certain amount of customer accumulation under the heavy investment and continuous cultivation, but there are also companies that have chosen to shrink the front line between the huge imbalance of input and output.
Direct sales in the industry are showing signs of fatigue
Many funds outage APP
Recently, Yingda Fund announced that the operation and maintenance services of its "Yingda Fortune Treasure" APP will be offline from May 30.In this regard, Yingda Fund explained that this is one of the measures to implement lean management, and direct sales individual customers can still use webpages and WeChat public accounts for transactions.
This is not the first case of a fund company going offline with its own direct selling APP.On March 5 this year, Founder Fubon Fund Company announced that it would suspend the operation and maintenance services of the mobile application software of Founder Fubon Fund; earlier at the end of 2020, Debon Fund also announced that it would terminate the operation and maintenance of the Debon Fund APP. Serve.
In the eyes of industry insiders, this will by no means be the last case, and may even be just the beginning.It is reported that at present, only a few head fund companies such as E Fund, GF, China Universal and other leading fund companies in the industry can achieve the expected direct sales revenue.For most small and medium-sized fund companies, even if they continue to operate the APP, they are still under great pressure, and many fund companies have not operated the APP independently.
"The pressure mainly comes from two aspects. First, the operation of the APP requires constant cost investment. The fund company needs to provide internal support in the development and construction of the platform, operation and maintenance, and iterative updates. For small and medium-sized fund companies, the pressure is significant; second, the cost-effectiveness of acquiring new customers continues to decline. In the context of the gradual disappearance of Internet dividends, fund companies lack traffic acquisition means compared with large Internet platforms, and the traffic accumulated in the past is also Faced with the risk of falling off slowly." The person in charge of a public offering Internet business in southern China told the Securities Times reporter bluntly that many small and medium-sized fund companies have weak brand effects. Sex should be carefully assessed.
According to recent research by Dole Technology, although the user experience of fund companies' direct sales APP has been greatly improved compared with the past, the lack of traffic sources has always been a significant problem.In order to obtain traffic, fund companies spend a lot of money on buying traffic exposure every year. However, due to the lack of experience of fund companies in buying traffic in the past, and due to cost constraints, the traffic purchased is often of low quality, resulting in a lot of resources. Waste, the ultimate cost of the fund company to acquire an active and effective new customer is likely to be no less than 500 yuan.
"What investors need is a purchase channel. It doesn't matter whether this channel is direct sales or not. There is no shortage of platforms to purchase funds in the market." Yang Gang, COO of Dingli Technology, pointed out that the advantage of fund companies is asset management. Focusing on product supply, the advantage of direct sales is not obvious.
The various difficulties faced by the operation of the direct selling APP show the weakness of the direct selling of fund companies, and it is not difficult to find clues from the changes in the data.
According to data from China Foundation Association, as of the end of 2016, the proportion of direct sales of fund companies once reached 65.62%, but since then it has shown a downward trend. As of the end of 2019, the proportion has dropped to 57.29%. 23.59%, 7.59%, 11.03%.
However, the scale of direct sales will include a large number of institutional customized products. According to industry insiders, the proportion of real retail direct sales in the industry is only 10% at most.According to the latest internal data of a large and medium-sized fund company, direct sales account for less than 1% of the channels through which individual investors purchase funds.
Reduce direct sales investment
Is it the trend?
In the face of the continuous decline in the cost-effectiveness of input and output, do fund companies want to give up direct sales?
In fact, in the exchanges with relevant persons of many fund companies, the reporter of Securities Times found that most fund companies attach great importance to the direct sales business. The direct sales channel is an important window for fund companies to directly serve and reach customers. It is regarded as a major development direction for the construction of fund companies and in-depth exploration of the private domain ecology under the background of the exhaustion of public domain traffic dividends.
For example, Huitianfu, one of the first fund companies in the industry to build direct sales channels, said that through direct sales channels, public funds can accumulate more user-related portraits and behavioral data, and be data-driven to provide higher-quality user services.In addition, the direct sales channel is an important bridge connecting the company's investment and research capabilities with customers' financial demands.
GF Fund has entrusted the direct selling platform with the important task of innovation and exploration, and its own direct selling platform assumes the function of the company's Internet business self-operated experimental field.It is reported that GF Fund's bottom-level account wallet, smart fixed investment, parent-child account, customer group operation, community operation and other functions are first launched on the free direct selling platform, and then gradually promoted and applied in the agency sales cooperation.
Even the aforementioned public offering in South China, which tends to reduce investment in direct sales, believes that, for fund managers, the direct sales channel has a shorter radius for serving customers, more optional means, and no customer maintenance fee sharing. It is still necessary for small and medium-sized fund companies with brand effects to develop their own APPs in order to get rid of the shackles of agency agencies, enhance customer stickiness, and improve the company's medium and long-term income returns.
It is precisely because of the emphasis on direct sales channels that fund companies have made a lot of attempts and investments in the past.It is understood that the annual investment of a certain head public offering in direct sales is as high as 100 million yuan, and the relevant e-commerce team also has more than 100 people, and even has a dedicated IT service team.
Many fund companies have continued to explore and invest in important platforms such as official websites, APPs, and WeChat public accounts.The relevant person in charge of the direct selling business of GF Fund recalled, “As early as 2005, GF Fund launched an online trading system. At that time, it mainly provided trading services to customers through its official website. In addition, the rate of direct selling was more favorable, and it won a lot of money. The first batch of online direct selling customers with high acceptance of Internet investment.”
