

The dealers, the franchisees, are still protected by regulation. Paul Gao: In the United States, you still have to buy a car from a physical dealer.
#Shift car buying plus#
So, for example, “do I still need this car seven days a week? Or do I need a bigger car on the weekend? Or do I need a bigger car in the winter when I want to go skiing?” And so it might be the purchase of the car, plus a package to have access to a different vehicle in the summer, the convertible for fall weekends, and in the winter the SUV to go in the mountains-so something that is really customized and tailored to who you are and what you want your vehicle for. Inga Maurer: And then we think there will be real customization in the dealership. You can say, for example, “I want to see it in red.” Virtual reality will transform this car into another color or into other features. I still think there will be a few-but then, through virtual reality, you can modify them, you can experience them in different ways. In the future, dealerships will have very few cars.
#Shift car buying driver#
Thomas Furcher: A big cost driver in the current distribution setup is the number of cars that you have in a dealership. And that, I think, will still be the case in 2030. But we do still see a need to have that physical delivery point because-especially for individuals who are buying luxury and expensive sports cars-that final handshake with the salespeople still has a certain emotional appeal. Paul Gao: We may see, going forward, a separation of sales and service because there’s no reason to have them physically in one location. Inga Maurer: In 2030, if you think about an omnichannel car-buying experience, it would likely mean starting on the website and exploring products but not necessarily asking, “do I want brand A or brand B?” It will be more like, “what is the feature set that I want?” So it might start with “what is your personality?” And it might then recommend to you a set of vehicles that is fit for purpose based on what you want to tactically do but also on your personal style and what you want to express with owning a car.

What the customer really wants is a car-purchasing process that is personalized and fun.

We said, “should it be like Amazon? Should it be like Cartier? Should it be like Apple?” And the simple answer is, there is no one model that fits all customers. Thomas Furcher: We asked thousands of customers across different regions, “how do you want to buy a car?” We gave them different options.
