Emerging PR trend in India | OEMs faking "my car is sold out"

GTO recently shared this with other BHPians.

Having your car sold out is a badge of honour in the car industry. Indeed, many Marutis & Hyundais (including the current Creta) have enjoyed the "sold out" status. There have also been unexpected successes by other OEMs like Mahindra (XUV500 & its lottery system), Ford (EcoSport waiting list ran into years), Renault (Duster) and more.

Indians - fortunately or unfortunately - are a 'herd mentality' culture. Success begets success in the auto industry, and the popularity of a car does contribute to even larger sales numbers. Saying that the model is getting sold out will push customers who haven't yet decided to bite the bullet into booking the car, and also creates a false sense of demand, which would arouse the interest of others in the market. Unfortunately, some manufacturers have started gaming the system by either faking their car being sold out, or using it manipulatively for CBUs which were imported in the single / double digits only. This is creating completely misleading hype; listed below are some examples that immediately come to mind (am sure BHPians will find more entries). Perhaps brands should stop being trigger-happy and mention “sold out” only when the cars have actually been sold or paid for. I know some OEMs will retaliate by saying “all the cars were indeed booked…and later cancelled”, but that is simply wrong. You cannot count a car as "sold" when someone has merely paid a 10000-rupee token amount to pre-book the car, in many cases before the actual price announcement!!!

Volkswagen Polo GTI

It was claimed that the Polo GTI was sold out within weeks of launch. Some articles even claimed that the car received more bookings than what was allocated for India. Volkswagen dealers were later caught trying to sell dead stock of the limited edition GTI at massively discounted prices.

Here's what GTO had posted:

Hadn't VW earlier said they'd received a 100 bookings or so? Shows that PR speak is as reliable as a used car salesman's tongue.

Here's what BHPian Thad E Ginathom had posted:

Only 99 sold. Or... unsold.

Imagine trying to get repairs/spares for this car in five to ten years. Really, it's a rich boy's toy.

Having said that, if I were a rich boy... I'd buy one!

Here's what BHPian Santoshbhat had posted:

As per info given to me they have sold about 60 till date. Apparently, mine is the last Black one. Colours now available are red, white and silver.

Here's what BHPian Mission_PGPX had posted:

Congratulations sir. I visited the dealer here in Ahmedabad for the GT TSI and saw this beauty, waited to be picked up. He said "only 58 cars are sold all over India, out of 99 brought in." Yours is one of that. I have alteast this one in the radar as a pre-worshipped one.

Here's what BHPian satyahanspal had posted:

There was a car in Chandigarh (not sure which colour).

Mumbai dealership has a test drive car - about 1000 kms done. You can squeeze a great deal out of that - that's the one I was wanting to get in the first place! But then I got a brand new one at a better price!

Mumbai has 2 dealerships, The one called VW Downtown Mumbai might also have one! There's a car at the Nagpur Dealership. There's one down South too I think. Plus many dealers might have TD cars! Going for a steal! So that's about 4 to 5 cars!

Skoda Octavia RS 245

Buoyed by the success of the earlier RS, Skoda went overboard with the 245's pricing. Even before deliveries of the Octavia RS 245 began, rumours suggested that the car was almost sold out. Fake marketing attempt by Skoda! Truth is, cars were left unsold even a year later, going at major discounts!

Here's what BHPian kamilharis had posted:

LOL, this vRS sold out & back in the stock stories are more romantic than Romeo and Juliet.

Here's what BHPian speedfreak01 had posted:

In December, I had gone with a friend to pick up his Rapid and just casually enquired about the blue VRS standing in the showroom. I was instantly quoted 34L without even getting in the negotiation part. No doubt dealers are now desperate to sell their VRS’s. Don't know what kind of discount is going on now.

Here's what BHPian AMG1 had posted:

Sadly, Lucknow showroom didn't have any but they did tell that VRS 245 can be ordered from the Skoda Plant as there are some lying unsold. The showroom can help me with that.

I asked, whether I can get any discounts on the VRS at the Skoda plant, to which they said it won't be much and will mostly be in the 2 lacs region as the discount will be directly from the manufacturer.

Here's what BHPian ecclipse78 had posted:

If this helps, any of you sitting on the fence.

A friend in Mumbai was offered 6 lacs off on the OTR price in early Feb.

Here's what BHPian sambhav.jain had posted:

Missed out on the VRS 230 and got a discount of 7 lakhs in December in Chandigarh for a blue Vrs 245, but because of my own stupidity, I lost that deal as someone else jumped on it (I thought the discounts would increase by March 2021 ).

