In order to reach more customers, Fiat has turned to the experience of Ikea in the field of retailing to address the redesign of their showrooms and give a fresh look to their image (the fact that in Italy alone, 25 million visitors per year pass through the chain of Ikea shops has to be a good visiting card).
The experience of the purchase, matured by the consumer over the years with varying degrees of satisfaction – from the supermarket to large department stores, boutiques for luxury goods and buying online – has induced Fiat to take a new look at the layout of its showrooms. In borrowing that particular, “intrinsically” Scandinavian model of democracy that has always been an integral part of Ikea’s policies, where design goes hand in hand with accessible prices, Fiat has created an environment conceived in the name of the “clean-simple-clear-without barriers”.
The intention is to free the buyer from any inhibition or shopping anxiety, purging the experience of buying a car – which after the home is the second biggest investment for the family – of any elitist character. Bringing the buying experience as close to the people as possible means tackling the need to reassure and at the same time entertain customers (presumably mainly families and young first-time buyers). This dimension has been taken care of with a large children’s play area and a bar with an “unequivocally Italian flavour”.
The aim is to increase the number of car showrooms all around Europe over the next few years (reaching 1,900 by 2008) while furnishing the Fiat showrooms Ikea-style with economy furniture from the standard production of the Swedish brand. This initiative is part of a modernisation programme being introduced by Marchionne. It goes hand in hand with the opening of the Mirafiori Motor Village (“the first multi-purpose FiatAuto centre in the world” and principal “laboratory for customer satisfaction”), which is carved out of the spaces of the historic Fiat factory at Mirafiori. This is another sign of the collective removal of an entire social category – in other words the working class, almost given up for extinct in Italy – that one presumes has been converted to hold new functions. Not least that of the consumer.