6:51 am, May 1, 2021
CarShop has revealed how its new Express store will look in a special video to celebrate its launch.
The video, which you can watch above, showcases the new store’s layout and smart design.
The store, which opened yesterday (May 1), is in Blackbird Road, Leicester, and is designed to combine physical and digital sales at one location.
Customers can search thousands of cars virtually in the store and CarShop promises to move it to the Express site free of charge.
There is less space at the Leicester branch – which you can clearly see in the video – compared to its other large sites. But the concept is designed to lean on the brand’s online presence.
It is staffed by all-rounders who do not specialise in handovers or sales, instead able to offer customers a full service, and is led by Michele Williams, who has had a 14-year career at CarShop and has worked at a number of different sites.
Car Dealer visited the new Nottingham late last year to record a video with CarShop boss Nigel Hurley. We’ll be visiting the Express store too for a similar walk around and an update with Hurley.
The Leicester branch is the 12th CarShop store and was conceived ‘not in a boardroom, but by listening to customers’, says Hurley.
CEO Hurley said: ‘The car buying marketplace is changing, with more and more brands looking to their online offering, but we’re confident in our omnichannel model.
‘Putting the customer first and ensuring that they can buy their perfect car in the way they feel most comfortable doing so is our top priority – this could be at one of our larger showrooms, where they get to see the cars up close, completely online with a home delivery or at one of our new CarShop Express stores which happily combines the two.
‘It’s not about just online or just in-person, it’s about customer choice – meeting them wherever they already are.’
Earlier this week, Car Dealer revealed CarShop and Sytner owner Penske Automotive Group made a record £177m profit in the first quarter of the year.
While sales at CarShop stores were down 43 per cent due to the lockdown, Sytner and CarShop still sold 40,000 cars during the first three months of the year.
