Does This Surprise You?
What ever job you do for a living, or what ever industry you are involved in, you will know that you probably do it as well or better than your competitors, because you know you’re job, you know what you are doing. Adding something completely different to your portfolio just because you’re good at what you already do is no guarantee it’s going to work and that’s been proven all too clearly this week as supermarket giant Tesco’s have announced they have shut up shop with the closure of “Tesco Cars”.
How can an experienced retail organisation with a household name, millions of customers and unlimited funding get this so wrong in just 12 months? I will tell you why and that’s because this is a pretty complex industry where understanding what our customers need and securing the stock to fill those needs is paramount. Dealing with an “accountable” organisation, where without too much searching around, you can find the bosses name and bang on his desk if you are unhappy and realising that cars aren’t like bottles of milk, because each and every one is different, just like the people who want to buy them is part of the secret and clearly, with all their clout and influence, its something that Tesco’s either forgot about, didn’t know about, or frankly, didn’t care about.
The motor trade is always getting banged around the head and criticised, because it’s an easy target as cars are complicated things, which for large part, drivers take for granted, abuse and yet expect to perform faultlessly. We should realise that a lot of the time this won’t happen, but we seem to forget this and so we have a go at either the company we bought it off, or the dealer that sold it.
We buy our lease cars from garages all over the UK, we have our lease cars repaired all over the UK and we are talking volume here, with lots of different cars and lots of different dealers and do you know what? We get a pretty fair shout from them all. Most garages and car dealers do a cracking job and when we have had something go wrong, or not happen as we hoped, the dealers are accountable and there’s pretty much always somebody to stand up, own the problem and sort it.
So, Tesco’s, sorry it didn’t work for you and whilst we note that you started Tesco Cars in good faith and had intended to always do a good job for your customers, clearly in what ever way, you didn’t feel that the program was working. Aspirations to offer up to 3,000 cars every week, with fresh stock being added to the website daily was always going to be a tough ask.
There is no doubt in our experience that the best deals are to be found at retail dealers whom hold a main dealer franchise. Their reputation and standing with the car manufacturer is of critical importance to them, as is their reputation with the community they work within. Usually, there are short lines of communication and the level of care, and support is undoubtedly second to none. For us, we avoid the big car supermarkets, as in our experience, they are simply stacking them high and selling them cheap. The product tends to have a cheaper ticket price, as its likely got a higher mileage, but that’s going to apply when you come to sell it again yourself, more miles, less money, so the saving is “folly”.
For goodness sake, buying a used car is a pretty important thing. It’s something you are making a huge investment into and something you’re going to rely on possibly for years ahead and it’s therefore not something you should cut corners on. So our advice is not to make your decision because of the price that’s stuck on the cars screen, because that’s only part of this. Go to a dealer, ideally a main dealer and see what they’ve got to offer and chances are, time it all washes out, you would have yourself a better car, with probably lower mileage, that’s going to be worth more when you come to sell it on, whilst during the time you’re using it, you’ll get better service and infinitely better support. “Cost doesn’t just mean money”
