Over 300 Million Ways To Customise Mazda Roadster
Mazda has renewed its “Web Tune Factory” homepage which allows customers to order their own original built-to-order car via the Internet.
The revised site responds provides customers with greatly increased equipment choices available: customers can now customise their Roadster with over three hundred million possible combinations from the previous 4,000. To assist users in making their selections from such a wide-range of options, several new functions have been added. For example, it is possible to select a grade from the catalogue cars and use that as a base for partial customization. In addition, the site has been improved in a more user-friendly way, giving customers more flexibility to select equipment in any order.
“Web Tune Factory” was the first website in Japan to offer a built-to-order service on the Internet. Launched in February 2001, total sales of the two cars available on the site, Web-Tuned Roadster and Web-Tuned S-WAGON, have reached 370 units.
Using Web Tune Factory enables customers to select their own specifications, receive an estimate, get credit approval, arrange trade-in inspection, and even schedule an appointment with a sales representative.
The site has been praised as a method of promoting new car sales. In order to offer a site and products that more accurately reflect customers’ preferences, sales were temporarily put on hold from April this year while Mazda worked on redesigning the site based on suggestions received from customers.
The facility is, unfortunately, only available to buyers in Japan. It is unlikely that such a concept can be introduced in Malaysia for locally-assembled models as the processes in assembly plants here do not allow for variations in specifications. In fact, any deviation from the standard specification is usually done off-line, after the vehicle has left the plant.
