By 2030, when the last new petrol car has been sold, the majority of new cars will be sold online. The traditional dealer with showroom and workshop is dying out. That is the expectation of KPMG.
KPMG conducted a research into the future of the car dealership based on interviews with 1,100 drivers from the automotive sector worldwide. Currently, only 5 percent of cars are bought online in the Netherlands, but that will soon change. This will also change the role of the traditional car dealer. Anyone looking for a new car now makes a shortlist on the internet. The visit to the dealer is to negotiate the price and to cut the knot. With the electrification of cars, the dealer becomes much less important, partly because it is needed less often for maintenance.
63 percent of European car manufacturers foresee that 40 to 80 percent of cars will be purchased directly from the manufacturer, KPMG’s Automotive Executive Survey reports. Moreover, buying and leasing cars is facing increasing competition from car-sharing subscription forms, according to eight out of ten drivers surveyed. “The car industry has not undergone as many changes in the past 130 years as it is now. Entering big tech companies, online car sales and the rapid adoption of electric driving are turning the industry upside down. Car manufacturers have to adapt their revenue models and invest heavily in renewed digital customer experiences,” says Loek Kramer, Partner Automotive at KPMG in the Netherlands.
Volvo, among others, has indicated that it will focus more on online sales. The Swedish brand already spoke about this in 2014. BMW also sees a future in this. It is already customary at Tesla that you no longer pick up a new car from a dealer, and Volvo’s young sister brand Lynk & Co, for example, does not have regular showrooms either. Chinese brands that hope to make it here in Europe are also investing heavily in online sales.
– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl