Luxury beyond cars: Mercedes-Benz revamps showroom experience

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₹150 crore this year to overhaul 25 outlets, enhancing customer experience and transforming showrooms into luxury lounges for clients to make car purchases leisurely. This is no surprise. The German luxury carmaker derives a significant chunk of its revenue and a quarter of its sales volumes from its most expensive cars, all with a price tag in upwards of ₹1 crore.

Customers can expect key handover machines imported from Stuttgart, and showrooms transformed into exclusive boutique outlets with extra space for displaying the company's merchandise, which earned it ₹60 crore in revenue last year, 20% higher than in the year prior. "We are transforming our showrooms to more luxury boutique outlets because of our focus on customer experience. We have private consulting areas in the showrooms, because customers prefer that over being in a space with other customers at the same time", Santosh Iyer, managing director and CEO, Mercedes-Benz India, told Mint, emphasizing the company's global strategy - one that echoes in India too - to capture more customers at the top of the pyramid.

"Globally, this is our philosophy - our diamond should bulge at the top and be sharper at the bottom," Iyer said. While German luxury rivals BMW and Audi are expanding their offerings to attract core as well as entry-segment luxury buyers, Mercedes-Benz says its products in the segments, accounting for just 15% of its sales, are pricier than the competition because of the features they offer. "It becomes a question of affordability in that segment then", Iyer said, adding, "We are in fact quietly adding more features to our entry-level cars, which makes them pricier.