The Auto Repair And Services' Digital Revolution

Cruising down empty roads on your car is fun only when it is firing on all cylinders and is in tip top shape. And as an Indian car owner, getting your car serviced or bringing it in to the repair shop is probably one of the least enjoyable experience that you may have with your four wheeler for many. It is a recurring, unavoidable kind of expense, but the hassle that many face while getting their rides fix from local mechanics and garage owners makes it even more of an unpleasant experience. Let's say your car gets a minor over-heating issue. On a good weekend, you decide to bring it in to your neighbourhood's mechanic's workshop and narrate your problem thoroughly. The issue starts from there, as the guy with the wrench in his hand starts naming issues with parts that you weren't even aware about and chalks up a bill that disturbs that messes up your monthly budget plan through and through.

- Akshit Pushkarna

On one such excursion, I was having a casual word with my mechanic. He tells me that business wasn’t going as smooth as they had pre-pandemic. The reason, he outlined, was that they were now facing competition from other mechanics as well as from the mechanics “online”. I understood that what he was referring to was popular after car sales services providers like GoMechanic, Pitstop etc., which have grown in popularity significantly since the pandemic started. What these online car service providers do is a give a rather hassle free alternative to car servicing. They pick up your car from your doorstep, do what is needed to be done to the car and drop it back at your door step. Even though it seems to be a better alternative to the traditional route you may take to get your car serviced, the popularity of tech platforms still lags behind.

THE GOMECHANIC STORY

Kushal Karwa, Co-founder, GoMechanic, in an exclusive interaction with Entrepreneur India, shares that he found himself in a similar situation back around the time him and his co-founders Nitin Rana, Rishabh Karwa and Amit Bhasin, were looking into entrepreneurship. “We ourselves being car owners saw some gaps in the after sales car services sector. I was driving a 4-5 years old Santro at that time. Every month I ended up spending about 20-30,000 rupees on its upkeep. I had no idea why I had to spend so much. The primary skepticism of the customers at that time I realised was that they were not sure whether they were overpaying for basic repairs or servicing needs because there was no transparency in the entire process. That’s when we started GoMechanic and the aim was to standardise the after car sales services market,” Kushwa detailed.