In 2012, with the popularization of smart phones, the fund business entered a new era of mobile internet. GF Fund immediately launched a mobile APP that is more convenient and can meet the trading needs of customers anytime, anywhere.During that time, from the background data of GF Fund, the growth of mobile clients was much higher than that of PC clients.In 2013, with the rapid growth of the WeChat ecosystem, GF Fund launched its official WeChat account earlier in the industry, and then launched the official WeChat transaction service system in 2014, gaining a lot of fans and customers during the early WeChat bonus period. .At present, 90% of GF Fund's direct sales customers trade through mobile terminals, and the WeChat platform has become an important communication point between fund companies and holders.
It is not difficult to find that this process is precisely accompanied by the development trajectory of the Internet, but perhaps it is "the Internet of success and the Internet of failure". Various data show that the mobile Internet has entered the era of stock, so the competition for traffic has become the current fund company. The biggest pain point of starting a dropshipping business.
Some industry insiders pointed out that compared with the Internet consignment sales platforms that are backed by leading Internet giants and the traditional consignment sales channels developed by relying on offline outlets, fund companies’ own platforms lack traffic sources and have a relatively small customer base; , Investors can only buy the company's funds, which cover a small number of assets, and the product variety is far less than that of the consignment platform.
Regarding whether the industry will continue to invest in direct selling business, Yang Gang said that there should be differentiation. Large fund companies will continue to build direct selling platforms by leveraging their brand advantages. In the future, online platforms and offline services may be more organically combined, while small and medium-sized fund companies may Due to the limitation of input resources, it will respond by maintaining or withdrawing.
Investment advisory may become a breakthrough point in direct sales
In the face of the "wolves around" of various agency sales agencies, how to break through the direct sales with huge investment funds and find their own differentiated development path?
Liu Renjiang, head of the Internet Finance Department of GF Fund, believes that looking at the business opportunities in the next 3 to 5 years from the perspective of residents' wealth management, the investment advisory business may be a breakthrough point for the fund's direct sales platform to overtake.
First of all, the direct selling platform can only sell the funds of the company, but with the launch of the investment advisory business, investors can purchase investment advisory services for selected products in the whole market through direct selling channels. solution.
Secondly, the fund investment advisory business is the directional and trending business of wealth management, and it is a win-win model that can truly realize the preservation and appreciation of customer assets and the growth of platform business.Fund companies can transform their professional investment and research capabilities into service capabilities for C-end customers through direct sales exploration, so as to achieve the extension from asset management capabilities to wealth management capabilities, which is also beneficial to improving the fund company's customer profitability experience.Taking the investment advisory business as the starting point to find a strategic breakthrough in the development of wealth management may become one of the directions pursued by the entire wealth management industry in the future.
The relevant business people of China Universal Fund also expressed similar views. He believes that differentiated and high-quality investment advisory services are the foundation of the future of direct selling platforms. Clients earning long-term excess returns is an important issue that needs to be considered in fund direct sales.
"Under the background of fierce market competition and continuous development of fund investment advisory business, we believe that a refined online service system driven by data and with the whole life cycle of customers as the main clue will become an important breakthrough in improving service quality. ' said the business person.
It is understood that, as early as 2016, GF Fund took the lead in launching the predecessor of the investment advisory business - the portfolio investment model "Jizhi Portfolio" that intelligently matches the risk preferences of customers. In August last year, it officially launched the fund investment advisory business on its own platform. This year, we will further launch parent-child investment advisory products with a sliding channel design, continue to deepen the investment advisory business, and provide support for forging wealth management capabilities.
In 2017, China Universal Fund launched the "Tian Fu Zhi Investment" function in its "Cash Treasure" APP, dedicated to building a customized wealth management platform; in December last year, China Universal's fund investment advisory service was officially launched in "Cash". The launch of the "Bao" APP has not only established an online product performance inspection and monitoring system, but also established a nationwide professional customer service team, high-net-worth customer team and customer group operation team to provide customers with full life cycle companionship.
Small programs light up private battlefields
In addition to business exploration, in recent years, fund direct sales have also begun to change the battlefield, from APPs and websites to more lightweight platforms, such as WeChat official accounts, service accounts, and small programs based on WeChat ecology.
Just recently, the fund company's small program trading function, which was suspended in 2017 due to transaction security issues, has quietly re-launched.According to statistics from Dole Technology, 24 of the 138 public fund companies have launched WeChat mini-programs (only the mini-programs for retail customers are counted), of which 6 can register, open accounts and trade.According to industry insiders, there are still some fund companies whose mini programs are being developed in full swing.
The person in charge of the mutual fund department of a fund company said frankly that he is very optimistic about the idea of carrying out fund direct sales on the mini program. It is lighter than the APP in terms of convenience, better than H5 in terms of user experience, and better in the WeChat ecosystem. spreading ability.In the past, fund mini-programs faced technical security and other issues. After these issues are resolved, there may be good development.
The former person in charge of a leading Internet agency pointed out that the original private domain system of the fund company was basically the APP of its own company, but in fact the number and activity of APP users were basically negligible.In the future, combined with the opportunity of WeChat's open private domain construction capabilities and the use of WeChat's powerful interactive platform, fund companies may be able to establish a truly effective private domain ecosystem.
Yang Gang also said that the future direct sales of funds can be expanded based on the WeChat ecosystem, but he also admitted, "In essence, it depends on the improvement of operational capabilities and service capabilities, which is still a shortcoming for most fund companies, not simply doing business. A small program or APP can solve it.”
"The public domain traffic dividend is gone, and the construction and deep exploration of the private domain ecology is a major development direction for the fund industry. The future fund industry cannot rely only on a few star fund managers and a few products to conquer the world, it must and only do Only with good user operation can it be possible to continue to develop in the competition and remain invincible." The former person in charge of the above-mentioned Internet agency concluded.
【Editor: Shao Wanyun】
