9:00 am, February 10, 2025
Car Dealer’s James Baggott and Jon Reay have been spending the week in Japan, learning all about the lucrative import market available to the UK motor trade.
We will be revealing all about the trip in the coming weeks but as part of the journey, the pair were joined by Nichibo’s Rob Young and Chay Anderson on the latest episode of the Car Dealer Podcast.
Nichibo has emerged as the go-to supplier for UK dealers seeking an an alternative to locally sourced stock, importing cars all the way from the Land of the Rising Sun.
Appearing on the podcast, the pair explained how the process works and the benefits such imports can offer to UK dealers.
In a fascinating chat, they opened up on a world of better margins, cheaper purchase costs and higher quality vehicles.
Anderson, who heads up Nichibo’s UK operation, said: ‘Dealers won’t believe me when we talk margin and yes – we are trying to sell ourselves – but under £10,000 grand, wen are seeing a £3,000 margin and that’s after all expenses, all in.
‘Once you’ve sold the car and you’ve put £30 of fuel in it, we are seeing, depending on the car, about £2,500 to £3,000 pounds margin.
‘Now, some of these more expensive cars that might be over £20,000 and up to £30,000 we are seeing close to five figures.
‘Everyone’s probably listened to this and going, “Oh, yeah, of course they are”. Well, give me a call and I’ll come and show you the data because that’s what we are seeing.’
One of the biggest questions around importing cars from Japan remains how the payments work, and how dealers can avoid having money tied up in stock which is still months away from arriving.
Anderson explained that Nichibo takes a small deposit on purchase, before full payment is taken in the days before the car arrives at the port.
It is all part of a well-thought out operation, which has been built with retailers at its heart.
‘If a car is £10,000 in the UK, that same car here [in Japan] is around about £4,000 to buy,’ Anderson explained.
‘We realise that cash flow is very important for the UK dealers and you don’t buy a car today and throw all your money in and wait for two or three months so we take a small percentage deposit.
‘You’re going to have a small percentage to pay within 10 days of purchase, so all of a sudden you might be paying in the hundreds, not the thousands, to secure your car.
‘That’s a big thing to take into consideration. You haven’t got all your cash flow tied up for months, waiting for cars to come from offshore.
‘Then you pay the balance and the shipping about a week to 10 days out from hitting the port. That’s a very important message we want to get across is your cash flow is not tied up but you’ve got a whole lot of cars that you can pre-sell because you’ve got all the extra photos to put on your account.
‘You know all the costs so we’re seeing a lot of cars that are pre-sold.
‘All of a sudden you’re banking £2,800 pounds margin, the car arrives, there’s your registration and away you go.’
The Car Dealer Podcast, sponsored by Carwow, sees an industry guest join our hosts to discuss the motor trade’s biggest headlines of every week.
A full list of the stories discussed on this week’s episode can be found here.
You can listen to all episodes of the Car Dealer Podcast on Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
