The motor industry is struggling to sell new and used cars.
Not the small, green and £35 car tax cars that most women drivers want to buy but the bigger, more thirsty CO2 polluters, like Porsche, Land Rover, Jeep and Chrysler (who saw their sales halve comparing August sales with a year ago).
Clearly the fleet market is fundamental, and for as long as company car drivers continue to see the size of their car as a indicator of their business status, the green effect will be muted in terms of model sales.
As it happens, all this is unfair on the driver who chooses a Porsche, for example, then drives few annual miles in it, compared to a driver in a Vauxhall Corsa, who uses it for heavy business use (each paying their tax in fuel of course). Yet one is seen as green, the other as greedy.
A further blow has been the recent refusal of the EU to entertain predictable delay tactics to the compulsory 130g/km average emissions mandate that all manufacturers must now achieve by 2012.
The problem is that car production can’t be turned on or off, just like that. Apparently it takes 7 years to get a new car up to production and something like a 10 year sales lifespan to make it financially viable. Toyota, for example, has no less than 12 new models to be launched next year, six of which are totally new. Whilst I don’t know which ones, let’s hope they include a cheaper Prius and variations on the Aygo and Yaris rather than top emitters, the RAV and Land Cruiser …
What surprises me is the absence of new and creative thinking in an industry where, in many cases, the same old marketing money is being spent on print, when the market is speeding up and becoming more and more online…
And what about the more lucrative area of aftersales? Couldn’t this be sold better, to new prospects, and even act as a new sales channel into showrooms?
I suspect that the likes of car servicing, MOTs and car repairs are looked after by managers who are more operationally minded whereas those in the showroom are more sales-minded. Were these two to talk to each other about marketing methods, maybe the sales individuals might help aftersales be more creative ways in future, to mutual effect.
Providing they can sign up to the female friendly FOXY Promise, they’d do well to look at the new FOXY Choice website which would give them the added opportunity to show off their investment in quality customer facilities too.
The time is right for new thinking here.
From a consumer point of view, all competition is good and if the manufacturers didn’t seethe green movement coming, they will pay a heavy price. The good news is that in any downturn there are lots of opportunities for those that seek them but few, I suspect, for ostriches playing a waiting game…
FOXY Steph
