Automotive News Europe - March 2013 - 17

AUTOMOTIVE NEWS EUROPE

AUTOMAKERS

Enter the cyberstore
Audi, BMW, Mercedes look for edge with virtual showrooms
NICK GIBBS

ngibbs@crain.com

ONDON – Audi has opened the second of 20 planned digital showrooms
designed to impress urban customers
with an interactive experience that goes
well beyond the standard dealership
fare of brochures and machine coffee.
The new Audi City in Beijing follows last
year’s opening of the inaugural London
showroom, and keeps to the same
format by letting customers view configured cars on floor-to-ceiling screens
but reducing traditional dealer functions
such as the test drive. Audi’s “real-life
cyberstores” are also being rolled out
by its two biggest rivals.
Last year, BMW opened its first Brand
Store on an upscale Paris shopping
street and says it will be making announcements on similar showrooms
later this year.
And in September last year, MercedesBenz opened its first Visionary Store
in a shopping arcade in central Milan,
focusing on the new A class. By locating
in prestigious, high-traffic locations, the
automakers aim to introduce potential
customers to the brand rather than
give them the hard sell. “They’re taking
pressure off the whole buying process,”
a BMW spokeswoman told Automotive
News Europe.

‘Wow’ factor
Part of the appeal is the “wow” factor from the digital technology. BMW
spent 11 million euros ($15 million) on
the Paris store, of which 3 million went
toward the digital element, including five car configurators that can be
viewed in 3-D. At the Beijing Audi City
customers can configure their cars using screens with gesture control, while
six powerwalls with a total surface area
of 94 square meters display their newly
configured car driving in a number of
settings. Mercedes also makes use
of gesture controls at its Milan store,
as well as giving customers the opportunity to experience the company’s

MARCH 2013

Customers at the Audi City store in London can interact with the digital image of their car by opening the trunk and doors.
car-specific apps. Although the test
drive and the other dealer functions
take place elsewhere, the aim is still to
sell cars according to Audi. “The sales
figures have out-paced our expectations,” said UK national sales manager
Gary Pearson of the Audi City store in
London. The Mayfair-based showroom
is selling on average seven cars a week
“and these generally aren’t A1s and
A3s” a spokesman said. Sales staff will
send test-drive cars to the customer’s
home or workplace if requested, but
some customers are buying without
getting behind the wheel first, according to Audi.

Product geniuses
BMW will soon require dealers to
hire young, tech-savvy employees to
handle questions about its vehicles
on the showroom floor. The BMW
Genius Everywhere program is being
launched across Europe after a trial
at several large dealership groups in
the UK last year. A pilot program in the
United States will begin later this year
in several stores and will be rolled out
nationwide by early 2014. The program
has specially trained employees -- many

of them college students -- patrolling
dealerships with iPads in hand. The
BMW “Geniuses” will be available to
inform shoppers about vehicles and
features, but they will not sell cars.
The approach is similar to the Genius
Bar program in every Apple outlet,
where product explainers answer
questions and give free tech support.
Cadillac and Lexus have similar programs in their U.S. dealerships. Audi is
also hoping some of its Audi City store
innovations will filter down. “We looking
at ways of rolling similar solutions out
more widely, and making them costeffective,” Pearson said. First, however,
the firm will launch more of the Audi
City showrooms in places such as
Berlin, Shanghai, Paris, Rome, Moscow
and New York. However the future of
these digital brand centers is unlikely to
extend beyond a handful of prestigious
locations, said IHS Automotive senior
analyst Tim Urquhart. “I see the prospects for them being extremely limited,”
he said. “If you’re serious about buying
a high-end car, I imagine you would
want to test drive it in the flesh.”
Diana T. Kurylko contributed

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Automotive News Europe - March 2013

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