jain-community-bags-one-of-a-kind-deal-on-186-high-end-cars

A community rallying to secure hefty discounts on luxury cars may be unheard of, but India’s Jain community has managed to pull it off by driving home no less than 186 high-end passenger vehicles between January and June, this year.

The illustrious community’s formidable buying power, however, came in handy to secure discounts of up to ₹21 crore on these cars from automobile brands like BMW, Audi and Mercedes.

Talking about the ‘one-of-its-kind deal’, Himanshu Shah, vice president of Jain International Trade Organisation (JITO), said that a majority of the cars were bought by Jains based in Gujarat.

“These 186 luxury cars, each priced between ₹60 lakh and ₹1.3 crore, were handed over to their owners across India between January and June this year. JITO’s nationwide drive helped our members save ₹21 crore in the form of discounts,” he said, adding that the organisation was just a facilitator, and did not profit from this deal.

 

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JITO is a not-for-profit community body with 65,000 members from across India, he said.

Nitin Jain, who drove the initiative, said they got the idea to seek discounts on bulk car-buying when some JITO members suggested leveraging the community’s strong buying power to secure heavy discounts from carmakers.

“Since buying power is one of the key strengths of Jains, we came up with this idea of directly contacting the brands to ensure higher discounts on purchases our members make. The carmakers also saw a win-win situation and offered us discounts as this deal eliminated their marketing cost,” Jain said.

Soon enough, word spread, and other JITO members joined in, ending in a total of 186 cars being bought over six months and ₹21 crore being saved.

“On average, each member saved between ₹8 lakh and ₹17 lakh, enough to buy another car for a family member,” Jain quipped.

Encouraged by the savings deal, JITO has now launched a new initiative named ‘Utsav’, striking similar arrangements with major brands in jewellery, consumer durables and electronics, he added.