Audi Australia: expect less options in the future

Luxury car shoppers could be picking up the habits of Big Mac buyers when they head to an Audi, BMW or Mercedes-Benz showroom.

New-car buyers in the 21st century now know what they want, they don’t want to wait, and they expect their favourite options to be included in the standard specification, according to Audi Australia.

It accepts that there are some people who still want to choose and build exactly the car they want, tripping through the list of optional equipment, paying extra and then waiting for the car to be built and shipped from Europe, but they are now in the minority.

As the German brand readies its latest A7 Sportback for Australian sales next month, it is also finalising a new approach to inject better value and simplify the showroom transactions.

“You’ve got to take the complexity out. It’s about developing the product and pricing strategy with the customer at the forefront of the decisions,” the recently-appointed chief marketing officer at Audi Australia, Nikki Warburton, reveals to carsales.

“It’s consumer driven, in the sense that customers are wanting things to be a lot simpler.

And it’s around this need for immediacy. And the other complication for us is that the factory is on the other side of the world.

“Our customers are telling us 'We want the car and we want it now’.”

Audi is not the first brand to focus on simplifying its list of optional equipment, as Mercedes-Benz has been using option packages successfully for a number of years and the simplified approach has helped the brand to top spot in the luxury segment. But now its four-ringed rival is taking things much more seriously.

That’s likely to mean a fruitier standard specification for the A7 and the Q8 SUV flagship that follows it in January, although Audi Australia is yet to reveal the final outcome of its work.

BMW and Mercedes-Benz have both been bundling their most-popular options for several years, creating value-added packages that also simplify ordering and deliveries from Germany, and that’s expected to be the road chosen by Audi.

A number of standalone options will continue, and Audi stresses that it will still cater to the people who want to choose each and every piece for their new car, but it is concentrating on a simpler process.

“It makes everything a bit more transparent. And that’s kind of it,” she says.

“We think this (new approach) will appeal to the majority, but if you do want to choose your options you absolutely can still do that. We’re certainly not taking that away from customers.

“It's about not assuming that a customer is going to wait three-to-four months for an exact specification. It’s about understanding what optionality they want, so we can have the cars here with that.

“It’s a better relationship. And a better message for use to be able to deliver to the customers.

Warburton says the new approach, with bundling of options into special packages, will flow through the whole Audi range, as the Q8 for 2019 is already being researched and prepared to follow the Sportback approach.

“This is the start of it. Absolutely, it will continue. It’s something that the market has traditionally done.”

Although she is very reluctant to compare Audi to McDonalds, and laughs at any suggestion they operate in a similar market sector, she does concede the end game can be the same.

“The key thing with all this is having a feel for the customer. If you look at McDonalds, maybe they over-complicated it with their ‘build a burger’ program and they are back to simple packages.”