8:00 am, September 15, 2024
Jaguar dealers are set for a messy year in 2025, according to the brand’s managing director Rawdon Glover.
With the last of the current range of Jaguars set to be sold in November this year, it won’t be until 2026 when the first of the new ‘copy of nothing’ all-electric Jags will be delivered, with a further wait for the second and third models.
It’s something Glover is acutely aware of, and when asked whether there was a ‘bone to be thrown’ to dealers in the meantime, he replied with honesty, ‘The simple term is there’s not an immediate bone to be thrown.
‘The important thing we look at is we are part of a suite of brands: there is Range Rover, there’s Defender, there’s Discovery, and there’s Jaguar. So, while Jaguar clearly is going to go into this fallow period, there’s lots to do on the other brands. But the reality is there will be a period where the retailers that are going to be future executive retailers have very little to do.
‘There are lots of really difficult things we’ve got to do because we believe the transformation is the right thing. And long term, there’ll be a profit in the business for us and there’ll be a profit in the business for our retailers.
‘What we need to do with our retailers is take them on that journey and actually demonstrate to them that actually it’s worth coming along this journey.’
There’s no getting away from the fact that Jaguar retailers are going to have a tough few years. ‘We’ve got this messy bit in the middle where we will probably, at retail, be sold out by the end of November,’ said Glover.
‘Realistically on our current trajectory it will be a while before they are going to have cars in their showrooms again. And that’s something we are all going to have to navigate through in the very short term. It’s just as well that the rest of our range is expanding and we’ve got lots of options with Defenders and those sort of things that will tide them over.
‘My job and Paddy McGillycuddy’s ( JLR’s UK MD) job is to make the future of Jaguar desirable and for dealers to think it’s worth coming along on this journey.
‘It will be difficult for this bit in the middle and probably in the early years while we’re building up to the full range. We want people that are in it for the long term that absolutely understand the vision of Jaguar needing to change. They support the elevated positioning and everything else that goes with that, because the level of service and even some of our business markets will be different.’
Glover admitted that the new Jaguar network would be ‘significantly smaller’ and that ‘all the retailers know’.
He also revealed that Jaguar was planning its own boutique stores, saying, ‘We’ll have our own stores in key locations: we’ll be in London, we’ll be in Paris, we’ll be in Shanghai.
‘That again is that sense around how you reposition a brand. If you look at some of the established luxury brands, a really clear way to do it is you need to own your own experience and have lighthouses where I want them to be the purest embodiment of the Jaguar experience. So, I’ll be in the Golden triangle in Paris or in London you’re either going to be in Knightsbridge or you’re going to be in Bond Street.’
Glover gave some details of the level of service new Jaguar customers could expect from their dealers. ‘Jaguar has to establish itself straight out of the box at that price point; all of the experiences have got to be great all of the time,’ he said.
‘So, our proposition is if your car needs some maintenance, maybe needs some repair work done on it, you can have a concierge service – I’ll sort that out for you. I’ll book the appointment. I’ll arrange your courtesy car to be delivered to your home. You don’t have to do anything.
‘If you don’t want to go to a retailer, the car itself goes to a retailer and you will get a Jaguar four-door GT – if that’s your car, that will be your car and I won’t put you into a Ford Focus. We need a central fleet to be able to guarantee those sorts of things.’
Glover was reassuring when it comes to Jaguar’s agreements with its dealers. ‘We looked at agency,’ he said. ‘But in consultation with Paddy and his UK team we looked at it and for now we think staying with the franchise model is where we are. But some things will still change.’
That includes where the thousands of current Jaguar owners have their cars serviced, with fewer Jaguar dealers focussed on selling the new range of EVs.
‘We will not leave existing owners high and dry,’ said Glover. ‘They’ll be able to get their cars serviced at all JLR dealers.’
In June 2023, JLR told its dealers that it would be switching to a fixed-price, no-haggle sales model. JLR would invoice the customer instead of the dealer, with the dealer being paid a handling fee for handing over the cars. Part-exchanges would also be removed from the dealer’s remit and handled by JLR.
But in February this year, the carmaker said it had decided to ditch the agency sales model following consultation with its retail parters.
At the time, Darren Edwards, CEO of Sytner Group, told Car Dealer: ‘The franchise model is a tried and trusted model, which can be intelligently flexed to suit the needs of all stakeholders involved in a new car transaction, i.e., clients, retailers and manufacturers.
‘JLR is to be applauded for adapting to the rapidly changing dynamics we have witnessed in the UK new car market.’
Additional reporting by James Batchelor
