Mercedes-Benz starts new retail initiative. See how it will impact buying

Mercedes-Benz on Friday introduced 'Retail of the Future’ (ROTF) initiative to simplify and streamline booking, delivery, availability and even interested buyers can see the production stages of cars. The luxury car maker said transparency is the motive of this program. Customers can now check the price variation as per their location, availability on the PIN code of the Mercedes-Benz cars.

There are 5 key components to the ROTF; Quotation, Order booking, Order finalisation, Invoicing and Handover. It will be applicable only for new car sales and will not alter the functioning of separate business lines including customer service, pre-owned cars and allied businesses.

There are various other features under the ROTF such as loyal customer or profession where Mercedes-Benz will offer discounts.

The German car maker said that there will be only one nationally set price of its cars, which will be uniform throughout the country. Also, customers will now not have to pay any incidental charges anymore for their purchase, while the company will provide its customers with direct access to national stock for higher visibility on the desired products. 

The company will now also provide the VIN number to the customer even during the order booking stage and confirm it via OTP.  Customers will be free to book the car via the Mercedes' new ROTF platform by paying a booking amount of ₹50,000 which will be fully refundable. By paying the amount, customers can reserve the car for 14 days and within that period the customers can opt for a test drive and take further buying decisions.

“Today, we are proud to implement the ‘Retail of the Future’ in India after successfully establishing a robust digital backbone, which will support this significant transition in our retail business. ROTF is a unique customer centric business model, which caters to the evolving trends of our customers, while empowering our Franchise Partners by significantly reducing their financial and operational risks in the market. ROTF further supports our quest toward creating customer excellence as the Franchise Partners will now solely compete on providing a superlative customer experience," said Martin Schwenk, Managing Director and CEO, Mercedes-Benz India.