New Car Dealers
When buying a brand new car you have a few options of where to buy from. You could import your new car (probably not the wisest idea with exchange rates the way they are at the moment); buy from an online car broker; or buy from a franchised new car dealer. There are other ways of purchasing a new car but in this article we are going to weigh up the pros and cons of buying from online car brokers and franchised new car dealers.
New Car Dealers
So, what do you get when you buy from a franchised new car dealer? First let us define what we mean by ‘franchised new car dealer’. We are referring to the new car dealers you see on the ring roads of almost every town and city in the country with their flashy showrooms. These dealers vary in size from small independent or family run businesses selling cars from just one manufacturer in just one location to huge nationwide chains with multiple franchises and turnovers of billions of pounds. If you are interested in the list of the top 100 new car dealers by turnover then you can find it here.
Due to the nature of a franchised dealers business it must maintain the flashy showrooms and high levels of staff to be on hand to assist new car buyers. In general the sales departments of larger new car dealers are split into two: retail sales and fleet sales. Retail sales departments are the part of the dealership that you see, the showrooms with the cars on display and the staff here will deal with anyone who walks in off the street – although in most new car dealers’ showrooms I have been in recently I have been completely ignored! The fleet departments deal with businesses’ fleets of vehicles and usually sell larger volumes but at smaller profit margins, they also usually have better discounts available to them than the retail departments. This, together with the fact that new car dealers have the huge overheads of operating and maintaining a costly showroom and large staff mean that if you walk into a showroom to buy a new car from a new car dealer you will generally not be getting the best deal there is. Because new car dealers’ fleet departments are often responsible for the online advertising you may well find a better deal on a new car price comparison website than by going to the dealer direct, especially as this tends to be where they advertise the cars they are having problems selling and offer them at huge discounts. Retail staff in one particular new car dealer of a group may not be aware of all the groups stock.
When buying from a franchised new car dealer you do obviously get the peace of mind of being able to visit the showroom, meet the people and feel confident that your deposit is in safe hands.
Online New Car Brokers
Online car brokers differ from new car dealers in that they are not tied to any particular car manufacturer and can offer customers a car from any manufacturer. They also don’t have costly new car showrooms to maintain as most business is either conducted online or by phone and are therefore able to offer new cars for sale with a smaller profit margin. When buying a new car from an online car broker the car will be ordered from and delivered to a franchised new car dealer who will then perform all the normal checks and deliver the vehicle to the customer. As online brokers aren’t tied to any particular dealer they can shop around new car dealers nationwide to try and find you the best deal. So in short you will be getting the same car as if you walked into your local dealer but it may come from the other end of the country.
There are a fairly substantial number of new car brokers around, ranging from sole traders operating out of a spare bedroom to (relatively) large organistions. I’m sure you have all heard horror stories of cars not being delivered and deposits going missing but as long as you are careful about your choice of company to order your new car from then you shouldn’t have any problems. Some of the more established and professional organisations to buy a new car online from are buyacar.co.uk, uk-car-discount.co.uk and dealdrivers.co.uk to name but a few.
This is by no means meant to be a definitive article on which are better – new car dealers or online new car brokers – but some things for you to think about before taking the plunge and outlaying a lot of your hard earned cash on that nice new car you have been dreaming about!
Remember to have a look at the latest new cars deals we have found to see if there is anything there that is of interest to you.