Finally, on 9th April, the Chandigarh dealer found the LAST BLUE VRS 245 in India and I took delivery yesterday on my mother's birthday - 26/04/2021. The discount I got was also 3 lakhs with the maintenance package for free and 50% off on the extended warranty.

Here's what BHPian AMG1 had posted:

So much for "the CAR that was sold OUT"

" the CAR that never depreciates"

" the CAR that appreciated RS220"

" the CAR that was an investment decision "

" the CAR that was Porsche Cayman at a budget"

" the CAR that can only be obtained by mere mortals, via online"

" the CAR that sold out quickly than you can pronounce its name"

" the CAR that somehow was great even though almost the same car was launched at 24L ex"

The car is 'OVERPRICED' in all senses and nothing can justify it. The RS220 model makes it feel like 'Robbery'. I am sorry if I ranted out too much, but some people's justification for its price perplexes me. VW-SKODA and their fraud marketing "SOLD OUT" communications is downright irritating.

Here's what BHPian TRANSAM had posted:

Seen one on display at the South Mumbai showroom, it was in the shade of blue and they have one in white as well in stock, OTR is about 45/46L, they are willing to let it go at 41/42L as of now.

Here's what BHPian Venkatesh had posted:

As of today, some units of the Skoda Octavia vRS 245 are still available with some dealers.

BMW M340i xDrive

Within a day of launch, BMW bragged that the M340i xDrive was sold out. However, BHPians called out the fake report and stated that dealerships still had unsold cars.

Here's what BHPian Turbanator had posted:

There are some unsold left or at least that was the case until last week in the North. Given the conditions here in the North, I don't think BIC program is going to happen soon.

Here's what BHPian AMG Power had posted:

I think this is a Skoda vRS 245 story being retold with the M340i taking centre stage this time. I know a dealer who has two M340i’s allotted to him and both have not yet been sold as of today and neither are there any serious enquiries for the cars yet.

The ad probably implies that the cars have been spoken for by the dealers and will be lifted from the factory. Maybe the number of cars imported aren’t a large number either.

BMW is learning a few tricks from VW in the area of hype creation, but it won’t be long before someone calls their bluff on this one.

Here's what BHPian Vineet258 had posted:

When the 340i was announced, the sales rep contacted me and informed me that it's expected to sell out and if I am interested, I should book it online immediately (it was before the launch). I told him that I am not in a hurry for a new car and I will wait and watch the price and some owner reviews. Yesterday he called me again and asked whether I want to book. He said if I book, it will come from the plant. This shows that the car is still available and not sold out. It may be a hype created by BMW.

Volkswagen T-Roc

VW has a long history of goofing up its product planning & sales targets - just ask its poor dealers who have been saddled with dead non-moving stock of Passats & Tiguans for TWO YEARS! The company imported a few units of the T-Roc in 2020 and there were rumours about the car being sold out even before deliveries of the crossover began. The car was supposedly "sold out" in June, but T-Rocs were still being sold months later!

Here's what BHPian rags.singh had posted:

The VW website still says that bookings for the car have been stopped now. I still registered my interest on the site and got a call back from their customer care. When I asked if the bookings have stopped, they said that is not the case and asked me which website was saying this.

Got a call from the dealer then (Whitefield). He said he only has 2 color options - blue and grey but doesn't have any vehicles for TD. Is it the same case with other dealerships?

Here's what BHPian Seahawk had posted:

Got this from the dealer. Is this a true situation or a ploy to make someone buy the car? Anyone got such an email if you have booking.

Dear Mr XXX,

Thank you for choosing Volkswagen as your adept choice of commute. We truly appreciate your enthusiasm towards our latest SUVW the new T-Roc and for booking the same with XXX Volkswagen XXX

We take this opportunity to personally assure you of world class experience in Sales & after Sales at our dealership.

We would like to inform you as a privileged VW T-ROC customer and for a pleasant experience, we wish to bring to your kind notice that the T-ROC vehicle is only a limited edition product which is getting completed and it will be sold till 15th of September 2020. As a pre booked customer we request you to confirm your T-ROC order on or before 25th of August 2020 and we urge you to submit your financial documents for further process. After 25th of August 2020, your order on T-ROC will not be valid due to the non availability of the car and limited edition product.

In case if you are now not in a position to take the delivery, we hereby request you to send a cancellation mail to the Id which mentioned here email@email.com and the amount will be refunded within 7 to 10 working days. Hope you accept our current situation.

