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Death of the 'agency' model - Sulphur Man

Not totally unsurprising.

Over 100 years of dealership sales offers, customer relationship nurturing and, crucially, the important feeling of being a customer allowed to make choices with actual humans.....taking that away and turning car retail into an experience similar to taking out a Sky subscription.... has not proved popular.

As ever, the market decides.

www.autoexpress.co.uk/volkswagen/365749/vw-makes-m...s

Edited by Sulphur Man on 29/01/2025 at 11:48

Death of the 'agency' model - Terry W

Not totally unsurprising.

Over 100 years of dealership sales offers, customer relationship nurturing and, crucially, the important feeling of being a customer allowed to make choices with actual humans.....taking that away and turning car retail into an experience similar to taking out a Sky subscription.... has not proved popular.

As ever, the market decides.

www.autoexpress.co.uk/volkswagen/365749/vw-makes-m...s

I don't think this proves the end of agency sales. That VW (and possibly others) find it difficult to promote EVs on line as the technology is both evolving and significant customer uncertainty remains is completely unsurprising.

All manufacturers will want to do all they can to become the brand of choice on transition to EV - many current brands will fail - VW simply want to be one of the winners.

Death of the 'agency' model - Engineer Andy

It fits in with the feeling that buying an EV is more akin to buying a TV or washing machine than a 'motor' car.

I bet soon there'll be no test drives in person - you just download an app or temporary extra to a computer game and 'drive' it as you would any driving 'game'.

Many electronics shops like (if I recall correctly) Richer Sounds and John Lewis often won't or cannot offer a proper 'test' of many AV equipment or computers any more, often because the shop isn't capable of doing the main task of the items in question, i.e. they aren't hooked up to a TV aerial, satellite dish or the interwebs. They just play a 'stream' from the shop, that's if they even have the model to inspect in store at all.

VW need to be careful with this - look what happened with sales of Hondas in Australia when they ditched main dealerships and went 'direct'.

Death of the 'agency' model - Falkirk Bairn

Honda Australia managed to lose 50% of their sale volumes within 18 months apparently!