Tuesday, November 16, 2010

TATA Nano's Dismal Sales

Heart broke when I heard that Nano sales is pretty bad. I think quality and specs are to blame to some extent. However, main reason I feel is Image and branding issue. It was more or less dubbed as Poor Man's car. Nobody wants to project poor man especially poor people. Coupled with Indian road conditions, motor bike is much more versatile and useful vehicle. Probably, customers feel more pride in high end bike Vs. low end car. Need to understand that India is still male dominated society and key decision makers are still men (mostly.. or at least we think so ;-) ).
So what could be possible solution for this problem? First of all get rid of messaging that it is cheapest car on planet.. then fix Quality issues and may be make it more secure by adding air bag etc..  then position it as middle class car with some basic good price with built-in features like CD/MP3 players, airbags etc..  as default. Also, I am assuming that they need to break myth that it is technologically very poor car.. Focus in some high tech features and make them comparable with other Korean/Japanese cars.  Keep packaging simple so people can understand what they are getting and always offer some additional features.

Make cars little flashy.. something which gives features or thrill like bike.. may be add some sporty switch which probably will sacrifice some of fuel efficiency but give some good thrill..

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