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| Pertunia Sibanyoni CEO of InspectaCar. |
Leaders in vehicle sales met virtually last week in a conference titled “The Future of Auto Retailing – A New Digital Realm”.
The meeting was chaired by Dr Martyn Davies, MD of Emerging Markets & Africa at Deloitte and the dean of Deloitte’s Alchemy School of Management. He asked the guests where their industries were at on the road towards digital sales.
In summary, the guests reported business is good, everyone is having to work around a shortage of new and used stock; and while social media is good to generate leads, people still buy from dealers.
Pertunia Sibanyoni CEO of InspectaCar, said business is good because many customers are downgrading, adding that now is a very good time to finance a car, as the interest rate is at an all-time low.
She said dealers are battling to get stock, and this demand has led to “exorbitant prices”, which also affect loan to values and equities. To solve this, Sibanoyi said the used car empire she heads will have to work hand to hand with dealers to create affiliations. She foresees improved supply when rental companies start de-fleeting later this year. Asked about the future of electric vehicles and digital sales, she said the focus must be on customer convenience and creating trust in specifically the used car space.
‘A future-ready state’
Simphiwe Nghona, group head for vehicle and asset finance at Standard Bank, said SA’s lack of reliable, safe public transport means customers will keep demand for privately-owned cars relatively high.
He said many introductions are made through digital channels. “We also measure total sales.” As for EVs, Nghona said there was still a lot of uncertainty about electric cars in Mzansi, but also great opportunities. He said SA’s market was between different worlds, but China, Europe and U.S. are showing which concepts work. “It is exiting how to reconfigure a future-ready state and break from traditional way of doing things,” he said, adding this will require supporting mobility solutions as opposed to car ownership, with a lot of co-operations in future.
‘Customers want instant responses’
Mark Dommisse, chair of National Automobile Dealers Association, said social media has sped up customer interactions.
He said dealers thought they would see people travelling less and sales drop at the start of lockdown, but instead people got scared and started the “whole buy down narrative”, while a low interest rate sparked new sales. Meanwhile, “dealers went nuts on social media”.
Dommisse said eight in 10 leads were currently generated on Facebook, but dealers have to realise customers wanted instant response on social media.
He said while sales numbers are a lot better than expected, the shortage of semi-conductor is a big bottleneck on sales, while supplies from India is also a challenge. “In the U.S. right now they only give you one key, to save a semi-conductor for another car,” he said.
While dealers have adapted, Dommisse said SA, and indeed the world, is still a long way off from digital revolution.
“I would respectfully submit no one has got it right yet. No one has true digital solution done properly You could argue Tesla has done it well, but they sell 5 000 to 6 000 cars. Toyota sells eight million.”
As for SA’s adoption on electric cars, he said hybrids would perhaps be more really accepted, but this sector remains an unknown quantity
