The demise of the main dealer?
Please be in no doubt about it; the retail motor industry is changing more now than at any time in the 40+ years that I’ve been involved with it. Can you imagine the reaction of the average late-1990s/early noughties car dealer, complete with his leatherbound printed copy of Glasses Guide or CAP, or the average car buyer in the early noughties if they were told that, by 2022, around half the retail car sales in the UK would be ‘unseen’, British Car Auctions would have switched to online-only buying with no opportunity for pre-sale viewing and that even where live viewing is available, many cars are bought by the trade purely on the auctioneer’s description.
That, though, is the world in which we are living, and with the switch from face-to-face to online/distance selling, so the role of the main dealer is diminishing still further.
Once upon a time,
