Mercedes-Benz Car Subscription Service Stops After Poor Performance
Giancarlo Perlas July 7, 2020
In 2018, the Mercedes-Benz car subscription service was launched. The program called the Mercedes-Benz Collection lets subscribers shift from one car to another as many times as they want. The company chose Atlanta, Philadelphia, and Nashville for its pilot phase. Only two years after its introduction though, the German automaker decided to pull the plug on it.
According to Automotive News, the reason for axing the service is due to its poor sales. Adam Chamberlain, head of sales of Mercedes-Benz USA, admitted that they would have expanded it if sales were better. Despite their failure to go further with the pilot of the program, he said that it was a learning experience for them.
“From the beginning, Mercedes-Benz Collection was designed to be a pilot program; an experiment for us to learn about the luxury automotive subscription marketplace and its customers,” Mercedes said.
“After two years in operation, the pilot program has run its course and it is now time to sunset the MB Collection. The information and experience we’ve gained through the pilot about our customers and the subscription business model have been invaluable and may be applied for future initiatives,” the company added.
Although the three-pointed star marque failed to take off further, some of its major competitors were able to gain a measure of success in their pilot phases such as BMW, Audi, Porsche, Jaguar, Nissan, and Volvo.
Chamberlain pointed out that they were able to gather “a mountain of data” during the course of the service. They found out that, on average, most subscribers were 10 years younger than their typical customers. With that, they are now looking for more ways to make their products more appealing to millennials.
