8:50 am, March 18, 2025
Rising business costs are severely impacting impacting the ability of retailers to stay profitable.
That was the verdict of our Independent Dealer Panel, who opened up on the impact of additional costs at last week’s Car Dealer Live conference.
Speaking at the British Motor Museum, leading dealers cited changes to PAYE and National Minimum Wage (NMW) as major cost burdens.
The panel also pointed to rising advertising costs and increased competition for stock as some of the biggest struggles facing the sector in 2025.
Among our guests was Malcolm Beattie, boss of leading Northern Irish dealer, MB Motors Ballymena. He told host James Baggott that the coming year is likely to be a struggle.
‘I think independent dealers are really going to struggle this year,’ he said. ‘Your PAYE has changed and your minimum wage has changed.
‘All these prices just keep going up but where do you get your profit from? I’m trying to keep margins up, where do dealers make more profit?
‘That’s difficult at the minute, it’s hard to get that profit – especially when you’re competing with such low numbers of stock.
‘BCA had something like 18,000 cars this time last year; today it’s 11,000. There are so many thousands of cars less in the market that we’re all competing for.
‘You listen to the franchise dealers and they’re now putting their emphasis on used cars so not only are the independent dealers competing for used cars, the franchise dealers are too.
‘It makes it so much more difficult for us all.’
Joining Beattie on the panel was Farhad Tailor, founder of V12 Sports and Classics, as well as Prime Vehicle Sales’ Tessa Edwards.
Tailor admitted that the in rise PAYE and NMW is going to have a particularly hefty impact on his business’s coffers.
‘PAYE and the National Minimum Wage increase is going to cost us around £25,000 a month!’ he said.
‘It’s about looking at that whole funnel and taking any leakages out as much as possible to try and compensate for that.’
Meanwhile, Edwards says that Prime Vehicle Sales has had to cut its cloth accordingly, resulting in it ditching one of its advertising partners.
She told the conference in Gaydon: ‘We have looked at cutting costs in certain areas – we have just got rid of one of our advertising partners.
‘It’s something we have probably been looking at for two years. We stayed with them last year but actually we weren’t getting the return from the customers coming to us so we’re better putting our money elsewhere.
‘It is always a juggling act but we are trying to maintain our margins and looking at what we can get out of the vehicle to support us as a business.’
