Internet specialists BookMyGarage.com reckon around £300 million was lost from the aftersales market last year and fears now this will grow, thanks to demand for new cars plummeting due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It is now worried that, with manufacturers facing supply challenges and with the SMMT’s data indicating sales in 2021 could be similar to 2020, the cost to the aftersales sector could now be a combined total of £600 million.
Gavin Ruddick at BookMyGarage.com says:
“This is why now more than ever our sector needs support in finding innovative ways of filling spare workshop capacity which is automated and supports the administration and personnel challenges all sectors are currently experiencing. Tools such as SecretServiceTM can offer dealers an essential lifeline in these difficult times.”
Basically, there are far fewer cards to service and this is hitting the market very hard. It’s bloody tough out there if you’re not actually selling cars.