Motor Trader The award-winning and longest running UK magazine for car retailing professionals. Your first stop for News, Jobs and Reports for the motor industry.
Let’s not beat around the bush – this year has been the worst in recent memory for car retailing and just about every other commercial sector.
Consumer reticence to spend is understandable and will be an increasingly tough nut to crack next year.
Woolworths’ announcement of 30,000 pending job losses, as the once mighty retail giant heads for the history books, will prompt consumers to think twice about their job security before committing to a big ticket purchase.
New and used sales will be under pressure for the foreseeable future and dealers will be under more pressure than ever before to maintain profitability or go to the wall.
Amid the gloom there are some crumbs of comfort as dealers have an unprecedented opportunity to sell more finance packages than ever before as credit lines elsewhere have dried up.
The task facing them is making customers aware of point of sale finance and convincing them it’s a good thing.
Franchised dealers have an opportunity to claw back servicing and repair work lost to independents following the Department of Transport’s welcome decision to maintain the annual MoT on cars over three years old.
This is a rare, but welcome, outbreak of common sense from our rule makers.