Bangalore Dec 30 2007: Web portals are a dime a dozen. The auto industry has never been one to dither on wider trends, and it follows that the influness of the internet is firmly entrenched in the business of wheels. Now San Francisco-based Logix Microsystems has launched Carazoo.com, a comprehensive automotive web portal in India.

Another “me-too” joins the burgeoning ranks? Not quite. The major difference is that we are the first portal to be based on web animation. For customer, it’s the closet thing to visiting a showroom, all from the comfort of their home,” says Pankaj Patel, vice president, India, Logix Microsystems. The portal allows prospective buyers to experience a detailed virtual tour of every make and model available in the country. All in 3D – exterior walkarounds, interior tour colour selections.

“We  tie up with dealers and manufactures to render every car in three-dimension through detailed high-resolutions imagery. The company is the world’s largest supplier of web animations, in fact,” reveal Patel.

But that’s not all. The process of buying cars on the internet is still met with apprehensions, and not without reason. “It is still very much a touch-and-feel business. But those who chose to go to showrooms are put off by the aggressiveness of sale people. Armed with as much info as possible, the customer can walk in empowered,” says Patel. Carazoo offers prospective buyers the option to ask for quotations, without having to visit showrooms or a commitment of any kind.

The effort has proved to be successful in the U.S. And numbers back it up, Patel contends. Leads-to-sales ratios, the sales executive’s lifelong catchphrase, are lower in the auto mobile industry than most others. Perhaps a consequence of the fore-mentioned aggressiveness of floor salesman. Or perhaps the result of room for improvement in overall customer relationships?  “The CRM solutions on offer can be better,” says Patel, “In the US, the industry average leads-sales ratio for dealers is 7.2 per cent. With our training programmes, the figure has been seen to go up to 20 per cent.” It would be premature to pass judgment on such efforts in India. The thought of being wiser than the dealer. However, is as appealing as ever.