Bangalore: Country's first mall for multi-brand cars

Would you still get your Maruti Dzire serviced at a dedicated Maruti workshop or at a multi-brand one that has a more general attitude?

Bangalore would soon have a first-of-its-kind, 50-acres multi-brand car mall near its new International Airport. Estimated to cost Rs 100 crore, it will have all car brands under a single roof besides an expansive testing circuit helping buyers test drive the vehicles of their choice. The mall will feature driving school, single-window counters to provide facilities for providing driving licence, new car registration counters and financing outlets. For the family, it will have facilities like food courts, multiplexes, gaming sections, etc which are anyway commonplace in other malls. It is learnt that plans are afoot to have a similar format for the two-wheelers. Premium brands like Rolls Royce and BMW have already taken the mall retail route, while some of the mid-segment players like Maruti Suzuki and Toyota are also known to be toying with retail plans. Please read the cover story on 'Mega Showrooms' in May Issue of WheelsUnplugged e-tabloid http://epaper.wheelsunplugged.com/
When brands compete on the same space better prices are a given! The downside however, is the non-specialised nature of these dealerships which calls for a relook at the unbiased view and suggestions offered by the sales staff in these malls. How well would a salesman know about the attributes of 5 hatchbacks, when most of them don’t even know a single brand well enough? In-depth training would be crucial along with strong ethics to resist pushing a particular product, only because of relatively higher incentives. For the dealers it could get better as fixed and operating costs then get covered across various brands given the wafer thin margins they have to operate presently. On the flip side, smaller dealers would get eased out of the business unless they receive some lifeblood from the manufacturer. It is therefore, important that multi-brand dealerships must excel at customer service and comprehensiveness in product range for it to succeed. This concept could work better in the smaller towns, but in bigger cities and metros the challenge continues. Would you still get your Maruti Dzire serviced at a dedicated Maruti workshop or at a multi-brand one that has a more general attitude?