Experience first, then buy

Volvo is taking off in Europe with its all-electric Polestar car. The showroom concept builds on special experiences and service on site. Minimalistic design is seamlessly combined with digital interactivity.

The Polestar 2 is Volvo’s answer to the Tesla Model 3; it is the Swedish car manufacturer’s first all-electric mass product. Volvo intends to offer the e-vehicle in Germany this summer. The plan: showrooms – named Polestar Spaces – in prime inner-city locations in Hamburg, Berlin, Düsseldorf, Cologne, Frankfurt, Stuttgart and Munich. Existing Volvo dealers will take care of service and after-sales.

The first Polestar Space opened in Oslo at the end of 2019, another one is located in Beijing. Alongside the new openings in Germany, showrooms have been announced in Stockholm and Gothenburg.

With the new concept Volvo wants to change its sales image. As a participant in the „Shared Spaces Expert Roundtables“ at Euroshop 2020, the automotive brand explained how the role of the sales area is bound to change: from a transaction space to an experience space.

The Oslo Space demonstrates well the brand’s new retail concept. Minimalist design is combined with seamless digital interactivity. Consumers can experience their entire customer journey – from the first inquiry to the delivery of their chosen Polestar model. Because the stores are located in the city centers, people can engage with the brand without having to drive to a commercial district. In Oslo, the car brand chose a historic building in the city center dating from 1900 for the showroom. There, the history of Oslo meets the design future of cars.

In the showrooms Polestar specialists work as brand ambassadors and not as sales staff. Customers can start test drives on site and pick up ordered vehicles. Alternatively, the manufacturer delivers the electric vehicles to the customer’s home or office address. In contrast to traditional car dealerships, Polestar does not offer preconfigured vehicles for immediate purchase on site – and therefore eliminates the parking space otherwise required. Customers order or reserve the vehicles from home via the Polestar app or website. Or one of the specialists in the showroom assists them.

„The Polestar Space is our way of changing the face of automotive retailing,“ says Jonathan Goodman, Chief Operations Officer. „With no sales staff and no vehicles on the forecourt, there is no hard sell, no need to move around inventory and a fully client-focused customer journey. Consumers decide how much they interact with the exhibits. And Polestar’s specialists tailor their experience to their needs, not to the brand’s. Once they have found the perfect configuration, thanks to seamless digital interactivity, the vehicle appears in the customer’s app – ready to be ordered at their convenience. We bring the fun back to buying a car!

Each Polestar room is designed for strictly curated experiences to promote the product rather than to distract from it. Moreover, the ethos of the design-oriented brand should be reflected. Priority is given to Polestar 1 and Polestar 2, which are placed in specially designed light boxes to guarantee studio-quality light without disturbing shadows.

On one side of the space there is a product wall with individual components hidden behind doors – combined with approach sensors. This is intended to spark the visitor’s curiosity. By means of Varjo VR headsets, the new vehicles and especially new features can be tried out virtually. At the configuration table – a free-standing studio table – customers can place physical color and equipment samples on the table and add them to their own configuration via RFID. Using NFC-compatible smartphones, the configuration can be transferred to the customer’s own order at the end of the configuration process.

The Polestar Spaces are more than just brand stages. In the future, selected events, lectures and exhibitions will also take place in the globally connected showrooms and will increase the brand awareness.