NEWS

CHEVROLET was a surprise faller in official SMMT new car sales figures with a 66 percent decline. But MD Mark Terry has told Car Dealer Magazine it’s actually nothing to worry about – because the figures tell a misleading story. Terry told us that it’s actually because of Chevrolet’s new 5 Year Promise deal, which [...]

THE Vehicle Remarketing Association has recruited its 35th new member just 5 months after launching. Enterprise Rent A Car is the latest to join up. This means the total number of vehicles handled by VRA members now exceeds a key goal of 1.5 million every year! Representing the £9 billion remarketing sector, interest in the [...]

RMI director Sue Robinson says boosting car buyer confidence will be key to avoiding a sales plunge. Latest figures for July show a decline of over 13 percent. Retail sales have been a big factor in this decline, she said – reflecting the worries people have because of job uncertainty. Government spending cuts are also [...]

FORD has REGAINED its number one in the UK car sales chart, new figures from the SMMT confirm. According to figures released last week by the SMMT, Ford topped the July sales chart with 18,442 registrations and totaled 176,792 cars registered this year. July also showed the company increasing its retail car market share to [...]

CAR dealers are freeing up more time to spend chasing sales opportunities thanks to online sourcing services. Being able to secure fresh car stock without leaving the office is proving a big advantage during tough trading conditions, says ecommerce specialist epyx. The firm’s business development head Ken Trinder says even those who insist on seeing [...]

BMW dealers Knights are celebrating after a successful year of new car sales so far in 2010. Both their Stoke and Stafford dealerships have risen from the credit crunch with impressive sales increases of 13 percent year on year. Operations director of Knights BMW Stoke David Vickers said:  ‘The last year has seen the launch [...]

A leading warranty-provider is championing a new training concept to maximize aftersales profits. The Warranty Group aims to train new aftersales ‘superchampions’ to get the most out of dealer profit potential. Designed and introduced in 2008 to develop on the successful ‘champion’ concept – which typically achieves a fourfold uplift – the firm has high [...]

SMMT July new car sales show a big FALL for the first time in a year with registrations down over 13 percent. Figures just released by the SMMT reveal the market declined 13.2 percent in July 2010 – although the year-to-date total is still up 15.1 percent. Further falls are expected over the rest of [...]

FORD has revealed it cut short-cycle rental business in June in order to improve the brand’s residual values. This tallies with the consolidation of Ford sales, that has seen the previous best-selling Fiesta slip to third place in the UK sales charts. However, thanks to early-year success, the Fiesta remains the UK’s best seller year-to-date, [...]

FLEET sales are indeed seeing big rises, say industry experts epyx, confirming sales analysis stats published by the SMMT. However, dealers should be warned the business of company car sales is highly erratic on a day to day basis. Orders are up 50 percent on last year, said head of business development Ken Trinder. That’s [...]

FORD has finally been knocked off its top UK new car sales slot in June 2010 – by its arch-rival, Vauxhall. The new Astra was the best-seller for the month, with 10,525 sales meaning it was also the only car to sell a five-figure volume. The Fiesta has actually slipped to THIRD place, some way [...]

SUZUKI admits its sales this year will be down around 10 percent but is still comfortable with the situation. This is because the decline is in line with that of the broader market. It means Suzuki will retain its market share position in what assistant to the MD Atsushi Niwa admits is a challenging environment. [...]

RENAULT is the big winner in European car sales, but the market overall is down by more than 8 percent. JATO Dynamics blames poor sales in Germany, which means the year-to-date EU market improvement has fallen to below 3 percent. The UK market was up, though, and Spain offered encouragement by bucking the recession in [...]

MINI has contradicted the scrappage rule by posting a sales RISE since the end of the scheme. Observations that the scheme only benefited small cars have been disproven by the British-produced car’s sales. That’s despite MINI introducing a special value-priced First model during the campaign, that aligned prices much more closely with mainstream superminis. UK [...]

SEAT says it has helped its dealers buck the recession by consistently growing retail market share. Fleet is next. The firm commands 1.64 percent of the UK market so far in 2010. This is up from 1.5 percent in 2009 and 1.38 percent in 2008 – and, thus far, it has largely been driven by [...]

SMMT figures show May new car sales rose by 13.5 percent but the SMMT expects the market to now start declining. The May rise is the 11th successive one and saw the Ford Focus displace the Fiesta as the UK’s top car. However, now the scrappage boost has ended, the SMMT is predicting a modest [...]

In Issue 27 of Car Dealer Magazine we looked at the Sales Process and how you can make more money our of every sale. Here’s the exact feature as it ran in the magazine. If you’d like to be involved in a feature like this you can get in touch with us by calling (023) [...]

FORD is stretching its advantage over rival car brands with an even better performance in April. It boasts a 27,824-car lead over the next-best selling brand in the UK. This is nearly 6500 units more than the lead it had at the same time in 2009. It is strong sales across the range of cars [...]

MERCEDES Cars UK has announced Mike Whittington is to become sales director from the start of June. He fills the vacancy created by the promotion of Simon Oldfield to MD of customer services. Whittington, who joined Mercedes-Benz UK 3 years ago, has had a career that’s taken him from Peugeot to Toyota and Lexus; there, [...]

TOYOTA is 80 percent through its 180,000-car recall programme 8 weeks after initiation. The maker has praised ‘unstinting efforts’ by its dealers and service centres to process so many cars so quickly. ‘Owners have been able to have their vehicles fixed at their convenience, with minimum delay,’ said a spokesman. Now, car dealers will continue [...]