Brands, dealers develop their presence on Web

Below are some cases of carmakers and dealers trying to take advantage of the Internet as an efficient business tool to get closer to their customers and promote sales.

Mercedes-Benz

German premium carmaker Mercedes-Benz announced it would sell a limited edition of its smart cars on Sina Weibo, China's largest Twitter-like service, in January this year. The move proved to be an immediate success and all 666 vehicles, costing 128,888 yuan each, were sold out in one day. It was not the first such e-commerce marketing campaign the company has embarked upon in China.

As early as in 2010, the company sold 205 smart cars within four hours through group buying on Taobao, the top Chinese online marketplace.

In 2012, the carmaker cooperated with JD.com, a major online retailer in China, to sell its Pearl Grey limited edition smart cars. Far beyond the company's expectations, all 300 units of the cars were sold out within 89 minutes.

Smart Jeremy Scott [Wei Jing for China Daily]

Geely

This year marked the third year for domestic carmaker Geely to participate in the Nov 11 promotion on Tmall, a popular e-commerce portal in China.

The company made many preferential offers including discounts and giveaways, starting from Oct 14 to Nov 11.

When the carmaker first began selling cars online in December 2010, the Geely Panda micro car was the only model it made available.

Today customers can choose from the majority of its product portfolio online.

According to statistics provided by the company, its site received an average of 56,000 visitors every day during the sales promotion period and eventually achieved sales of about 1,800 cars.

To date, the company has sold 4,700 cars through its online store this year, a 400 percent increase over the same period last year, it said.

A model poses next to a Geely panda car. [Liu Junfeng for China Daily]