Dacia Buy Online is a new online sales platform that allows motorists to buy a new car at any time, from any platform or device – and the UK is the first country in the world to go live with it.
Dacia, slightly tongue in cheek, says it effectively opens 150 million new dealers in the UK: that’s how many connected devices there now are in Britain.
But the claim is still partly valid because this is a genuine purchase platform. It handles every step of the sales process, including finance and part exchanges. Cars can even be delivered to a buyers’ home, rather than them having to visit a dealer.
Dealers are still involved in the process, though, because it’s the dealer network that supplies cars to customers.
“We’re making car buying simpler,” said head of Dacia UK Louise O’Sullivan. “You can order a Dacia today and have it delivered to your driveway within two weeks.”
Dacia has launched it, she said, after research showed “customers are prepared to click and buy whenever and wherever is most convenient for them, regardless of time or day or location, due to the time pressures of everyday life”.
One in three people aged 30 to 44 say they would happily ‘click and ship’ a new car to a dealership without even test-driving it. Three in four ‘silver surfers’ would prefer to buy a car online for the convenience, reckons Dacia’s research.
Every Dacia model is available to buy online – and Dacia is marking the opening of Dacia Buy Online with a ‘pop up dealership’ inside a remote bus stop on the A64 between Pickering and Whitby. Fancy visiting the temporary new Dacia dealer? Be quick – it’s only open today, 7 November, between 9am and 2pm…