With the partial closing of physical points of sales (POS) due to COVID-19, online sales channels have become more important than ever for OEMs. BearingPoint analyzed the online offerings of leading OEMs in the USA, Europe, and China and evaluated their online sales readiness, identified leading practices, and derived recommended actions.
Various OEMs already provide mature online shops, and several patterns emerged from the analysis. There are correlations between buying processes and markets in terms of complexity, process duration, and dealership involvement. The study also showed large numbers of online shop offerings with high service maturity in China and the UK.
Despite being one of the largest car and online sales markets globally, the USA did not prove to be a market with many online shops for new cars. While the German market is in an emerging phase with numerous shops available and growing, only a few online shops are available in Italy, France, and Spain. Those markets are not considered as markets with high online sales maturity.
It is worth mentioning that only one manufacturer has an online shop in all assessed markets: Tesla, which also scores highest in every market. The UK market proved to be a designated pilot market, with many OEMs already having mature shops exclusively there. Many OEMs avoid their home market but show mature services abroad, mostly in the Chinese market. It is noticeable that not only Chinese OEMs are providing the leading practices in their home market, but also foreign manufacturers do.
The maturity of online shops does not correlate with the car segment the OEM is active in, and the study found that both volume and premium OEMs can provide high scoring online shops. While volume and premium OEMs have specific strengths in different areas, there are white spots in some areas where none of them provides a leading practice.
There are several key steps you can take to digitize your sales structures, bring them online, and connect with your customers, all while providing the same high-quality service that automotive sales rely on.