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The continuous influence of COVID-19 has led to increasing measures to prevent and control the epidemic, which makes many dealers unexpected, so many dealers will face an unoptimistic situation, in order to further reduce the lasting impact of the situation, a number of dealers have launched the "cloud car" program.

In order to control COVID-19 's continued influence, the General Office of the State Council issued a notice on January 27 to extend the 2020 Spring Festival holiday to February 2. As a result, a number of dealers have issued notices to 4S stores to directly suspend related business during the Spring Festival holiday. However, with the intensification of the epidemic, provinces and cities have also announced plans to extend the holiday until February 9, so that a number of car companies and dealers have to continue to postpone their business plans.

The postponement of the business plan means that dealers will be under a lot of operating pressure, including capital chain and destocking problems. Although a number of car companies, such as Volvo, GAC MOTOR, BYD and FAW-Volkswagen Audi, have publicly announced that they will cancel the sales assessment targets of dealers in February, the problem of capital chain will also be greatly affected. Vehicle mortgage, store rent and staff salaries all need to be considered.

Even if in-store sales can be carried out at present, consumers may not come to see and buy cars, and in extraordinary times, some car companies do choose to let a very small number of employees take turns on duty in the store. The choice of such a measure is nothing more than to protect profits and after-sales, which further shows that dealers are facing a lot of pressure.

The vast majority of dealers still choose to postpone business in response to the national call, but in order to achieve a breakthrough in sales in this special period, consolidate existing users and provide perfect after-sales service, let most dealers start the "cloud" plan one after another. Including online sales and online services have become the main way for most dealers to serve users.

According to a 4S store salesperson, at present, most employees in relevant stores focus on online marketing, using vertical websites or e-commerce platforms to complete the acquisition of potential consumers. Wait for the end of the epidemic, and then further promote sales and other services.

Jaguar Land Rover's response plan for the epidemic, which will use the online customer service team to provide customers with online consultation and question and answer services (9 a.m. to 23:00 every day) to learn about Jaguar and Land Rover products, provide customers with multiple test driving courtesy and proactive appointments, follow up services until customers enter the showroom, and finally complete the online car purchase process.

Not only Jaguar Land Rover, in order to reduce users' worries about buying cars during the epidemic, Beijing Hyundai will also support special stores to carry out online marketing, launch online model showrooms on the official website, provide door-to-door test driving, car delivery and other services for customers after normal travel, and further optimize the after-sales reception process during the epidemic according to the after-sales service needs of existing car owners.

Due to the offline obstacles brought by the epidemic, more and more dealers pay more and more attention to online marketing and continue to look for more sales clues to break through besides offline sales, so more and more car companies follow suit.

It is understood that Geely, Lecker, Volvo, FAW, Great Wall and other brands have opened online smart showrooms. The responsible persons of Changan Mazda, Guangzhou Automobile Toyota, Jetway, Baojun and other manufacturers also said that in the current environment, this model is worthy of attention and promotion throughout the country, so it will let dealers also try.

In fact, the demand for online car sales does have many potential consumers. For example, Wuhan, the hardest-hit area of this epidemic, has suspended most public transport in order to minimize the spread of the virus. Ride-hailing services such as Didi, Didi, T3 and Dongfeng have been suspended, and only a few ride-hailing services are still running, but there are additional charges. Although the traffic restrictions also include private vehicles, as there is still a need for individual citizens, Wuhan traffic police again issued a document on the 25th saying that car owners who were not prompted by text messages were allowed to pass.

In the face of a critical moment, citizens should indeed try not to go out, but for individual citizens who need a car, the taxi-hailing fee is too high, so that many consumers hope that a private car can be used better in an emergency at present. At the same time, it can also be delivered to your door.

In fact, the measures to actively respond to the epidemic through the "cloud" plan, such as internal office, conference, and training, and the opening of online car viewing, car sales, and services to the outside world, are very worthwhile for more car companies and dealers to emulate, although in the environment of the downward automobile market, the impact of the epidemic has aggravated the difficulties of production and marketing, but dealers, as a bridge between customers and car companies, can reduce a certain amount of pressure in the predicament, whether online or offline.

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