Royal Enfield Says 50 Percent Of New Bike Inquiries Coming Online

Being a rider during COVID is a wild time—and it’s even wilder if you’re an OEM. On the sales side, sellers have largely benefited after a rocky start. After all, riding is a great way to stay away from other people. You can still be out in a group, but also not be in close physical proximity—which makes it a lot better in terms of pandemic safety.  

Many OEMs pivoted as quickly as possible to making digital sales more accessible so riders could shop from the comfort of home. How much of a difference has that made? If you’re Royal Enfield, it turns out that it’s made a huge difference. 

“Today, 50 percent of our inquiries are routed through digital platforms, up from around 20 percent earlier, and the conversion [people who actually buy the bikes they ask about] from digital inquiries has also doubled,” Royal Enfield global head of marketing Shubhranshu Singh told Autocar Professional. 

Singh also credits Royal Enfield’s enhanced Make It Yours 3D bike configurator with much of the company’s digital sales success in the past year. Since its introduction in October, 2020, the configurator is available both within the Royal Enfield smartphone app, and also at over 320 showrooms around India. Currently, Enfield plans to continue rolling out that configurator to the over 2,000 showrooms that currently populate the nation. It’s unclear what plans may exist outside the country at this time. Enfield’s export market is still much smaller than its domestic market, although it is growing. 

Although every company hoping to make headway in 2021 would have recognized the importance of a digital presence to some degree, pandemic or no pandemic, Singh says that COVID forced the company to pivot much more quickly and decisively than it might otherwise have done. The focus on seamlessness and convenience, as well as making customers feel comfortable, safe, and appreciated during this unprecedented time made these digital efforts paramount. Now, it seems, that hard work is paying off handsomely, with an astonishing 84 percent sales growth number reported for March, 2021.