To make dealerships and their cars more accessible, Volkswagen has announced its first pop-up and city store in India. The first pop-up store was inaugurated in Tumkur, Karnataka, while the city of Bengaluru got the first City store located at Richmond road. With these additional stores, Volkswagen has further enhanced its presence in the country, with a total network of 119 showrooms, 113 workshops in 100 cities across India. The brand has plans to open 30 such pop-up and city stores in the coming year under the ‘Fit for the Future’ initiative.
In a two spoke strategic approach, the Volkswagen Pop-up store aims to drive in aspiration towards premium mobility in India. The brand aims to touch base with the Indian heartland and offer them the opportunity to look and feel the brand before a customer makes his purchase decision. In India, in most cities, a car purchase continues to involve the agreement of the entire family. The City Store, on the other hand, will cater to the young, vibrant and energetic customers living in urban areas. The city stores will be effective, efficient and completely upbeat while continuing to offer a premium experience. It will be paperless in nature that will address customer queries seamlessly in this new digital era. However, after-sales services will be undertaken by the nearest workshops associated with the traditional fully-featured dealerships within the city.
Sharing his thought process on this new establishment, Mr Steffen Knapp, Director, Volkswagen Passenger Cars said, “Our business environment is changing at a breathtaking pace in view of new technologies and enhanced customer expectations. Our customers today value innovation and in turn expect a prompt and hassle-free experience with Volkswagen. In lieu of that, Volkswagen has been working relentlessly towards being ‘Fit for the Future’ within which we’ve inaugurated our first Pop-up and City store in Karnataka.”
Highlighting the details further, Mr Knapp said, “This new format of transforming our sales stores is in alignment with our global growth strategy. As the world is moving towards connected mobility solutions, digitalization across the sales and after-sales process is pertinent. We’re constantly innovating our brand offerings and we trust our customers would appreciate the Volkswagen experience.”
Commenting on the Volkswagen India partnership in Bengaluru, Mr. Rajiv Sanghvi, Managing Director, PPS Motors Pvt. Ltd. said, “To enhance the customer purchase experience in today’s digital age, we are driven to deliver this world-class showroom that combines traditional and digital tools to offer a seamless sales experience to our customers.”