German auto giant has inaugurated its first city and pop-up stores in India, in a bid to expand its presence and touchpoints in the country. The manufacturer opened its first City store at Richmond Road in Bengaluru, while the Pop-up store opened in Tumkur. The automaker says that the initiative aims to prepare the brand to be ‘fit for the future’ while being innovative. Volkswagen plans to introduce 30 new pop-up and city stores across the country over the next one year.
Speaking about the new innovation, Steffen Knapp, Director, Volkswagen Passenger Cars said, “Our business environment is changing at a breathtaking pace in view of new technologies and enhanced customer expectations. Our customers today value innovation and in turn expect a prompt and hassle-free experience with Volkswagen. This new format of transforming our sales stores is in alignment with our global growth strategy. As the world is moving towards connected mobility solutions, digitalization across the sales and after-sales process is pertinent. We’re constantly innovating our brand offerings and we trust our customers would appreciate the Volkswagen experience.”
The new stores have been opened in partnership with PPS Motors. Speaking on the collaboration, Rajiv Sanghvi, MD – PPS Motors said, “To enhance the customer purchase experience in today’s digital age, we are driven to deliver this world-class showroom that combines traditional and digital tools to offer a seamless sales experience to our customers.”
The Volkswagen Pop-up store aims to offer an opportunity for potential customers to interact better with the brand. These stores are mainly targeted at the semi-urban and rural areas where the company has a limited presence. Meanwhile, the Volkswagen City store will cater to young customers in urban areas. The city store will offer a digitized experience to customers with paperless details on the vehicles. Vehicles bought via both the stores will be serviced at the existing company workshops that are associated with the traditional dealerships that are already established in multiple cities.
Volkswagen currently operates out of 119 showrooms and 113 workshops, which are spread across 100 cities in the country. The city and pop-up store concepts will help VW India reach out to newer regions in the country, without necessarily spending the high infrastructure cost involved with setting up a dealer network. It’s not clear as to how long with the city and pop-up stores will be in operation. However, local dealers will find help in reaching out to newer customers outside their traditional vicinity.