Will the automotive Netflix reach our sofa?

We live in the 21st century, a wonderful time for the digitalisation of absolutely everything. But what about the world of motoring? Has it been fully digitalised?

We have experienced a very drastic change in a short time. Not long ago we rented films from a famous chain, which shortly after had to close its doors, due to the digitalisation that has come to stay and today has become so normal that we barely remember that video, music and shopping services until a few years ago were carried out in an analogue way.

We can say that in the automotive sector we are going step by step. We have already started with the famous “carsharing”, a service that allows us to have a car with a pay-per-use model, but... is this the definitive solution to mobility?

We know multiple ways to access a vehicle, whether through renting, leasing, buying a new car and finally buying a used or 0 km car

I don't think it is, or at least not immediately. Today, using a “carsharing” service is not cheap. However, if you move around the centre of a big city and want to avoid paying for parking or be able to access all its areas, it is a good service as long as it is a short journey. But we don't only live on short journeys; we go shopping at large supermarkets, we go to work daily, we travel quite often and this makes the need to have a vehicle growing and the “carsharing” model sometimes falls short.

We know multiple ways to access a vehicle, whether through renting, leasing, buying a new car and finally buying a used or 0 km car. Currently, the first three can be done online in a fairly quick and simple way. The websites are prepared to have a wide catalogue of cars with information about them that is, to say the least, overwhelming, which allows us to make a decision without having to move from the sofa in our home.

We are heading towards a 100% digital world and perhaps this will lead us in the not-too-distant future to a Netflix for vehicles

So... what about used or 0 km vehicles? Can't we or shouldn't we buy them online? I am sure that we have all seen that car we love on some used car sales site, but you don't quite trust it unless you go and see it, so it becomes a somewhat more analogue purchase. Fortunately for the sector, the trend is changing, which allows for a very wide showcase and increases your sales range beyond the boundaries of these businesses.

There are already fully digitalised sales websites, where there is no fear of buying a vehicle. This fear disappears the moment that, after buying it, you can try a car for, for example, a couple of weeks or a few thousand kilometres and they even give you all the necessary guarantees for your comfort and if something goes wrong you have the option to return it without further explanation. This leads these companies to verify and inspect the vehicle exhaustively to avoid these cases, so we can be sure that the car they deliver to us will be a car that 100% meets our expectations.

The purchase process for these cars is very simple since everything is done online, from the reservation, the order, through financing in less than 5 minutes and only waiting for it to arrive at our doorstep and of course there is no difference with the typical purchase of a vehicle, only the advantage of the comfort of your sofa.

Do we recommend buying a car with only a photographic report and the indications of an online expert? The answer is yes, as we said, it is not at all different from a conventional purchase and allows us to save significant time when acquiring our new car with each and every one of the benefits we would obtain in a physical showroom.

We are heading towards a 100% digital world and perhaps this will lead us in the not-too-distant future to a Netflix for vehicles, where we pay a fixed fee and have a wide catalogue of vehicles and related services.

Eduardo Losada
Digital Sales Manager