Brian Gilda, Peoples Ford chairman and managing director, said: “When the news broke, I must have had 30 people asking if I’d heard the news.
“I wasn’t disappointed, but I didn’t jump up and click my heels.
"To a degree, there was an inevitability to it. Tesco struggled because it can’t source used cars.
"It can’t really see the use of the cars to the customers and it’s not like selling Mars bars – they’re just not in that league.
"So, I bid them a fond farewell, but next month it will be somebody else getting into our game.”
Ken Savage, Perrys chairman, said: “Tesco Cars was always going to fail. It has a strong name and a massive database and yet they still couldn’t make it work.”
Chris Roberts, Thurlby Motors managing director, said: “The biggest issue when you’re looking at that model is the part-exchange.
“The majority of customers expect it and without that element the process becomes more difficult for the customer.
“Taking a car without a test drive or travelling to the Tesco Cars site in Birmingham to drive around the lot there isn’t a great buying experience.”
Author:
Tom Seymour
Freelance writer
Freelance writer for AM, Tom Seymour has been a specialist B2B journalist covering the automotive sector for over 14 years. He started his freelance career in 2015 and currently writes for a variety of automotive, business and technology publications.
DavidJones - 03/05/2012 09:07
I agree that without stock to touch and view online used car operations stuggle I have always believed that possetion(ie stock)is 90% of a sale "this can be your car by the weekend"is the best close, same can be said for certain manufacturers used stock locators why sell some other dealers stock? switch sell to yours,the principal of used car dealings is "buy as cheap as possible, sell as dear as possible and turn stock as often as possible and treat used cars as cash!"