The revamp of the brand at a customer facing level includes larger, more modern showrooms and service facilities, but some of Skoda’s network has yet to made the transition.
Skoda Australia managing director, Michael Irmer, told journalists that the makeover was akin to resetting a factory’s production line for a new vehicle range.
“Half our dealers changed in 2016,” said Mr Irmer. “It’s the right time for us (to change) as we go to the next level. All of our dealers are upgrading, and half are completed.”
Greenfields: A new dealership is being constructed in Mascot, near Sydney Airport, as Skoda ramps up for growth.
Mr Irmer said that the upgrades include “bigger premises and more modern, larger dealer operations” and acknowledged that, for some dealers, it was “sometimes not possible” to make the transition.
Relaunched in Australia in 2007 under the Volkswagen Group umbrella and selling its first cars in 2008, Skoda has ditched its previous mantle of cute and clever, targeting instead a more mature, educated customer base that is not afraid to spend where they see value.
Poorly performing products like the Roomster have been discontinued, while entry-level variants of cars like the Superb have also been axed in favour of mid- and high-grade versions, with optional value-added packs across the range.
“There is hardly a car we sold last year without some sort of pack attached to it,” claimed Mr Irmer.
More mainstream vehicles like the large Kodiaq seven-seat SUV and a more conventional Yeti medium SUV , along with updates to its entire line-up over the next 12 months, will give dealers a basis to improve on the 2016 figure of 4760 sales for the brand Australia wide.
Mr Irmer expects a level of disruption to sales activities as new dealerships come on stream, but says it is just part of the process.
“(The dealer network) was good for a number of years, but it has to be redone for the new cars,” said Mr Irmer. “And you expect an impact on retail activities for a short time.”
Meanwhile, the company is not looking to follow rivals like Subaru and Infiniti into the arena of short term ‘pop-up’ retail outlets in major shopping precincts, despite the success of its Frankston, Victoria dealership, which recently setup camp at a local Westfield shopping centre.
“A lot of inquiries were about Kodiaq, which really surprised me,” said Mr Irmer, but suggested that the model of a semi-permanent footprint in a shopping centre was not especially effective when multiple models need promotion.
“Pop ups are limited because you can only show one vehicle,” he said, though adding that Skoda had recently entered into a relationship with the Westfield chain.
“We will help dealers out with point of sale and marketing, and we may ramp it up,” he acknowledged.
“In the early days, Skoda went out to the people… but at the moment it’s just one step at a time.”
By Tim Robson
