Buying process of Mercedes cars in India sees mammoth change. Check details here

Mercedes-Benz on Friday announced the launch of its 'Retail of The Future' (ROTF) platform which redefines how premium cars are sold in the Indian market. India has become the first CKD market, and the fourth market globally to implement the Retail of The Future by Mercedes-Benz.

The new ‘direct to customer’ model was first announced in June 2021 and has now been launched on Thursday by Martin Schwenk, Managing Director & CEO, and Santosh Iyer, Vice President- Sales & Marketing, Mercedes-Benz India.

Mercedes-Benz India has announced that with the ROTF, it will retain the ownership of the entire stock of cars. The brand will retail its stock with the help of appointed Franchise Partners, and the cars will be invoiced directly to the customers. The company further announced that it will also be responsible for processing and fulfilling customer orders.

Mercedes-Benz announced that under ROTF, there will be only one nationally set price of its cars, which will be uniform throughout the country. Also, customers will now not have to pay any incidental charges anymore for their purchase, while the company will provide its customers with direct access to national stock for higher visibility on the desired products. The company, for the first time, will now also provide the VIN number to the customer even during the order booking stage.

Customers will be free to book the car via the Mercedes' new ROTF platform by paying a booking amount of ₹50,000 which is fully refundable. By paying the amount, customers can reserve the car for 40 days and within that period the customers can opt for a test drive and take further buying decisions.

The company says that it aims to give the customers ‘convenience and flexibility’ of buying its premium cars through the new ROTF platform. “Today, we are proud to implement the ‘Retail of the Future’ in India after successfully establishing a robust digital backbone, which will support this significant transition in our retail business. ROTF is a unique customer centric business model, which caters to the evolving trends of our customers, while empowering our Franchise Partners by significantly reducing their financial and operational risks in the market. ROTF further supports our quest toward creating customer excellence as the Franchise Partners will now solely compete on providing a superlative customer experience," said Martin Schwenk, Managing Director and CEO, Mercedes-Benz India.