Munich, Paris... Stockport: visiting Mercedes' biggest European showroom

“Our doors are open to everyone,” he says. “They can come and use a desk, or have a coffee or watch a movie. We even have a golf simulator and a barista on site. They don’t need to talk to anyone about a car if they don’t want to. The belief is that if they experience the brand, then they will consider it when they are in the market to buy – and there is a lot of science that supports that hypothesis, not least from Mercedes-Benz World in Brooklands. We have to build long-term relationships, offering services beyond buying a car and which build loyalty.” 

If that all sounds a bit ethereal, consider the tour Webb and his team went on before signing off on the project. They visited everywhere from car retailers in Shanghai to workspace specialists in Shoreditch and high-end hotels in Manchester in order to create the optimum conditions for workers and customers alike. In fact, he’s also recruited one of the staff he met in a hotel to lead his hospitality team (the venue includes meeting rooms and a cinema room that can be booked out), plus the barista he encountered while researching the service industry. 

“Many modern car dealership groups are great retailers,” says Webb. “But the absolute game-changer will come when we really put the customer first. You’ll have read that statement countless times before, of course, but the truth is, I believe, that for as long as we have targets to hit from the manufacturer then we’ll never truly put the customer’s needs as the undisputed priority. What you end up with is a series of compromises. Targets drive the wrong behaviours and are the foundation of the opposite of good retailing.” 

The answer, Webb believes, must come from the top down, but if the idea of Mercedes – with the factories it must keep running in order to remain sustainable – dropping targets sounds somewhere between fanciful and ridiculous, Webb counters by suggesting that the move to leasing and perhaps subscription models provides the perfect opportunity for change. 

“We have spent months studying retailing from every angle,” he says. “We are in a position where we can stick our head in the sand or we can change. If you just want to sell cars, that’s fine – but it reinforces the idea that buying a car is to be endured, not enjoyed. Take, for example, Primark, which has just opened its biggest-ever store. It’s no accident that it has put a restaurant in there, a hairdressers and more. They are bringing people into their space, and that means a visit is an experience, as opposed to one where you go in because you’ve got to.” 

All of which raises the thorny issue of the potential for this most amazing of spaces to be a white elephant, partly because there aren’t enough customers to justify its scale and partly, research suggests, because customers increasingly favour online buying over physical shopping. 

“Some will want to buy online, but digital isn’t one-dimensional,” says Webb. “Some people may never want to set foot on our premises, and we must cater to them, but some – I suspect the majority – will want to choose the car online but collect it in person. The key is to ensure we offer an experience everyone wants to be involved in. 

“We haven’t just built this place through vanity. There is science behind our instincts. We know the demographics of the area we are in, we know the ownership profiles of our customers in the area, we know the sorts of cars people in the area will want to buy. We know that we can pay off the investment in 10 years, and we expect the physical retail presence to have a significant value in a decade’s time. 

“Everything about this place is built around the long term – except perhaps the Three-Pointed Star, because someone in Asia has gone and built one that’s 6.5 metres high. If everything goes to plan I might have to address that.