At the same time as celebrating the recent VAT cut, which brought the price point of the Fiat 500 below the £8,000 mark once again, the busy people at Fiat also sneaked a limited edition version its award winning and hugely successful supermini.
Enter the Fiat 500 byDIESEL – a car that’s not only unique in its design but could also change the way car manufacturers and consumers do business in the future. Well that is if you believe everything you read.
Offered exclusively online the 500byDiesel represents Fiat’s first venture into selling vehicles via the web and follows the success of the Abarth 500 on-line deposit offer, which allowed customers to pre-order 200 of the performance supermini six months in advance of UK availability.
This is all good and well but where does this leave the dealer?
It’s no big secret that the likes of Jam Jar and Virgin’s feeble efforts to tempt buyers into bypassing the dealer network went down like a lead balloon. The reason for that was simple: the cars were coming from the dealer network in the first place offering no real price advantages and the return on investment is less than 2% meaning they couldn’t make any money out if it.
People prefer to see and feel what there buying especially as it’s such a huge purchase. Then there’s the part exchange to consider to help ease the burden. Couple that with documentation to complete where legislation requires the consumer to be on premises and it’s a no brainer to see that buying a car requires the human touch and some major investment in infrastructure.
Of course let’s not get carried away and remember that Fiat are only offering the consumer an opportunity to leave a deposit on a 500 byDIESEL in order to secure the vehicle before it arrives in the UK. The consumer will still have to select a dealer of their choice in order to pick up the car. They’ll then want to drive it before handing over the cash by which time the part exchange will come into the equation and the whole human process will start over again.
So take it with a pinch of salt when Elena Bernardelli, marketing director of Fiat UK says: “This new route to market is an exciting and futuristic development for Fiat.”
Hmmm…good to see some things never change.