2024 Author: Eric Donovan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 21:13
There is a gigantic new car supermarket near Moscow. The Major City would bring tears to the eyes of many German dealers: every day, busloads full of buyers come, payments are mostly in cash and the growth rates are astronomical.
By Sebastian Viehmann
The ruble doesn't roll in Major City, it crackles. In Moscow's largest shopping mall for cars, only one in three customers buys on credit - the rest pays in cash. At the cash registers of the individual dealers, friendly ladies take the bills and you only miss the beeping of the cash register like in the supermarket. Mikhail Bakhtiarov says that around 2,000 new cars are sold in his major city every month.
Eleven different brand dealers
The man in his mid-thirties with the light suit and the mobile phone always at hand is the boss of the Major retail chain. Among other things, he owns Mercedes-Benz branches in Moscow and St. Petersburg as well as several new car outlets in Russia. At ten percent, the used car share only accounts for a small part of its business. Whoever enters Major City can reach eleven different branded retailers within a few minutes' walk. Whether Cadillac, Chevrolet, Opel, Ford, Mazda, Saab, Peugeot, VW, Nissan, Renault or Hummer: Mikhail Bakhtiarov represents them all.
2100 people are employed in Major City nine kilometers from Moscow's gates. The complex with the seven huge buildings is open from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m., half of the turnover is made on weekends. The largest Russian Mazda dealer can also be found in the swarm of brands. The Japanese manufacturer sells around every second new car in Russia in the region around Moscow, with its 20 million inhabitants. The ratio is similar for many other manufacturers.
Real gold mine
Autozar Bakhtiarov says that 120 million dollars have been invested in the major city. “The money will be recovered after six to seven years,” estimates the businessman. 14 months passed from the planning to the opening of the first branded retailer. The most time-consuming part of the project was the scramble among brand dealers for the best location on the site, says Bakhtiarov.
The Russian car market, which is likely to overtake the German market with growth rates of 40 percent this year, is a gold mine. "We sell anything you can't get rid of in Western Europe," says Bakhtiarov without a trace of scorn in his voice.
No advertising necessary
The demand is huge, there are waiting times between two months and a year for popular models. At the same time, the demands of customers on quality and equipment are increasing - many Russians are obviously tired of their Ladas. If you want to buy a new car in Major City, you don't even have to bring your old one with you: Free shuttle buses run from several metro stations in Moscow to the car paradise on the outskirts of the city.
Bakhtiarov needs around 20,000 customers to buy his 2,000 cars a month. «On average, every tenth visitor buys a new car from us. Actually, we shouldn't have to do any advertising at all,”says the auto zar.
Kindergarten included
Nevertheless, Major attaches great importance to a sales-promoting environment. The Russian dealers would probably only laugh at some German car dealerships with coffee machines for customers and three building blocks on the play carpet. While Papa and Mamutschka order the new car in the Mazda branch of Major City, the children are busy in the kindergarten or they can let off steam with the Carrera track.
Playstations with huge flat screens are available for young people, and there are 40 seats with high-speed access in the internet café. Mazda Major also has its own accessories shop. Anything you like is allowed: Anyone who wants to see an airbrush picture of the Mona Lisa on their new car or would like boxes that could be used to fill Red Square with sound in case of doubt, gets that too.
No end in sight
There is no end in sight to the boom for Moscow's auto supermarket. There is practically no domestic dealer used car market like in Germany in Russia. Those with little money grudgingly buy a Lada or a cheap Chinese car - or fall back on the Japanese solution: the Russian Mazda sales director Marina Belinskaya estimates that almost a million used cars are imported from Japan to Russia every year.
"Lots of people swap their old Ladas for three to four-year-old Mazdas, Toyotas or Nissans," says Belinskaya. The Russian Mazda boss Jörg Schreiber compares the situation of the automobile market with that of East Germany after 1989: “The Russians have a lot of catching up to do and are very keen to experiment. People usually only keep their car for three years before they buy a new one,”says Schreiber.
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