Digital retail of vehicles, subscription models to take off post Covid-19

MUMBAI: Purchasing vehicles online would trump visiting dealerships and leasing vehicles on subscription models, rather than buying them outright, are two trends consumers would be tilting towards in the future, a Deloitte survey found.Over half the participants in the survey said they would buy their next vehicle online, if available. The survey polled 1,000 people over the age of 18 years and the participants were representative of the overall population, said Deloitte.Meanwhile, over 70% participants said they would limit the use of ride-hailing services and public transport. About 84% of the people said the idea of owning a vehicle was valuable to them, but 66% said they would be avoiding any large purchase.“We are dealing with a complex scenario where a person is saying that they want to delay their large purchases but that same individual in saying that they want to limit the use of public transport and ride-hailing services,” said Rajeev Singh, partner and automotive sector lead at Deloitte. “Maybe this person cannot spend, say, Rs 5 lakh on a car, but if I come up with a good subscription model, this person would be willing to pay a few thousand rupees for hiring.”It is to be noted that 1000 is a relatively small sample size for a typical consumer survey, with fair scope of the accuracy of the results improving with more participants.To be sure, the options of purchasing vehicles online or getting vehicles on subscription have been there for some time now, but never really took off in India. However, Covid-19 outbreak could be the inflection point for these, Singh said.“Things that did not work in the past are taking off after the Covid-19 pandemic, like work from home,” he said.Automakers have been aggressively preparing their digital sales channels. Almost all leading automakers have some form of online sales presence.“To facilitate our customers who are home bound, we have made provisions to entirely digitalise the sales process wherein the customer can take a virtual tour of the vehicle, select financing options and even receive a quotation online,” said Naveen Soni, senior vice president, sales and service, Toyota Kirloskar Motor. “We have also made provisions for delivering the vehicle to the customer’s doorstep upon the completion of purchase.”Ravi Bhatia, president and director at automotive business intelligence firm JATO Dynamics, said automakers are considering more holistic online sales channels unlike earlier when only their models on sale in the country were listed online. The newer portals will include getting their dealers on-board, detailed pricing of the vehicles and offering price comparisons models from rival brands.

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