[the VTEC guy]

Originally Posted by quattroa4

not only skoda but audi as well been overlooked. the beautifully crafted stone at its aurangabad facility reads AUDI manufactured at abad , but the marketing teams at audi always lack the stuff i think to push such deals which they should have captured anyways. i dont remember any roadshows have been organised by audi in tire 2 & tire 3 cities where enexplored potantial is huge.

for a group of industrialist, lawyers, politicians and doctors I think it was more of a choice to select Mercedes than looking for a company who can offer better discounts.
For few petrolheads like us we can look at options like Audi or Jaguar and take a educated decision however if you look at the customer base here I believe the image criteria matters most and theres where no other car brand in India commands better postion than Mercedes.

[ganesh_evo75]

Aurangabad, one of the fastest growing industrial town in India. Here citizens like every Indian think twice before investing and do it unless it is very necesity. Automobile scenario here in context of luxury cars were limited to most numbers of Skodas followed by the well known models in the price bracket of 15 to 25 lac's. there were around @ 20-25 Merc's and some Audis and Beemer's already present past 5 years.
With lot of development and progress, profits are growing at higher rate for Industrialists, Builders, Lawyers, Doctors, etc, these public thought that this is the right time to realise there dream for Luxury Wheels.
Few peoples among them approached B U Bhandari Pune, for the same.
Marketing peoples at B U Bhandari actively responded and arranged an road show of Mercedec cars at Aurangabad on 3 and 4 th March 10.
As the prospective buyers were well known to each other and through mouth to mouth publicity many more excitingly joined the list of prospective buyers and thus the group of @ 50 - 60 members were formed. The dealer precisely catching the seriousness and interest of the deal conveyed the same to Mercedes India Ltd, and arranged a meeting at Chakan plant on 13 th March. The Aurangabad group, placed there requirement & the details in front of Company executives and asked for the deal. After going through the proposel the Company officials meet the group in Aurangabad on 22-23 March. After interacting with individual buyers and there requirements, querries, discounts and etc the Company decided to arrange one more road show on 3 - 4th April, so as to completely finalise the confusions regarding Models, Trim level and discounts. Merc arranged almost all the models this time so as to lure more and more public. Aurangabadiest accordingly fallen to the trap, some more joined the group, some moved a segment higher and almost finalized the themselves for the great History.
On 10th of April, 118 booking cheques were presented to the Officials as an token of bookings, out of which three undecided and confused individuals canceled . Thus, a record was made of 115 Mercedes sale to group of Individuals in the company history.
The delivery is to be done on 9th of October 2010. The company is looking forward to make the event as GRAND as possible.
And the most important and interesting details, the Model break-up ,


E - 60
C - 23
S - 11
ML - 15
GL - 6

[Vino_David]

Thanks ganesh for detailed reply.

[manishk123]

Thanks Ganesh! I didnt have the break-up.

E - 60
C - 23
S - 11
ML - 15
GL - 6

What's interesting to see is that majority of the bookings are for the more expensive E class and not the C as everyone assumed. Time to look for investment opportunities in Aurangabad.

[ganesh_evo75]

Originally Posted by manishk123

What's interesting to see is that majority of the bookings are for the more expensive E class and not the C as everyone assumed. Time to look for investment opportunities in Aurangabad.

Ya Absolutely, if there is anything to invest and start here you are most welcome sir.
And Manish rightly said about the Models purchased, TOI today wrongly wrote that the most bookings happens to be lower budget cars.

And regarding discounts amount, the rumours flying are about 8% of the value of the car.

[manishk123]

Originally Posted by nirmaljusdoit

Thanks Manish !

Not only does it help these individuals get a better deal while buying the car, how about any news of the maintenance package ? Was that negotiated too

I forgot to mention about the maintenance package. Merc included the 2 yearr additional comprehensive maintenance package in the deal for all the cars. That itself carries a value of around 2 lacs per car! Talk about a sweet deal!

