New: Luxury Car Vending Machines

A new way of selling luxury cars has been introduced in Singapore: a luxury car vending machine.

Used luxury car seller Autobahn Motors opened a futuristic 15-story showroom last December. It features a multi-storey window facade with 4 columns of 60 exotic and luxury cars on display. Utilizing a state of the art automated system to manage inventory and retrieval, it appeals to parking efficiency and space saving too. It actually works like a real vending machine. Customers on the ground floor choose from a touchscreen display which car they wish to see. The car arrives within one to two minutes thanks to a system that manages vehicle retrieval. Check out the video. It's amazing.

Gary Hong, general manager at Autobahn Motors, said the vending machine format was aimed at making efficient use of space in land-scarce Singapore as well as standing out from the competition. "We needed to meet our requirement of storing a lot of cars. At the same time, we wanted to be creative and innovative," he told Reuters. It has increased the sales of their cars by fifty percent since december last year.

The first company selling used cars successfully from a vending machine, is the US based company Carvana. Their service was launched in January 2013, starting in Atlanta. Yes, they distribute real cars out of a vending machine too, although their concept is a bit different from ABM in Singapore. Carvana sells used cars first online, with a current inventory of 7300 used and reconditioned vehicles. After customers picked out the cars online, they can schedule a delivery of the car or go pick it up from Carvana’s multistory, coin-operated vending machines, primarily located in Texas. In about two dozen markets, Carvana offers next-day delivery. As of Dec. 31, 2016, Carvana had sold about 27,500 vehicles. It raised in 2017, $225 million after offering 15 million shares at $15, and has now has an enterprise value of $1.8 billion. Check out the succesful Carvana-concept in this video.

Some people say car dealers will cease to exist by 2025. I am not that pessimistic though. When doing nothing is a bigger risk, even old traditional sectors will give innovation a chance, at last. So I think it will be very interesting to watch car dealers introducing more new initiatives to redefine their role and add value for their customers in a different way.

Now back to you. What's your personal take-away from this new way of selling and distributing luxury cars? Can it inspire you, coming up with ideas for new unconventional ways of distributing your products or services. Just give it a thought....

Wishing you lots of succes on your personal innovation journey.

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