Porsche said online sales in Norway and the Netherlands have been particularly good, with the full-electric Taycan helping to lift demand in Norway.
“We continue to develop our online vehicle sales with a clear customer focus,” Jacqueline Smith-Dubendorfer, Vice President Smart Mobility & Digital Sales, said.
She added the company’s digital marketplace allows customers to leave feedback about their experience, which Porsche is using to further improve the experience and customer services.
“We are getting a broader picture of the preferences,” Smith-Dubendorfer said. “Within three months, we have collected more than 4,000 customer opinions.”
The expansion of online sales is part of the company’s omnichannel strategy, which aims to help customers seamlessly move between digital marketplace and bricks-and-mortar retail.
To this end, systems and processes will be further networked, and new cars will be configured according to customer wishes, while all other services are also to be sold online.
“We are currently examining with the markets the implementation of an offer that fully meets the needs of our customers and at the same time can be handled via Porsche dealerships,” a spokeswoman told Automobilwoche, a sister publication of Automotive News Europe.
However, unlike other manufacturers, Porsche said it has no plans to offer direct sales under the agency model a growing number of European automakers have adopted.
“The role of the dealer as the face of the brand to the customer is more important than ever at Porsche,” Porsche sales chief Detlev von Platen in an interview with Automobilwoche, adding that he puts a lot of stock in entrepreneurship.
“An agency model is currently not up for debate in our new car business,” he said. “If anything, our partners are becoming even more important, as they represent the human touch in the sales process and form an ideal intersection between the online world and the real world.”
Porsche reported record annual global sales in 2021, which broke the 300,000 mark for the first time as the automaker overcame chip shortages to fulfill rising global demand for its cars, especially plug-in-hybrid models.
