did meditation. This may be the word that best describes the decision to buy a car, new or used. semiconductor crisis This interrupts vehicle production. It is an indefinite horizon cocktail. dealers -the same ones that have converted in a few that have traditionally had business poles in the target.
Because if a fact has been confirmed in recent years, it is that the market is alive. a net drop in new passenger car sales. As explained by Raúl Morales, Communications Director of the employer dealers association faconautotoday “30 to 40% of what was built in 2019 soldBy August, figures in the Community of Valencia had registered 47,159 passenger car registrations, less than half of the 94,623 recorded in the same pre-pandemic period. At the heart of the problem is the absence of vehicles.
“They don’t exist and we can’t deliver them. When customers ask you for a car, they pull back and you give them between six months and a year. Also, you have no guarantee that it will be fulfilled”. To sum it up this way is businessman Manuel Palma, president of Automobiles Palma (with several dealerships located in the state of Valencia). (mid-term lease) even led to unserviceability.” To this, Morales warns, greater “uncertainty” before the end of this year and into the dire recession, because “we’re starting to see demand begin to weaken too.”
An industry in transformation
All this context, according to the leader of Faconauto, is where a “change is taking place at the heart of the industry’s business, in whiche profitability is increasingly prioritized [de cada coche] in sales volume“. Manufacturers, well, they increased the price Not only because of the growth in raw material cost of each vehicle, but also to balance economic impact for brands – adds Morales – “evolving technologies in the electric vehicle transition”. At dealers, however, Manuel Palma says this high profitability has hardly been noticed. “We continue to earn the same money per vehicle,” he emphasizes.
But the changes aren’t just in price. And they do this in terms of how those sales are generated. Increasingly, brands depend on dealers being distributors only Businesses are not free to set the price at which their units (known as the agency model) — by giving them a predetermined price in exchange for a percentage of each sale — and to submit a bid. vehicle. Palma believes that if this commission is reasonable, the model could be “positive” because “you will save yourself from financially supporting the stock even if you have to maintain the maintenance and delivery facilities”. However, if it’s low, no. What’s most “worrying” for Morales is, “the dealer will lose this close contact with the customer”. “The customer will be from the brand, not the dealer,” he adds.
Threat to templates
But another shadow hangs over the sector. It is recommended by the Stellantis Group, which includes companies such as Fiat, Citroën or Opel, among othersand representing 25% of the Spanish market– with your intention reduce your business to one dealer per province. According to the leader of Faconauto, this decision, which does not apply to other groups for now, represents a “serious blow to the distribution”. one out of every three outlets will be lost – and 35,000 jobs will “leave it hanging like a thread”.
Faced with this threat, Morales demands that such actions “not be taken unilaterally” by manufacturers, and that they are not closed “without compensation” for both layoffs and “investments made and made by dealers”. It has not been depreciated yet.” To achieve this, he emphasizes, “the framework of relations between dealers and brands” must be established for dialogue, as “Spain is the only country where it does not exist yet”.