Zhongguancun's transformation: from electronics mall to 7.2-kilometer entrepreneurial street

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The unscrupulous businessmen in Zhongguancun have been reported by many media outlets through various channels, but the unscrupulous businessmen and black shopping guides in Zhongguancun are still arrogant and deceiving fewer and fewer consumers.

Some Zhongguancun business operators once complained to Tencent Technology that the rise of e-commerce platforms and the 3C strategy of home appliance stores such as Suning and Gome (Weibo) have made electronic stores lose their future. However, a large channel dealer who has been operating in Zhongguancun for more than ten years angrily told Tencent Technology: "The sellers in Zhongguancun electronic stores are just asking for trouble. Although the impact of e-commerce is serious, many stall owners have loyal old customers due to the service functions and comprehensive products of electronic stores. However, these old customers have all been lost as the number of counterfeit goods in Zhongguancun has gradually increased."

Both Hailong and Dinghao have told Tencent Technology that they have taken many measures to regulate the behavior of dealers and have established green channels with local police stations, but apparently with little success.

But what dealt the final blow to Zhongguancun's electronic malls was not only the rise of home appliance stores and e-commerce, but also changes in government policies.

In April 2011, Zhongguancun Pacific Digital Computer City announced its closure. A few days later, Hailong Group founder Lu Ruiqing told Tencent Technology: "Hailong's difficulties today will be the future of other IT stores."

As the prophecy came true, the "ant army" of Zhongguancun gradually withdrew from the place where their dreams began, and the fans of Zhongguancun also left this once bustling "supermarket" in large numbers.

In January this year, Zhongguancun e-World began to sign contracts with more than 1,000 property owners. After the signing, Zhongguancun e-World will rent out the entire property or the entire floor, operate in a unified manner, and will no longer engage in the electronic store business. This is not surprising news. According to a merchant who has been operating in e-World for many years, his sales have dropped rapidly since 2012, and he has survived by reducing the scale several times. Figures show that a store of about 50 square meters in e-World has a monthly profit of less than 4,000 yuan, which is not even comparable to the rental houses of the same size in Zhongguancun.

However, some practitioners insist that IT stores will still have room for survival in the future: "The most fundamental reason why IT stores have been able to survive for so many years is that they have a wide range of categories and accessories. High-end DIY and game and video game players still need professional places like Zhongguancun Electronics Store to provide services."

The reality is that the Zhongguancun that once amazed the world is dead and will never come back.

Multiple transformations

The overall transformation of Zhongguancun's electronic stores began in 2009. On July 23 of that year, the Haidian District Government issued a "Notice on Accelerating the Adjustment of Business Formats in Zhongguancun West District". There is a paragraph in the notice that states: Zhongguancun West District is positioned to be built into a functional area for the gathering of innovative elements, and electronic stores, shopping malls, shopping centers, restaurants and other business formats are not encouraged to develop in this area.

The Notice on Accelerating the Adjustment of Business Formats in Zhongguancun West District points out more clearly that Zhongguancun West District starts from Zhongguancun Street in the east, Suzhou Street in the west, North Fourth Ring Road in the north, and Haidian South Road in the south, with a planned area of ​​95 hectares and a public building area of ​​about 2.5 million square meters. Its functional positioning is to be an innovation element gathering functional area with technological innovation and transformation and radiation of scientific and technological achievements as the core, technological innovation services as the focus, and high-end talent services, intermediary services and government public services as the support.

Obviously, under the advocacy of relevant government departments, Zhongguancun will face another commercial transformation. "No new shops will be approved, and the government will take the lead in dredging the old shops to gradually realize the business model reconstruction." Behind this sentence, there is a profound meaning.

"'Crowding out' does not mean relocating the entire electronics market. Buildings such as Hailong Building and Dinghao Electronics Mall will be used as trading and display areas for new technologies and new products." This was a supplementary statement made by the relevant departments in public.

In the future positioning of Zhongguancun West District by the Zhongguancun Management Committee, the new technology and new product trading and display area, the science and technology financial element gathering area, the science and technology intermediary service area, the science and technology enterprise headquarters gathering area, the creative industry gathering area, and the supporting service area together constitute six key functional areas.

In 2010, the West District electronics stores, led by Hailong and Dinghao, successively introduced high-tech enterprises. By the end of that year, their offices had basically been occupied by high-tech enterprises, which was also an important step in the transformation of electronics stores in 2010.

Electronic stores will be completely closed

At the opening ceremony of the "Zhongguancun Innovation and Entrepreneurship Season" on October 11, the Zhongguancun core area officially released the "Zhongguancun Street Development Plan", which means that Zhongguancun will completely bid farewell to electronic stores and concentrate limited space on developing new economies and new models such as entrepreneurship incubation, smart hardware, and Internet+, and create a maker center and shared economy center that gathers talents and innovates models.

