SEAT has rolled out its first SEAT Store, an innovative concept conveniently located in the Lakeside shopping centre (London). This new project is part of a global strategy aimed at giving customers greater access to the company and making their lives easier.
With the SEAT Store and the recent launch of the SEAT Live Store, the brand’s first virtual showroom, the company is adapting to new consumer trends and shopping habits.
According to Ferran Jover, Global Dealer Network Development manager at SEAT, “we want to be even closer to our customers, anticipate their demands and provide them with a unique, easy, digital experience from the moment they think about buying a car”. “The United Kingdom is our third largest market and with over 47,200 vehicles sold in 2015, it accounts for 12% of company sales. Positioning ourselves in Lakeside means we can increase brand visibility as we can be seen by the more than 26 million visitors the shopping centre receives annually”, added Jover.
What the SEAT Store offers
The new SEAT Store, which has been launched in collaboration with British dealer Group 1 Automotive, features 150 m2 of floor space to display three brand models – Mii, Ibiza and Leon. The SEAT Ateca will also shortly be available following its upcoming launch on the British market.
Right now, visitors to the fully functioning Lakeside SEAT Store can perform a digital search of the model that best suits their needs, configure it online, calculate their financing needs and arrange a test drive on the spot or for a future date. The Store also comes complete with an outdoor Experience Centre that houses an additional 15 SEAT models to be pored over and test driven.
Further innovations offered by the new facilities include test drives that users can take unaccompanied and quick delivery of the car they purchase, guaranteed in seven days from the time of order. A team of 13 SEAT Experts, highly trained on product knowledge in Barcelona, are on hand to deal with any queries customers and visitors may have.
SEAT Store, also online
The SEAT Store in the Lakeside shopping centre also features its own website. Customers and visitors towww.seat-store.co.uk/Lakeside can obtain a personal quotation, request financing, reserve a car online and arrange a test drive, as well as receive a part-exchange valuation for their current car, all from the convenience of their smartphone, tablet or computer.
SEAT is the only company that designs, develops, manufactures and markets cars in Spain. A member of the Volkswagen Group, the multinational has its headquarters in Martorell (Barcelona), exporting more than 80% of its vehicles, and is present in over 75 countries. In 2015, SEAT’s turnover amounted to over 8.3 billion euros, the highest in its history, and the company achieved worldwide sales of more than 400,000 units for the first time since 2007.
SEAT Group employs more than 14,000 professionals at its three production centres – Barcelona, El Prat de Llobregat and Martorell, where it manufactures the highly successful Ibiza and Leon. Additionally, the company produces the Ateca and the Toledo in the Czech Republic, the Alhambra in Portugal and the Mii in Slovakia.
The multinational has a Technical Centre, which operates as a knowledge hub that brings together 1,000 engineers who are focussed on developing innovation for Spain’s largest industrial investor in R&D. SEAT already features the latest connectivity technology in its vehicle range and is currently engaged in the company’s global digitisation process to promote the mobility of the future.
