Long lead time solution
May 9th, 2010 by Richard Aucock
PREMIUM car dealers who are struggling with very long lead times should look into short-term lease solutions.
Audi, BMW and Mercedes car dealers are commonly quoting 3 or 6-month order times, says Equalese.
Short-term lease packages could be one way of keeping the customer happy in such situations, says MD Pal Ashton – helping overcome dissatisfaction, a lack of transport and part-exchange value fluctuations.
‘Renting a car is one solution but the rates for prestige marques are prohibitive – a typical figure for a lower-medium model is £500 a week. We can provide a short term leased car for a similar amount per month.
‘We can supply a clean, recent plate, highly presentable model from your franchise for a cost to your customer that is extremely reasonable. The dealer acts as a conduit to us and we work on their behalf and to very high service standards, in addition providing a referral fee.’
Cars can be delivered in 5-7 days, he says, are less than 2 years old and the rental price includes all maintenance costs.
He added that Equalease’s minimum lease period was usually three months but that it was aiming to be flexible in its offering to dealers. ‘The economics of short term leasing mean that any lease of a period of less than three months is rarely viable but we aim to provide a service to fit dealer and customer need.
‘For example, if a customer’s new car order arrives in 10 weeks rather than the 12 initially quoted by the manufacturer to the dealer, we will take our car back without any penalties.’
If you are a premium car dealer, could this be one solution to the order time problems you are facing?
May 10th, 2010 at 5:46 am
As a supplier of contract hire, we are finding many manufacturers stock levels are very low and orders can be taking at least 3 months to deliver, short term hire seems to be thesolution and we have found apex rental offering great offers http://shorttermcarleasing.bttradespace.com/