The planned Zhongguancun Street starts from Baishiqiao in the south and ends at the west gate of Tsinghua University in the north, with a total length of 7.2 kilometers. In the plan, Zhongguancun Street is divided into two spatial levels: key function construction area and functional coordinated development area. Among them, the scope of the key function construction area is mainly centered on Zhongguancun Street, and it extends 300 meters on both sides of the east and west. According to the plan, the construction of Zhongguancun Street in the future will further highlight the characteristics of the "source of strategy", accelerate the formation of a development pattern with agglomeration of entrepreneurial elements, diversification of incubation subjects, professionalization of entrepreneurial services, sustainability of entrepreneurial activities, marketization of operation models, and openness of entrepreneurial resources.

Focusing on the above positioning, Haidian District will build a "5+6" functional layout structure for Zhongguancun Street, dividing Zhongguancun Street into five relatively different characteristic functional sections, focusing on optimizing the functions and improving the environmental facilities of the six node areas along the line. The goal is to comprehensively improve the innovation ecological environment in the surrounding areas by the end of 2020, and continuously generate maker groups and enterprise clusters with Zhongguancun's original innovation, technical service capabilities and business model innovation advantages.

As Zhongguancun announced the launch of the startup street upgrade plan, the second floor of Hailong Building has been transformed into the "Hard Egg Space", an experience hall for the smart hardware innovation and entrepreneurship platform Hard Egg. It is reported that the Hard Egg platform has currently gathered more than 7,000 smart hardware innovation and entrepreneurship projects, more than 3,000 suppliers and 4 million smart hardware fans.

According to on-site staff, more than 120 pieces of smart hardware were recently exhibited in the nearly 500-square-meter exhibition area of ​​Beijing Hard Egg Space. The exhibits will be changed regularly based on audience feedback and industry hotspots.

According to reports, Hard Egg is an Internet platform for smart hardware innovation and entrepreneurship that was incubated by Cogobuy in 2013. Headquartered in Shenzhen, it aims to provide a one-stop O2O entrepreneurship service platform with "supply chain" as the core for smart hardware entrepreneurs, providing a closed-loop B2B2C service from concept to product to mass production to sales channels. As the first smart hardware entrepreneurship platform to settle in Hailong Building, Hard Egg embodies the expectation of accelerating the transformation of Zhongguancun.

In March this year, Zhongguancun issued 29 guiding policies, namely, "Several Support Measures on Promoting the Innovation and Development of Zhongguancun Smart Hardware Industry" (hereinafter referred to as "Measures"), to vigorously support the development of smart hardware industry clusters. Hailong was jointly awarded the title of the only "Zhongguancun Smart Hardware Innovation Center" by the Zhongguancun Management Committee and the Haidian District Government, and IngDan is the first smart hardware startup platform to settle in Hailong.

It is not an easy task to transform from a traditional electronics store to an intelligent hardware industry cluster, but one detail may illustrate Zhongguancun's determination to transform: relevant personnel of the Zhongguancun Management Committee went to Shenzhen to inspect Hard Egg and invited Hard Egg to move in after a field visit. For innovative and entrepreneurial institutions such as startups and incubators, the preferential conditions offered by Zhongguancun for transformation are also very attractive. The Measures clearly state that for industry leaders and companies with major technological innovations that move into the intelligent hardware industry cluster, a 50% rent subsidy will be given, and the maximum subsidized area will be 2,000 square meters.

According to a person from Hard Egg, the rental discounts and government support provided by Zhongguancun are very attractive. "In fact, we also wanted to build an experience center before, but the rent nearby was too expensive. Now that we have been invited by the government, the rental discounts and government support are very attractive to us."

Perhaps the history of domestic electronic stores has not stopped, but as the most important symbol, sign and flagship, the history of Zhongguancun electronic stores will obviously come to an end. An old Zhongguancun resident who has worked in Zhongguancun for more than ten years told Tencent Technology: "Zhongguancun plays the role of incubator and trainer in China's IT industry. It is well-deserved China's Silicon Valley. Imagine if there was no Zhongguancun, perhaps we would not see companies like Sina, Aigo and JD."

However, Silicon Valley, which is targeted by all the leaders of China's entrepreneurial parks, industrial parks, and incubators, did not have a "plan" at the time. On the contrary, it was born under the guidance of more market-oriented factors such as venture capital, the gathering of scientific and technological talents, and the civilianization of national defense technology. Internet companies such as JD.com, Baidu, and Sina, which are now regarded as representatives of Zhongguancun, also follow this path of growth.

Perhaps, a 7.2-kilometer entrepreneurial street will provide a place for more companies to settle down, which will at least bring Beijing closer to Silicon Valley in terms of the absolute number of companies.