Karnataka : Bengaluru : 07/11/2017 : A Scene after the rain in Bengaluru on November 07, 2017. Photo : Sudhakara Jain. | Photo Credit: Sudhakara Jain
For all things needed to purchase a new car, CarPal is emerging as a go-to destination
Remember the time you bought a new car only to find you didn’t know how to wedge it delicately into the corner parking slot you’d been allotted? Or when Mom complained about there not being enough space in the boot to carry the shopping bags? Buying a new car is a tough ask and requires multiple visits to showrooms, an understand of the technical aspects, plus the decision on what variant to buy. And then it’ll have to be mom-approved! This is where CarPal (trycarpal.com) drives in.
Go online, request for a chat with a member of the team, and depending on the cars you shortlist, you’ll to test-drive them all at home. Here’s the best part: they can line up say, four cars together, so you’re not shop-hopping and you don’t forget how a particular car drives. You then ‘order’ your new car online, paying out a booking sum. CarPal calls itself a “car-buying consultancy”, because it’ll help you down to the last detail.
But it’s not just the convenience of it all. You can buy a car at a price pre-negotiated with a car dealer. Which means you’ll get it cheaper than what you will if you visit a dealer. There are also tie-ups with insurance companies and financing agencies. Plus, if you’d like to sell your old car, they’ll help with that too.
A decade ago, buying a car was a three-step process: Decide on a budget, go see a few cars, choose petrol or diesel, and make the purchase. Today, with Google and social media, , everyone’s an expert. “People don’t want a dump of information,” says Vignesh Ramakrishnan, the Co-Founder of CarPal. “They want information that’s specific to them.” Ramakrishnan, a mechanical engineer by education, was an auto blogger for a bit, before starting CarMatch, an app that shortlisted cars, depending on the needs of customers. It didn’t seem sustainable, so he and Arvind Ramanathan, a company secretary, started the online car-buying platform, which acts as a single window for your car purchase.
“The acceptance of platforms like CarPal is growing. Since car-buying is a deliberate, well-researched purchase, the concept of online car-buying prompts a shift in the cultural mindset for buyers,” says Ramakrishnan. “The transparency of prices also helps our case. Customers know what is included, what is not, what cars are in stock and more.” In 18 months, CarPal claims to have sold over 256 cars in the range of ₹7 lakh to ₹18 lakh. They are currently in two locations: Chennai and Bengaluru.
Vijaya Vasanth, who bought a Volkswagen Vento TSI and a Polo GT TSI from CarPal says, “CarPal is like a one-stop solution that takes care of everything from the insurance to number plates. We wanted a specific number for our car, and the guys put in additional work to get it. They explained the technical details as well,” says Ramakrishnan.
Ramakrishnan says that they are planning to integrate CarPal with the dealers for online car showrooms for specific brands. The company is also keen on exploring areas such as car leasing and subscriptions that would erase the downsides of car ownership — upfront down payment, maintenance expenses, insurance renewals and the hassle of resale.
[“Source-thehindu”]