Buying cars is one of the last bastions of making the trek out to a physical store to make a purchase. In most parts of the world, this still rings true, but not for the country of Denmark anymore.
While consumers have had the ability to price compare online for years, Volkswagen is upping the ante with its latest news. The German-based car dealership began testing the waters of online car buying this past December by allowing Denmark citizens to purchase its up! minicar on the web.
Similar to buying a new blouse or shoes from Amazon or Overstock, Danish citizens can now add cars to that list of web purchases. With just a few clicks through the VW Danish website, consumers in the area can pay via credit card or Danske Bank’s smarphone payment app, MobilePay, and receive the vehicle within 10 business days.
The decision to select Denmark for this offering should come as no surprise. With eMarketer’s research predicting Denmark to have the highest online buying penetration rate in 2017, this particular market makes sense for Volkswagen.
Although the likelihood of Danish residents to make online purchases is relatively high, the same cannot be said for buying car parts and accessories. Of the total business-to-consumer Denmark 2016 sales, it was found that only 4 percent of transactions totaling $416 million were from the car parts and accessories category.
What may be making Volkswagen ambitious is that Danish Car Importers Association research showed a 7.4 percent uptick in 2016 car purchases. This trend is likely to continue in 2017 due in part to early numbers coming in from January showing a 19 percent increase from last year’s comparable timeframe.
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Given the fact that Volkswagen’s up! sold 7,361 units in 2016, the company hopes for this success to be not only repeated but exceeded in 2017. If this online car selling experiment works well in Denmark, this could provide the eCommerce blueprint for other car manufacturers to follow.
