Mumbai Apr 10 2008: WHEN LUKE Pereira (41), head of sales at Holiday Inn, Goa, wanted to buy a Maruti Omni, he didn?t go to any showroom, he went online. No newcomer to shopping on the net, he put up request on an Indian website, where he was struck by a 3-D animation of the car which allowed him to rotate it and see it from any angle he wished.

Within days, Pereira got his car. His research, which could have taken months, was done in few hours.

“Purchasing things online can be risky. But with this website, I knew what I was buying. Also, I was called by the company within hours of my inquiry, which created confidence,” said Pereira.

WHY IT WORKS
People have little time to visit showrooms.
The technology allows users to experience the car, just like in a showroom.
The technology, developed by an Indian company, is popular abroad too.

Carazoo.com allows you to check out the interior and overall look of the car through a user-controlled animation, giving him or her virtual experience of the vehicle, just like an actual showroom.

This technology is Indian and id being used in Europe and US. Logix, a Bangalore-based firm, first introduced it abroad and has now brought it here, said Sanjay Soni, the 40-something managing director.

His target audience – the urban, affluent, techno–savvy young Indian – is growing. Car sales in India rose 12 percent to 12 lakh in 2007-08, from 10.7 lakh the previous year, according to the Society of Indian automobile manufactures. The industry may grow 12 to 13 percent this year too, said Dilip Chenoy, the association’s head.

Off this number, almost 12 to 15 percent research cars on the internet before buying them, said Soni.

Increasing distances and long work hours mean people have little time to visit showrooms, where salesmen normally convert only 2 out of 100 inquires into sales he added.

“We have 360-degree animations of almost 1400 cars launched globally from 2002, when we started working on this technology,” said Soni, who employs around 360 people in India, most of them designers, animators and photographers.

Each animation uses up to 40 photos, taken by a Logix photographer who visits showrooms every month. The animations are stored in database with Logix, which provides it to websites for a price.

Soni started of making interactive manuals for digital camera’s, but soon realized that it could be used to great effect to create virtual car showrooms, both in great demand in India.

Carazoo, which has tie-ups with dealers in Bangalore and Delhi, is talking to 40-odd dealers in Mumbai.