Subaru Australia acknowledges virtually all Subaru buyers research their purchase decisions on-line and was pleased the combination of massive demand and short supply of the all-new BRZ sports car enabled the company to ‘test’ selling cars exclusively on-line.
In fact the on-line system set-up by Subaru to handle BRZ sales is impressively thorough. Not only is it transparent in showing driveaway price, vehicle availability, colours and arrival dates but also enables trade-in valuations, finance, sales contracts and even allows customers to keep track of the status of their individual car from production to delivery.
This was supported by around 50 dealers nationwide who have Subaru BRZs available for test drives.
“The BRZ provides us this opportunity to test something different and provide learnings for us as more and more cars will be bought on-line in the future,” explained Subaru Australia chief Nick Senior. “The low volume/high demand for the BRZ at launch presented a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to do this but it’s not currently something we’re seeking to repeat, even with cars liken the WRX or STI.”
For buyers, the on-line exclusivity guarantees a fixed, driveaway price for the Subaru BRZ ($37,150 for the manual and $39,730 for the automatic). This contrasts with the Toyota 86 experience with anecdotal stories around of premium prices being asked by re-sellers who got in early for high-demand models and colours.
Subaru says around 150 BRZs will be available for on-line sale after supply of company/dealer demonstrators and the 28 vehicles pre-ordered by customers some months back - even before the pricing and final specifications were confirmed.
“We have no plans to change the current sales process for Subaru vehicles,” Mr Senior said in a response to a question about expanding the company’s on-line business. “Cars will also have a ‘touch-and-feel’ component of the buying process, everyone seeks a test-drive and there’s the issues of trade-in valuations and finance and insurance.”
