The heat is on as Christmas approaches

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Christmas is nearly upon us and some dealers are telling us that things are starting to turn around. Not a lot, it has to be said, but there are a few buyers out there who are looking for some festive bargains.

There is a feeling that although January normally heralds the start of price rises, as the sales kick in and wholesale prices rise as demand increases, many dealers have gambled by stocking up for year end. They have done this in the hope that whatever they don’t sell in December can be sold profitably in January. There may certainly be some profit opportunities to be found by buying in bulk as well, leading to some attractive offers for customers.

As we can see the sales have stated already in some places with discounts in the thousands already for dealers with ageing inventories that have to be moved on. Although the guides are predicting modest rises in used car values in January it really could be a make or break stat to the year for many dealers to the extent where we could see the less well funded businesses struggling severely unless the banks are sympathetic and allow some leeway in lending.

Many dealers fund their used car stock with the help of the banks and obviously the more stock they have that is not selling the more it costs in interest to stock and the less capable they are of replacing these cars with newer, fresher examples which could be more profitable.

Whilst there may not be many tears shed for struggling car dealers it is worth noting that the industry in this country is probably the best it’s ever been in terms of consumer choice, quality of products and new and innovative models constantly coming to market.

The effort that many dealers have put into improving the experience offered to customer’s means there is a lot at stake. It is therefore imperative that the choice and variety of which channel to buy a car from is fully available otherwise only the biggest and most powerful will survive.

As a result the future car buyer may not get that individual experience that is many now take for granted.