11:45 am, August 27, 2021
Vertu Motors non-executive chairman Andy Goss has said the agency model is a ‘total myth’ and that manufacturers’ time would be best spent focusing on the things they do best.
Goss joined the Car Dealer Podcast this week and shared his views on topics currently affecting the motor trade, including whether moving to agency sales would be good for customers.
He said: ‘I quite frankly think it’s a total myth. I don’t know for the life of me why anyone is really considering this, because it’s really a question that, by and large, has been put to bed.
‘That question is that car buyers are not happy with the car-buying process, with the haggle bit. Well believe me, there’s no haggle bit these days. Customers don’t really haggle.’
Having worked in senior roles at Jaguar Land Rover, Porsche and Toyota, Goss said his view is that manufacturers should use these resources for improving the customer experience and working to embrace digitisation with dealers.
‘For the manufacturers to think they’re better retailers than people like Eddie Hawthorne or Roger Penske or Michael Smyth is an absolute myth,’ he said.
‘Their core competence is brand marketing, and bringing products to market demands creation. The retailer’s forte is demand fulfilment. It can certainly help elements of demand fulfilment but this is not their forte.
‘They don’t have the right skill set, they don’t even have the right type of marketeers. They’ve got brand marketeers, not performance marketeers.’
Also on the show, hosts Rebecca Chaplin and James Batchelor talk with Goss about the move to electrification plus struggling supply issues, and they get his thoughts on the future of Jaguar Land Rover.
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