Page 51 - BusinessWest December 8, 2021

that means this will be different kind of December, but one that still holds promise for dealers — and customers — waiting for the picture to improve.
Dropping Down a Gear
To the untrained eye, Sullivan said, it doesn’t look like much is happening at area dealerships.
Indeed, what most people see in that minute they drive by a store is lots of acre- age not being occupied by new or used cars. Indeed, the vacant parking lots have become one of the enduring images of the supply-chain crisis at this stage of the pandemic.
But a closer look would reveal plenty of activity, just not the type that would be considered normal, he said.
“If you put a stop-motion camera at any dealership, you’d see 18-wheelers coming in, you’d see cars coming off of it, you’d
see them going through their pre-delivery inspections and service and the salesper- son calling the customer to say his vehicle has arrived, and that person picking it up the next day,” he noted. “That’s about how fast this stuff is going right now.”
Other dealers we spoke with echoed those remarks, saying the days of large inventories have been replaced by that new way of doing business described earlier, with the vast majority of cars sold before they reach the lot (70% to 80%, by most estimates) or within days of rolling off the truck.
This new world order is on clear dis-
play on a huge board in one of the offices at Gary Rome Hyundai, one that tracks which vehicles have been sold, by whom, and when they will arrive on the lot for the customer to pick up.
It’s a different landscape, to be sure, said Rome, adding that there would normally be more than 500 cars on the Hyundai lots; currently there are roughly 140, about one-
“I think it will be 2023 before
you drive by a dealership and
”
quarter of that total, with only 20 of them being new cars.
It’s the same at the TommyCar dealer- ships, said Cosenzi, noting that the Hyun- dai/Genesis dealership in Northampton would normally have 200 new models on the ground. After a shipment arrived the day before she talked with BusinessWest, there were 30 to 35. At the Volkswagen store, also in Northampton, there would usually be 80 new cars. Now, 20 is the norm.
These numbers prompt frustration because they collide with other kinds of numbers, especially the ones pertaining to unemployment, consumer spending, and
Coping
Continued on page 56
see a stock full of cars.
Carla Cosenzi says dealers and customers alike are adjusting to a landscape that is without precedent in the auto industry.
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