The year 2020 might be known for all the wrong reasons, however, what is lesser known is that the year has encouraged the masses to embrace digitisation. We have recently interacted with Varun Shah, Co-Founder, Eccentric Engine, the firm behind data and vehicle visualization platform ‘One 3D’, to learn more about the changing consumer behaviour.

In the trend survey, 51per cent of the sessions are from six top-tier cities - New Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad, Bangalore and Chennai. A surprise player that broke into the top ten cities was Lucknow with three per cent of digital sessions. It is believed that the trend is spreading to smaller Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities nationwide, with the Tier-3 accounting for nine per cent of total sessions from 2018-20. Moreover, cities like Secunderabad, Udaipur and Imphal have reportedly led the uptrend in 2020. Read below to learn more about the findings.

What is it?

The One 3D platform provides an immersive digital experience of car and its features to the customers from their home, office or any other location. It allows them to experience a 3D view of the exteriors and interiors of the car, to try out different colour schemes and explore different trims available. This is in sync with the larger global trend of car customers using digital first consumption of multimedia content and personalisation.

What has changed?

Eccentric Engine has reported a three-fold increase in digital vehicle exploration trends in 3D platforms in 2020. The company has witnessed 300 per cent growth in user footfalls as 7.6 million Indians have reportedly chosen to experience the features of their next car in 3D on the internet last year.

The findings further reveal that as many as 91 per cent of the customers who purchased a car at a dealership after exploring it online (Online to Offline model - O2O) chose the same model at dealership as the one they had explored online. This holds invaluable marketing and product insights for the auto manufacturers.

In 70 per cent of the sessions, Indians have explored their next car on mobiles, while 25 per cent did so on desktops. Most of the Indian users researched online between 12 pm - 4 pm, with Wednesday being the most preferred day. Perked up by the festive season, such exploration also saw a jump during the months of November-December.

The data showed that blue and white colours have emerged the top shades of new cars explored by more than 40 per cent Indian users, while 35 per cent preferred grey, brown and silver. About 15 per cent of the buyers have shown interest in red, black and orange colour options.

What to expect in thefuture?

From a dealer’s perspective, the 3D platforms have helped in monitoring and keeping track of interested customer profiles. While potential new car customers can shortlist options within the comfort of their home. In an effort to offer a realistic experience, the company is further working on enhancing the 3D image quality over the current format, which is considered to be at par with global standards. Currently, the 3D platform does not support devices that were purchased before 2016.