[manishk123]

I was curious to know how these guys thought of something like this and how they went about actually succeeding in pulling it off, so I sent a mail to Rishi Darda of the Lokmat Group whose name was mentioned in TOI. To my surprise he was prompt in sending a detailed reply. I'm copying it below to share with everyone -


Hi Manish,
Thank you for your mail. I am sure by now the whole country knows about the merc deal. We were about 7 friends (core group) who were involved in the whole process. As head of the Lokmat Media, I have been careful that all the news that were covered in Lokmat, didn't give names of any individual as we wanted all the buyers to feel a part of the total deal.
A team of 7 people ( only 2 from the core group) met the senior officials of the Merc company and negotiated with them. Since Merc has very strict norms and rules regarding their jurisdiction, the deal was routed through the Pune dealer (BU Bhandari). During the meeting we insisted that the purpose of coming together is not just to get discounts but it is for a bigger purpose. We are sure that this will make news across the country and hopefully the world. This would help change perception of the city. That in turn should bring in more investments and industries. None of us have been to Ludhiana but when you hear that Ludhiana has tons of mercs you believe that the place has lot of potential. While making project reports people keep these smaller things into consideration that show the buying capacity of that town.
Once the discounts were known the company gave us 5 days to get 100 customers. I am damn sure that the Mercedes India must have thought we wont even cross 50. From 5th April to 10th April everyone who was part of the deal worked like salesmen to strike the deal with cross section of people.
Another group of people is dealing with banks for financing. Again these are completely different set of people. Since more and more people joined in the decision process that also helped increase our reach. Everyone was enthused about the deal and called their friends and relatives and convinced them to buy a merc.
You will be amazed to know that when we made phone calls to the prospective buyers we did not have any quote or invoice from the company to show the interested buyers. All these guys had to believe in us that we are doing fair business and there are no hidden costs/commissions involved.
Whether all these people would have come together for any other brand of car - we would never know. We didnt go to any other car manufacturer. So there was really no arm twisting with Merc - ' If you dont give us enough discount we would move to BMW/Audi'.
Earlier we have come together and organized a trip to Shirdi where everyone walked from Aurangabad to Shirdi. Again that was a first. All of us would sleep in the tents at night and start early morning.
There were two people who really worked hard and were the main pillars - Sachin Nagori and Rahul Mishrikotkar. I am thankful to TOI for carrying Rahul Dhoot and my name but it would be unfair to others. I am not sure about the source of TOI but if I had to give two names then it would have been the ones mentioned above.
Hope this answers all your questions. For me - NO I didnt buy a car in the deal. "

[quattroa4]

good work manish , your curiousity is worth considaring ! nice job to present the whole picture at one go !!!!

[ganesh_evo75]

Originally Posted by quattroa4

good work manish , your curiousity is worth considaring ! nice job to present the whole picture at one go !!!!

+ 1 from me.

Now the only thing what Rishiji is saying is quite unbelievable, but he should have had a ML or S.

[cncity]

Don't know where to post this, but a bunch of people from Aurangabad have ordered 100 Mercedes cars all at the same time from Pune taking the city' s total to 140 mercs now.

[Anand123]

Ohh, 100 Mercs!! That would be the largest bulk order they'd have ever got. Is their any sort of relation between these owners?

[MARCUS_520i]

What model of Mercedes do they belong to?
Or is it a miscellaneous order??
Purpose of bulk order?

[cncity]

@Anand - Yes this is the largest bulk order Merc has received so far and the only relation among the owners is they came together first and then ordered what every person wanted. Total order worth Rs 55 crores.

@ Marcus - All purchases are based on individual choices. The purpose of bulk order is to show to the world/other big MNC's in India that Aurangabad is not a sleepy poor town in Maharashtra, but a industrialised rich city. I think it was to attract attention for industries to set up base in Aurangabad coz most Indians assume that its a small boring city.

[quattroa4]

yeah! thats there in outlook magazines 17th may edition . a large 4 page review and a small picture on front page also !!!!

[manishk123]

The cars have arrived and are awaiting delivery at a grand function which Chairman of Mercedes India will be attending.