The Hindu Business Line : AutomartIndia is now First Choice

Mumbai, Aug. 3AutomartIndia Ltd, the country’s used car mart, now has a new corporate identity — it has been renamed First Choice. With the new identity comes new plans of extending the used car services to retail of spares and offering aftersales service to prospective customers, said Mr Andrey Purushottam, Executive Vice-President, Office of Strategy Management, Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd.

This would be the first time that the business of selling spares would be under an organised banner in the country. It will help promote the new brand across different channels of the auto industry, said experts.

Furthermore, one cannot deny the possibility of an organised retail chain of spares and service across the country in the future, something on the lines of the Apollo chain of pharmacy stores, said Mr Purushottam on the sidelines of the opening of the company’s first innovative multi-brand used car superstore in Mumbai.

Multi-brand store

The new superstore would offer services that include a wide variety of cars to choose from (150 vehicles), 10 bay repair centres, accessory store and procurement bay (for authentication of vehicle ownership and change in ownership).

The company plans to open 6 such outlets in cities like Pune, Hyderabad, Bangalore and Delhi in the next 18 months and more than 200 such retail outlets over a period of 2-3 years said Mr Vinay Sanghi, Chief Executive Officer, First Choice. The company has set a goal of selling 25,000 used cars through these outlets by the end of 2009. In order to promote the brand, First Choice is to invest Rs 10 crore across various media channels. It is about to tie up with Indiatimes.com as a preferred partner for used car sales on the world wide web. They are also in talks with leading used car Web sites like eBay Motors and carwale.com to expand their services across various channels in the used car market.

In order to retain customers (for sale of existing cars and purchase of new cars), the company has tied up with 150 dealers across the country to offer that one-stop solution to all existing car owners.

The company is in the process of setting up a 24-hr call centre to cater to queries on the whole process of buying and selling a car. The centre is slated to be opened by the end of September this year, Mr Sanghi said.