After London and Beijing, Audi has opened a third “digital” showroom on a major Berlin shopping street, as part of a shift by luxury carmakers to display vehicles virtually as they move into smaller, pricier city center locations.
The showroom is a quarter of the size of a conventional dealership and displays just four models. But it allows time-pressed customers to view and configure cars from Audi’s full 49-model lineup on multi-media screens.
This strategy is also adopted by German rivals BMW and Mercedes-Benz as carmakers overhaul sales practices and look for new ways to attract customers after a six-year European market slump. German companies are facing the challenge of displaying an ever-growing model range and technology portfolio in central locations in cities where space is scarce.
In Beijing, Audi is attracting 8,000 visitors a week to its digital showroom which opened in January 2013, and at the store in London, launched in July 2012, 60 percent of customers are new to the brand.
Audi has pledged to overtake BMW as the world’s best-selling luxury brand by the end of the decade. It managed to shrink the sales gap with its rival to 80,000 cars in 2013 from 85,000 in 2012.
BMW outsold third-ranked Mercedes by 193,000 autos last year, compared with 220,000 in 2012.
While Audi still shuns Internet-based deals, BMW is selling its new all-electric i3 city car over the Web.
BMW will also take online orders on the new i8 plug-in hybrid sports car, due to hit dealerships soon.
Third Audi ‘digital’ showroom opens in Berlin
