Is Tesla giving a preview of the retail of the future ?
With the successful launch of the new Tesla model 3, Tesla proves again that you don’t have to be Apple to be successful at launching new products through online mass-media attention. But the way they launch new products is not the only thing Apple and Tesla have in common. Having their own brick and mortar stores is another bet they both took. And a bet that is paying off. So, is retail like we know it dead ? Are we soon having experience centers for big brands in all of the major cities ? It certainly looks like it. And hey, Tesla and Apple weren’t the first ones. Look at Nespresso who had stores already 10 years ago.
And the Direct-to-consumer channel is being picked up by other companies too. According to Market Realist, Nike, is planning to grow its direct-to-consumer channel by 250 percent in the next five years. But DTC channel is not only about selling directly to customers, it’s also a story of expanding the relationship around broader interest and lifestyle. Nike developed a health app Nike+, that gives sporters a dashboard of useful data, but Nike as well. With that in mind, DTC will only grow in importance the coming years. Tesla’s success is fueling other car manufacturers plans in growing a direct relationships with their customers and I guess we will see a growing number of car manufacturers investing in the DTC channel. And soon other products will follow. Retail is going digital and this means that the weekly shopping in a large retailer is being transformed to a recurring online shopping experience at Amazon, where automation will be king.
In this automated and AI driven world, brands will have to take the “Tesla approach” in creating a customer ecosystem, with a number of key elements :
- Connect your device : one of the key features of a Tesla, is the way a tesla is connected to the “mothership” and receives regular updates.
- Subscriptions : Look at nespresso, who recently introduced the feature of making recurring orders. Don’t wait for the customer but proactively engage and make life easier
- Omni-channel : The customer journey is omni-channel. It starts on the phone and ends somewhere completely different. The customer has to get from point A to D with any channel between the two point without losing any connection.
- AI : Artificial Intelligence is the magic word. Tesla is investing heavily in AI to power its autonomous driving feature. But AI in general is a key technology in predicting where the customer wants to go. And going from a pull model to a push model where brands will push information and orders to customers instead of the customer pulling information.
So, is Tesla giving a preview of the future ? Yes, of Course. They are giving a good lesson in how to build a great brand, how create a bunch of brand ambassadors and how to create a customer ecosystem. But, above all, they showed how they stick to their plan and chose for an alternative model and created a customer ecosystem that supported those four key elements.
