Mainland Europe joins Germany in offering online sales, with UK to follow soon and, likely more.
Porsche has expanded its online sales offering to a further eight European countries, with the UK to follow shortly. It is likely other countries will follow, and it has been an emerging trend this year in Australia, with the like of Audi, VW and more brands moving to online sales.
For performance car brand Porsche, Germany has had the facility since October 2019, and now Estonia, France, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain and Switzerland have joined the scheme.
Pre-launch analysis has revealed how lucrative online sales could be. In Italy, 40 per cent of online customers are new to Porsche, with a particular focus on used cars. Some 90 per cent of the cars sold on the platform so far were pre-owned.
Other markets are also looking into the strategy. China offers used car searches via WeChat and lifestyle products through Tmall, a large online marketplace.
In the long term, the aim is to create an area where customers can buy everything to do with Porsche, from new and used cars to more specialist and rare derivatives.
Porsche joins a growing list of manufacturers looking to the internet to bolster car sales. Polestar recently opened its first Space, where you can view but not actually buy a car, while sibling brand Volvo now offers a subscription service. Not that any of this means Porsche is scaling back bricks-and-mortar dealers, with plans to expand some key global dealers with the introduction of electric models.
Piers Ward