The Tmall “Auto Vending Machine” Is Expected to Be Launched This Year

Within about 20 minutes, Devin had placed an order on Tmall and purchased a new car by using the “auto vending machine.” Because his Sesame credit is higher than 750, the credit approval process takes merely a few seconds to complete, can begin making the downpayment for 10%, and the new car can be driven away.

During the “Tmall Car Carnival” launched on July 26, Tmall Cars released a concept video of an auto vending machine. Tmall’s general manager, Yu Wei, said that Tmall’s new car retail model of the “auto vending machine” is expected to be presented to consumers within the year. For commodity vehicles which have long decision making periods for consumers, this vending machine will make buying a car as convenient as buying a beverage. Automatic vending sales offers young people a more flexible and convenient car-buying experience.

The new experience of car purchasing

“Sesame credit points of 750 can be approved within five minutes, making a downpayment of 10% and making monthly payments with Alipay”, these three simple steps can make buying a car online a reality, and picking up the care offline convenient. This “Tmall New Car” financial lease mode began to be promoted by Tmall during the 6.18 mega sale this year. By means of the so-called “get in the car before buying the ticket”, consumers can make a downpayment for the minimum of 10%, begin making monthly payments of 1,000 yuan, and drive the new car home. After a year of driving experience, consumers have three options: keep renting the car, pay the remaining amount of money, or change the car.

Let’s assume a consumer wants to buy a vehicle for 150,000 yuan, they only need to make a downpayment of 15,000 yuan, begin making monthly payments of no more than 2,000 yuan/month, and be able to drive the new car away.

It is reported that even though “Tmall New Car” has just been online for three months, it has already won a lot of consumer approval. Through the “Tmall new car” business, during the 6.18 mega sale period of Tmall, take the “elastic” car flagship store for example, in three days they made more than 3.5 million users entered the shop to look at the car, users using financing lease services to buy 1106 vehicles, equivalent to a single 4S store sales within one year.

Online Retail Age of Automobile

As early as 2013, Tmall started the first Automobile Festival. This year the fifth Tmall Car Festival was hosted. This is a car industry which is called “Double 11”, has become mature after several years of accumulated experience. During the period of 6.18, Tmall sold more than 30,000 cars in three days. According to the data released by China Automobile Dealers Association, the car dealership which had the second largest sales volume in 2016 sold 32,800 units. This means that the Tmall car took only three days to reach a sales volume of a large auto dealership.

Under the new retail wave, Tmall has reached the main source for the transformation and upgrading of automobile manufacturers. At present, nearly 500 automobile 4S stores, including BYD, Guangzhou Honda, have gotten connected wth Tmall online and offline. While buying cars at Tmall, consumers can choose the experience of the offline car store, and when consumers pay for their cars online, they can also enjoy the rights of Tmall.

This year’s Tmall Car Carnival, including Audi, Alfa Romeo, BMW, Land Rover, Jaguar, Maserati, Guangqi Honda, BYD, and an another 36 automotive brands will be fully involved in the new retail co-creation. As long as consumers purchase a car at Tmall, they have the opportunity to kill 60 seconds of head-free payment, receive a lifetime warranty, car purchase rebate and a variety of gifts and other benefits.

In addition, for this year’s Car Carnival, Tmall will co-operate with BYD to focus sales on consumer groups with new energy license plates in Beijing, with a total of 15,000 new energy vehicles involved in the event.

The spokesman of Tmall Automobile said, the future Tmall car will be empowered in every area, digital marketing, supply chain management and other aspects. Nowadays, more than 60 auto brands in the world are selling the latest or limited quantities of goods exclusively through Tmall, selling custom-made exclusive merchandise for Tmall and and conducting innovative retail.

With the promotion of Tmall’s new retail project, the commodity vehicles which originally required a long decision-making process has also ushered in a new period of online development. “The era of online shopping has arrived.” Yu Wei said.

This article originally appeared in 36kr and was translated by Pandaily.

Click here to read the original Chinese article.