Country's largest carmaker Maruti Suzuki has pushed its sales into top gear through online medium. The company has said that it has sold 2 lakh cars through online channels. Maruti started the online sales platform two years ago, and at present, 1000 dealerships are under its jurisdiction.
Shashank Srivastava, Executive Director, Marketing and Sales at Maruti Suzuki India, says that when the new digital channel was launched in 2018, digital inquiries tripled by April 2019 and sales were up by 2 lakh units. 121 lakh customer inquiries were received through this digital channel.
He said that according to the Google Auto Gear Shift India 2020 report, around 95% of car sales came from the digital platform, as the customer first researches the car online before going to the dealership. Customers get complete information about the car through online platforms. In the end, the customer talks to his trusted dealer advisors about the deal.
"Customers who inquired about the car on the digital platform also bought the car within 10 days," says Srivastava. He added that the 'Near Me' customer search has also doubled for Maruti Suzuki dealers.
Informing about the Hyper local platform, he told that the platform has made it easy for the customer to search and contact with close dealers. In the past, this initiative has shown very fast growth. "During these two years, we have connected 1,000 dealerships with 3,000 online touchpoints," he said. It may be noted that Maruti Suzuki started taking online bookings in 2017.
The company says that people now search for things online more, which is why the traffic on its dealership websites has increased.
As per Maruti Suzuki, results for online sales are getting very good and digital inquiries have increased by five times, which is 20% of total sales. During the coronavirus crisis, digital inquiries have increased by 33% in the last five months.