Abstract:

There is currently unprecedented attention being focussed on car retailing and distribution. The speed of growth of the Internet retailing phenomenon has caught most traditional retailers “napping” and in the main they have been forced out of panic rather than as a result of careful planning, to prematurely introduce E-based schemes which are often unfit for the market Within the automotive sector the growth of the Internet poses a massive new threat to the franchised dealership system. In the UK, banks, credit card companies and supermarkets have all recently been reported as having advanced plans to move in this direction. It is interesting to compare the disdain with which the oil companies treated the supermarkets when they started petrol retailing and they now have 25% of the market! In the past two months the following are some of the organisations that have announced they are looking into car retailing.