BMW could adopt a more digital sales approach after the successful completion of a pilot project by its subsidiary in South Africa. The strategy would mean customers deal directly with BMW when it comes to pricing, purchasing and invoicing.
The recent announcement of Peter van Binsbergen as the incoming boss at BMW SA is likely to mean plans to expand the model to other markets is imminent. Van Binsbergen has already been instrumental in expanding other BMW strategies worldwide, including the Five Star customer rating and Product Genius concepts created by BMW UK.
“Our customers today expect a seamless premium brand experience across all channels, online and offline,” a spokesperson for BMW AG told us. “The best customer experience and thus further digitisation of our sales channels have been the focus of our sales development for many years.”
Outgoing BMW SA managing director and former boss of BMW UK, Tim Abbott, who managed the pilot, told Autocar that now is the perfect time to expand the sales model as the way we buy cars has changed during the Covid-19 pandemic. A spokesperson for BMW UK told Autocar that there are no current plans to make any fundamental changes to its sales model, however.
Under the strategy, BMW is directly responsible for the sale, including taking the order for a new vehicle, generating the invoice and receiving the payment. It means the days of haggling over the price at a dealership will be numbered, with BMW setting the price you pay, which will be the same regardless of which dealership a customer uses or whether they buy directly on-line.
“Dealers still have to be what I call product specialists, because people still want to know how Connected Drive works or what's the difference between four-wheel drive and two-wheel drive,” says Abbott. “So what we've seen is that it's more like an Apple store concept where they're more consultants, guiding the customer to a point.”
“We talked to dealers at length about the new programme and we had to lead and it took a lot of convincing, but today I can honestly say not one of the retailers wants to go back, they do not want to return to the old wholesale model, they love it. And the customer reaction we're getting is exemplary as well.”
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Forcing people to pay list
Forcing people to pay list price for a BMW? It will kill sales.
rare wrote:
Some sales yes.
Lease providers will still get their bulk discounts so it will push the BMW market into more PCP deals and company car sales instead of direct ownership sales.
“Dealers still have to be
“Dealers still have to be what I call product specialists, because people still want to know how Connected Drive works or what's the difference between four-wheel drive and two-wheel drive,”
In my experience thats where dealers fall down the most. I've never met one yet who knows as much about a particular model as I do, and yet its their job.
catnip wrote:
Glad its not just me! when they only have a relatively small product range, how hard is to to read a 4 page spec. sheet on each model as at least a start!
Fake headline DM style
Since when did an ex employee dictate bmw future sales methods direction. If it were to happen it would just be seen as bmw playing catch up with Tesla, again