The Garage 325

INDUSTRYNEWS
Industry insight
Presented by MOTUL
Bill Fennell
What lies ahead for garages
in the automotive sector?
The Motor Ombudsman’s Managing Director and Chief Ombudsman looks at
what the future holds for the vehicle sales and aftermarket sectors, including
some of the challenges that may lie ahead for garages as the country
emerges from the latest COVID-19 restrictions.
Since our last Industry Insight feature in December, the landscape has
continued to be dominated by COVID-19, a third lockdown, the additional
challenges presented by our formal exit from the European Union, and
the uncertainty and delays this initially placed on parts entering the UK.
However, there have been many positive steps taken to get the country
back on track. The vaccine rollout has been a real success story, a crucial step
in the fight against Coronavirus, and Boris Johnson has also outlined the key
milestones for the lifting of restrictions during the first half of the year. In fact,
having a timetable gives the automotive sector an element of reassurance that
better times lie ahead, as well as a pathway of when life can seemingly expect
to return to some degree of much yearned-for “normality”. This is especially
pertinent for new and used car outlets that have had to close their doors for
many months to stay in line with the rules around non-essential retail.
The majority of consumers still prefer
to buy a car in person
With online shopping and click and deliver dominating more of the headlines
during the pandemic, we wanted to formulate a clearer picture of what lies
ahead for garages in the automotive sector. We conducted two separate
studies in the opening weeks of 2021 - the first was a YouGov poll of
nearly 1,900 UK motorists to understand their preferences to
purchase a new or used car this year. The results, which have
been published on our website (TheMotorOmbudsman.org),
revealed that nearly two thirds of individuals (62%) would
opt to buy a new or used car in person at the forecourt,
rather than relying on a completely virtual process from
beginning to end. Our research also showed that there
is still an underlying appetite amongst drivers for a
more “conventional” approach of going on a test drive,
and having on-site face-to-face discussions prior to
signing on the dotted line.
MOT demand for March and September
remains unclear
Time flies, and the 30th of March is already the
one-year anniversary of the introduction of the
government’s six-month MOT extension, which
proved very popular amongst drivers, with more than
half (56%) taking advantage of it, according to our
poll last August. This has affected the natural cycle
of peaks and troughs for MOT demand in a “typical”
year, and we therefore conducted a second study to
6 THE GARAGE
Bill Fennell