Here's what BHPian SSR0608 had posted:

This is misleading info I guess. I had a call from VW's Hyderabad dealer this morning, asking me if I wanted to book a T-Roc. This after I had cancelled my initial booking 2 months back. I was a bit cheeky and asked them what colours are available. Said most of them are...so looks like a ploy more than anything.

Here's what BHPian TRANSAM had posted:

I was informed last week of a couple of cars in stock with VW Downtown, a dealer in Mumbai. They had the car on display as well, if anyone's interested, they could reach out to them and find out more.

Mahindra-Jawa faking it!

Jawa was caught faking the demand, faking the waiting period and creating fake hype! Further, they royally messed up its planning & production. End result? Jawa - the brand and its motorcycles - have done poorly. So poor that the company was hiding numbers. Well, FADA stats eventually came out and they weren't pretty.

All the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) share dispatch numbers every month which are considered as eventual sales. Mahindra does that for its Mojo and other products, however, its subsidiary Jawa does NOT! It must be noted that Jawa did share its monthly numbers for the first three months. Here they are..

Jawa Sales Numbers

• January 2019 – 44
• February 2019 – 130
• March 2019 – 54

But after that, it stopped revealing its sales numbers without providing any reason whatsoever! We thought after a gap of a few months, we would get to see figures again, but that has not just happened!

Other tricks used by the brands to create fake hype

The CBU Trick

Some cars are sold in India in extremely limited quantities (think single or double digits), yet manufacturers are quick to claim that the first batch has been sold out, without revealing the actual number of cars!! Eg: Mercedes EQC and Audi Q8. What brain-dead, utterly pointless moves. We should now be prepared for Rolls-Royce importing a single unit of some "gold" edition, launching it, then screaming "sold out our entire year's allocation".

Here's what BHPian Senna4Ever had posted:

Well Mercedes, is the batch 10 cars or 100? It would really add a meaning to ''sold out''.

Here's what BHPian arunrajk81 had posted:

I doubt if its actually sold out or "sold out" due to single digit availability as a CBU.

Here's what BHPian yashcosmos had posted:

So when I took the TD of this last month, there was only ONE EQC sold in Mumbai till then, and a couple in Gujarat.

Really need to know their batch size, it cannot be more than 30 cars for sure!

Scene isn't much better internationally - related news article:

Here's what BHPian theMAG had posted:

The EQC has been reported to be a sales disaster in Europe since its launch in 2019; Mercedes-Benz is known to not have posted any sales figures for the EQC officially, as a result.

Bookings closing tonight H-Y-P-E

For a brand that sells just 4000 cars / month - 90% of which are from a single product - you got to hand it to MG for always staying in the news. Go to the Team-BHP news section, and select MG from the brands drop-down. You'll be amazed at how many press releases they send out! Well, here is a booking trick by MG. Announce that bookings are closing tonight, thank the public for the response, but not revealing the actual number of bookings received or when the bookings will re-open. This is an absurd ad if we ever saw one, but it did generate hype. There was a lot of buzz around the Hector in 2019.

Bookings were still open at the time of placing the ad. Stimulating a "last day" rush?

Here's what BHPian ajmat had posted:

Well, the ads announcing this came out exactly a month after the prices were announced, on prime ad spaces which are tough to reserve at short notice, unless it is a government advertisement. MG should give us numbers - Production capacity is XXXX but booking total is YYYYY.

I have yet to see a Hector on the road whereas the Venue was available straight after the price announcement. One thing that I will credit Hyundai is that the time to market for their cars after the announcement is almost lightning speed.

Here's what GTO had posted:

IMHO this "bookings stopped" news is a major marketing ploy. For one, I don't believe that any Rs 15 - 20 lakh car will be overwhelmed by demand in this sluggish market. Second, MG Motors knows that the one way to boost its image is by screaming "demand has exceeded supply". If there is a guaranteed way to attract Indians, it's by telling them everyone else has beaten them to something. FOMO (fear of missing out) is built into our DNA.

MG still has a bit of a complex about its Chinese ownership. I feel this "sold out" news was always part of the original brand-building strategy.

They've got a big plant at Halol and the Chinese are grand-masters of manufacturing at high volume. There's no way they can't meet any expected demand.

Agreed with Viddy. It's a stupid announcement, considering the Kia Seltos is launching soon.

And if MG is so confident of its demand, the company should start sharing its factory dispatch numbers (missing here).

Here's what GTO had posted:

Aha, two things that stand out.

1. Bookings were still open at the time of placing the ad. Stimulating a "last day" rush?

2. No mention of when they will re-open. Now, MG knows how many bookings it has and how many cars it can produce. The company could easily say that bookings will re-open in 3 months (example). But it has reserved that privilege for itself.

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