As the Indian car market is currently going through lean phase, major companies are adopting newer strategies in order to counter the slump. In a recent development, it was learnt that Japanese car maker, Nissan will be employing a digital approach to sell its cars in India. The company announced that it will make its entire product line-up available for purchase through Internet. In a statement, Nissan India announced “Customers will be able to book their cars by making payments through an online gateway by credit card. The car will then be delivered to the customer by their nearest Nissan dealership when ready."
On the other hand, Hover Automotive India, Director for Marketing, Nitish Tipnis told “Today most car buyers go online before making a decision so using the internet is a logical extension of the purchase cycle." It must be mentioned that Nissan does not sell cars in India on its own as it has appointed Hover Automotive India Pvt Ltd for the purpose. Further divulging details, he said that the main motive behind this initiative is to simplify the purchase cycle and delight the customers by making the entire sales journey quicker and more efficient with no compromise on service. Furthermore, to woo e-commerce customers, Nissan shall be offering the convenience of online booking coupled with attractive deals.
At present, Nissan has gained a sound market presence in India by expanding its dealership network across different parts of the country. It must be noted that the auto maker maintains its presence in almost all segments through models like Micra, Sunny, Evalia and the newly launched compact SUV, Terrano apart from the full fledged SUV, X-Trail. The new initiative taken by Nissan is first of a kind as other car makers do not have any platform to sell cars through Internet. Prominent companies like Maruti Suzuki and Hyundai use Internet as a means to convert queries regarding their vehicles into offline sales through dealerships.
Meanwhile, Nissan is reportedly readying up its plans to introduce the low-cost brand, Datsun in the Indian auto market. Under this brand, Nissan will be offering entry level cars that would be priced competitively in order to pose a stiff competition to major companies like Maruti Suzuki, Hyundai and Tata Motors. Recently, the Japanese firm affirmed that it would not avail help of its sales partner, Hover Automotive to sell Datsun cars in the country. Moreover, the new and existing dealers of Nissan would be asked to open separate showrooms for selling vehicles of Datsun in India.
Reportedly, the cars of Datsun will be showcased at all Nissan dealerships, which will have reserved area for display. The multi-brand showroom concept followed by Nissan is somewhat similar to the Tata-Fiat venture, which failed quite miserably. Besides the showroom space, Nissan would be merging the service centres of both the brands in order to offer almost same experience to customers of Datsun and Nissan. Industry experts are hailing the move of Nissan saying that it would reduce the capital needed by Datsun to expand its reach in the country.
