DM “[Agency is] a very simple model that’s very transparent. Customers like that ease and, importantly, this is very, very profitable.”DM “I think agency is still yet to be fully understood in terms of the definition: some are intent on a full agency model, others aren’t intending to go anywhere near it. For me, it’s about delivering a better customer experience, reducing costs and distribution costs in the network and having a more transparent way of dealing and interacting with customers.
JG “The start point for us was how you actually get a bit more fun back into buying a car, [because] I think buying cars [has] become a little bit intimidating. We’ve built these great big structures, and most of them are out of town. “We try to put our ‘spaces’ or showrooms where the customer already goes to shop, and then we wanted to work with retail partners. “The immediate thing is listening to the customer and what they want, which makes it a more enjoyable experience than where manufacturers push stock into dealers.”TW “The pricing is determined by the manufacturer. So the manufacturer might say to themselves, ‘we have too much stock, we can actually give an incentive to the consumer’.
“But the biggest pressure will be on the manufacturer, because they’re going to be venturing into arenas that they haven’t been to before, which is local marketing. That’s not what they’ve been good at.“So I think there’s going to be a lot of pressure on the national sales companies to try to leverage and talk directly to customers, which historically has been the domain of the dealers themselves.
JG “What’s going to change is that the car business is going to move online. That doesn’t mean pure online: it will, to my mind, be an omni-channel business, as there will always be a need to interact with physical property. But if anyone doesn’t believe it’s going online, they’re living in the dark ages.
After reading this you should read my book which would really shake up the industry model if all customers read how to save themselves a load of money when buying from a dealer. Car Dealer Secrets: Tips to save you hundreds when buying a used car. UK 2022