AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)09/24 Report--

A few days ago, the price increase of Lexus attracted the attention of the industry, and Lexus also said that it did not know about the price increase of dealers. In contrast, overseas media have reported that Mercedes-Benz is planning an overhaul of the way it sells and wants to control the discretion of its dealers over terminal discounts.

At the recent Frankfurt Motor Show, Mercedes-Benz sales and marketing director Britta Seeger (Brittasig) announced to the media that since April this year, Mercedes-Benz is conducting a pilot sales model reform in the Swedish market.

According to Seeger, Mercedes-Benz will renegotiate dealer contracts with some dealers, which will allow Mercedes-Benz to control the sales process, including terminal prices, and dealers will only be responsible for customer service and delivery. and charge a certain service fee.

In addition, Seeger says online sales of all new Mercedes-Benz cars will rise from 5 per cent to 25 per cent by 2025. The basic requirement of online sales is to implement a unified price system on all platforms, which is the main reason why Mercedes-Benz hopes to try out this sales method. Although Mercedes-Benz says it is not because of cost reduction.

In fact, Mercedes-Benz's net profit fell 78 per cent year-on-year to 907 million euros in the first half of this year, mainly due to a decline in global sales and profits of Mercedes-Benz-branded passenger cars. Among them, global sales of Mercedes-Benz passenger cars, Daimler's main business segment, fell 5% year-on-year, while earnings before interest and tax plunged 84%. At the same time, Mercedes-Benz will also take a lot of measures to reduce costs.

As for the pilot program, Mercedes-Benz said it would carry out it globally and is currently only piloting it in Sweden. But it seems that Mercedes-Benz is not in line with China's national conditions.

According to the "measures for the Management of Automobile sales" of China's automobile sales law, it is clearly stipulated that suppliers shall not interfere with the human resources and financial management of dealers and other activities that fall within the scope of dealers' autonomy. The terminal price just belongs to the dealer's independent business scope.

Of course, measures such as centralized pricing, turning dealers into customer service centers, test driving centers and new car handover centers can make prices more stable and prevent dealers from raising prices privately. But on the other hand, for many domestic car companies, occasional terminal discounts can achieve the sales target, but also give consumers more concessions.

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