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Strategies & Market Trends : The Financial Collapse of 2001 Unwinding -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: elmatador who wrote (6958)	12/6/2020 11:46:57 AM
From: robert b furman	3 Recommendations Recommended By arun gera elmatador longz Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 13874

HI EL, This is /has been going on for quite a while. We had always sold Corvettes in a limited way. I'm a corvette lover and have been NCCC member and a local NCCC member as well as NCRS. I judged a very large corvette show in Houston for over 25 years and knew a lot of vette owners. I myself own a 54, 56, 57, and 78 corvette. Then Chevrolet in their wisdom decides the Corvette model is a franchise all by its self. To have the special tools and train both mechanical technicians and body shop technicians was no longer enough. To continue being a corvette dealer, the franchise had to now be purchased! Complete with information kiosks, floor displays and pictures. Both of our Chevrolet dealerships declined to spend the money necessary to comply with the recurring new model expenditures to sell a model 3-5 times a year. An $80,000 car has a substantial floor plan expense. Currently Dodge is now wanting their dealer body to BUY their Grand Cherokee and wagoneer franchise. It expected to be a 200 to 300 thousand dollar expense in remodeling another "Image program". Where the factory tells the dealer exactly what tile size and color to lay over their last great mandatory tile. This is heavy handed Factory Top Down - "YOU MUST COMPLY" or we won't ship you the next latest greates product we've dremt up. No pictures, no pricing info. It no doubt will be $60,000 for wagneers and 80,000 plus for the Gran Cherokee. Both are resurrected names of past models that were part of the franchise originally included in the franchise. What this really comes down to is franchise point elimination. From a rural Cadillac dealers perspective an EV is a loser deal. No one out in the country is going to clamor for an EV. DRIVE IT INTO TOWN FOR SHOPPING AND HOPE YOU FIND A CHARGING STATION. NO THANK YOU. In time they'll become available, but by the end of 2021 - that's in 13 months. So the small high quality Cadillac dealer who maybe sells 75 Caddy's a year bails out of frustration. Now the hand full of wealthy people in his community have to go shop at a big city dealer, vs walk in and get white glove treatment ,because you are a repeat buyer and get very excellent pricing. Those kind of repeat luxury car buyers are sought after and given super service. Pick your car up at the house and you drive my demo kind of service. I always loaned out my demo, and took in a customers car for service work. The Cadillac buyer will more likely buy a Lincoln from the local Ford dealer and keep his business in town. That's the unintended consequence of this errant factory thinking. When the arrogance of the factory get so far up their ass, that they think it is the OEM that attracts customers and not the quality service of the dealer body. This is especially true in rural dealerships that have been for generations very big parts of the local community. We gave up the Corvette franchise and are passing on the Grand Cherokee?Wagoneer. It must be viewed as an investment and will it yield substantial enough business to have a payback that is recovered in a situation other than selling out your store! This is a burr in my saddle with regard to the Franchise auto dealer system. I worked for Chevrolet for 16 years,and it was my dream to own a dealership and become a dealer. I ran a dealership as an owner for 25 years and over that time I bought with my partners 5 other dealerships upping my ownership percentage. It was very good to me financially, and I owe a lot to my first partner who allowed me to run his dealership, as his other heavy duty truck stores were vastly more profitable and demanded his attention over his father's Chevy Buick store. Having worked both sides of the car business, I can guarantee you, their is great jealousy between the factory and the dealer network. The profits of the dealership network is envied by the factory. The factory who understands that a strong dealer body, makes the sale of their product a much more powerful influence in the many communities that make up a dealer's territory, is a factory that will grow its market share. To throw away that dealer in his local community, is to chase the business to Ford not to the larger urban dealer. It is dumb Factory thinking, and I'm definitely biased. Bob