Automotive is one of the last strongholds successfully resisting ecommerce trends. And yet we know that two trends rule the life of a modern consumer:

1. We open and close online shopping paths - 43% of customers looking for a given product on the Internet later bought it in this channel.

2. Showrooming and webrooming affect the way customers make purchasing decisions.

As more and more industries move their sales channels to the Internet, automotive sector seems to be stuck. The average number of dealership visits dropped dramatically - from 3.5 to 1.4. Simultaneously, we are seeing an increase in the number of website visitors. Most of the process is now online - from comparing different models, to reading information on technologies, pricing and financing, finishing with setting up your dream car and requesting an offer. Dealership visit to see and purchase the car remain as only two undigitized points.

Relying only on a traditional sales model is not enough. Our creative concept was based on a need to build an online sales channel fully tailored to the needs of modern consumers.

We decided to create SKODA Sales Online and Virtual Showroom.

SKODA Sales Online is the first online store in the automotive category in Europe. The service allows you to select a car and purchase it in the form of a company or consumer leasing. All formalities take place online.

Virtual Salon is a tool that allows you to experience meeting with a dealer without leaving your home. The whole experience is conducted by SKODA’s experts in two models by means of live streaming. The first one is one-to-many which expert presents selected functionalities and technologies in a given model. The second, one-to-one is a personalized service during which customer receives all the information related to the chosen product

Our strategy was to fully transfer the customer journey to online and digitalize any offline touchpoint to create a full e-commerce experience. To create made to measure consumers’ needs communication strategy we used PHD proprietary survey – Motorization DCJ in which we study every detail of the digital customer journey to find every media placement that could lead to sales. Basing on that we build the Everywhere Store Strategy – an approach that makes every media touchpoint a selling one.

Basing on this knowledge we have created the seamless path which allowed us to build interest and desire and than warm consumers to the idea to buy car online.

From the start the promotion was planned to be a longterm one. We divided it in two parts. First part was focused on the promotion of the e-shop and the showroom through PR activities. We published articles in every main tech, automotive and business-oriented media outlet. We partnered with a leading financial influencer – For Money – who shot a video about our solutions and appeared as a brand ambassador on the morning show – Dzien Dobry TVN.

The second leg of the campaign, more robust one, focused on performance and precise targeting to lead a consumer who already was on the path to finalize it. We used channels delivering the highest conversion rates – GDN, Facebook and Search – automatically optimized for hot leads and “add to basket” conversions.

The campaign has exceeded all expectations. The cost of acquiring a lead fell by 54% compared to the traditional performance campaigns conducted so far. The conversion rate for sale from validated leads increased 10 times. In total, in the period III 2019-IV 2020, we sold 250 cars in this channel (goal was 100). Real sales results from this innovative sales channel for the automotive industry exceeded our expectations - online sales accounted for 1.36% of all sales to individual customers (goal was 1%) . What is more, the average selling price in the online channel was 5.9% higher than the average selling price of Skoda in 2019.

Thanks to the simplification and closing of the path in the online zone, we have not only made life easier for our clients and increased the effectiveness of performance activities, but also gained full control over the process and access to valuable data.