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Comment: Hello direct sales!
Mercedes-Benz is switching to direct sales, Hyundai wants to sell more cars via its own “webshop”, Faber has Vespas at the click of a mouse. The Corona crisis is accelerating sales change - there is no turning back.
Comment: Hello direct sales!
There are three bad words in our industry: climate change (no, no, no), Corona (we were just missing it) and direct sales (ugh, ugh, ugh). The climate issue has taken a back seat due to Corona. If you listen to the futurologists and politicians in the last few weeks, everyone agrees: The Corona crisis will massively accelerate digitalization and phase out the face-to-face culture. Both can be welcomed – it always depends on the perspective. Digitization doesn't just mean internet everywhere and fast computers, smartphones or other smart devices, but it also means new business areas, platform economics, other access to customers, new ordering and payment processes. I can't remember a visit to a car dealership where no manager or salesperson said: "If you're going to spend that much money on a car, you don't do it on the computer with the click of a mouse. You want to experience something, feel the car, talk to a person." Yes, yes, I always thought so too. But the world is moving inexorably forward, times are changing, customers are changing, values are changing. Roland Punzengruber, Managing Director of Hyundai Austria, says that since January they have achieved “three-digit sales figures” through the online shop for new vehicles. Honestly, that's not bad. Tesla practically only sells its cars online. And Tesla enjoys a sexy image among end customers. So the route doesn't seem to be that wrong. And let's be honest: direct sales for manufacturers mean more effort within their own ranks, but also less margin that they have to give up. The manufacturer who manages to pass on a noticeable price advantage to its end customers through direct sales will win. I'm sure of that. Because hand on heart: who of the end customers is willing to pay several hundred or thousand euros more for the same car?
On the other hand, many experts confirm the end of excessive globalization and a return to regionalism. And isn't the car dealer around the corner more regional, closer and more friendly than a company based on the other side of the world that delivers a car to my door on the date I want, but who do I turn to if I have questions or need help? Even. No company can act as closely as the regional car dealer, who speaks the language of its customers and who knows the concerns of its customers.
Conclusion? Quite simply: direct sales will come. Maybe not right away, but step by step. Corporations have been managing to become more and more efficient for decades - that means nothing other than saving costs. The billion-dollar automobile industry will therefore continue to try hard to keep more margin within its own ranks, at the expense of the dealers, of course. Whether this business model will be successful will depend entirely on the end customers. What can retailers do? Just one thing: be better and closer to the customer. That sounds trite, perhaps naive, but that is exactly the strength of regionality: you are closer to the end customer. No global company can be as close to customers as a regional car dealer that meets its customers regularly in everyday life.