Maruti Suzuki India sells more than 200,000 cars through online channel

The country's largest carmaker Maruti Suzuki India said it has sold over two lakh cars through the online channel

The country's largest carmaker Maruti Suzuki India on Monday said it has sold over two lakh cars through the online channel.

The company, which initiated its online sales platform around two years back, said the digital channel now covers nearly 1,000 dealerships across the country.

"Since the introduction of this new digital channel in 2018, we have witnessed three times increase in digital enquiries and recorded sales of over 2 lakh units since April 2019. This digital channel has helped to generate over 21 lakh customer enquiries," Maruti Suzuki India Executive Director (Marketing & Sales) Shashank Srivastava said in a statement.

Citing 'Google Auto Gear Shift India 2020 Report', he said nearly 95 per cent of new car sales in India are digitally influenced as per the customers first research online and then buy at the physical dealerships. While online experience provides the complete spectrum of information to the customers, at the last mile the customers seek assurance of the deal from their trusted dealer advisors.

"Interestingly, customers who enquire through our digital channel end up purchasing a car within 10 days. This reaffirms that with a robust online to offline platform executed by a digitally enabled salesforce, converting digital enquiries into sales becomes easier," Srivastava said.

He said the company witnessed a two-fold increase in 'Near Me' customer searches for Maruti Suzuki dealers.

"Our investment to create a hyper-local platform is to help customers discover faster and connect to their nearest dealers. This initiative has seen rapid growth in recent times. In the last two years, we have integrated over 1,000 dealerships across 3,000 online touchpoints in this digital transformation journey," Srivastava added.

Maruti Suzuki India began taking online bookings in 2017. The company said as customer behaviour further shifts online, its dealership's websites are witnessing a much larger traffic flow.

"The positive results of the initiatives are evident as digital enquiries for Maruti Suzuki have seen a five-fold increase to around 20 per cent of total sales. In the prevailing COVID-19 scenario, the digital enquiry contribution has further increased exceeding 33 per cent during the last five months," the company said.