From B2C to C2B [CLICK TO BUY]

Author: Karthik Sivamani

The COVID-19 pandemic has bought the world to a standstill. The impact is clearly visible in the financials of all the companies. In March 2020, all OEMs saw a sharp decline in sales due to the lockdown because of COVID-19 and BSIV-BSVI transition. COVID-19 led to disruption in production and supply chain in March 2020. In the passenger vehicles segment, OEMs like MSIL, Hyundai and Toyota performed better than their competitors like VW, Tata, Mahindra, Renault – Nissan and Ford. This was driven by an early shift to BSVI and low BSIV inventory. While MSIL dispatched 77,000 units in the domestic market with sales declining 48% YoY, sales of Toyota/Hyundai declined 45%/41%, respectively.

Post this crisis Hyundai India launched the upgraded online automotive retail platform ‘Click to Buy’ to give customers a viable alternative solution for purchase amidst this Covid-19 pandemic. This is India’s first end-to-end online car buying platform, curated to provide incredible future retail experience to customers. The automobile manufacturer had initially launched the ‘Click to Buy’ platform in a pilot phase with few dealers in the Delhi-NCR region during January 2020.

‘Click to Buy’ is designed to facilitate online retail of Hyundai cars to promote a contactless purchasing process whereby owning a new car will be safer, convenient, and hassle-free. With ‘Click to Buy’, the company is offering access to its complete range of car models. The one-stop solution for customers’ car ownership requirement comes with additional features such as full-spectrum car buying journey, transparency with on-road prices, dedicated sales consultants, online finance options from leading banks, fastest loan approval for pre-approved customers, unique deal codes for customers, special online promotions, estimated time of delivery for car purchase, online test drive booking of sanitized cars and home delivery of fully sanitized cars, stated a company press release.

With `Click to Buy’, Hyundai embraces the new-age digital platform to cater service to its customers. All Hyundai models, including new Creta and new Verna, are available on the `Click to Buy’ website and this would act as an additional sales channel for over 600 Hyundai dealerships. This platform is connected in real-time across India.

Four months after the complete launch of ‘Click to Buy’ digital platform for vehicle retail, Hyundai Motor India, announced that it received a herculean figure of 1.5 million visitors, 20,000 vehicle enquiries and nearly 2,000 confirmed vehicle bookings though the website. The South Korean car manufacturer launched the digital platform in March to improve its retail sales during the pandemic.

WS Oh, executive director (corporate planning), Hyundai Motor India, said, “Hyundai has always been a technology leader in the automotive domain and has pioneered the online automotive retail space with India’s first end-to-end online platform ‘Click to Buy’. Aligned with our business slogan ‘Future Ready’, we are introducing the next generation of online car buying with ‘Click to Buy’ that enriches customer experience with first-in-industry features to offer a seamless and convenient online purchase journey. With the entire automotive ecosystem evolving around us, digital car buying platforms such as ‘Click to Buy’ will become the new normal.”