Home » Fleets reduce the impact of the third lockdown on the car market in Europe

Fleets reduce the impact of the third lockdown on the car market in Europe

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Dealership closures for lockdowns across Europe had a major impact on new car registrations last spring, but with the pandemic that has lasted for a year now, new forms of sales have been established, such as click and collect or delivery to domicile. This made it possible to reduce the losses accused by the sector with the entry into force of the second and third lockdowns that affected the main EU countries.
However, the success of these formulas strongly depends on the sales channels; in fact, many private customers do not yet feel comfortable buying their car online. According to dataforce surveys, in April 2020 the auto markets collapsed by 89% in the countries affected by the closures of the showrooms, while in those that have maintained the full operation of the dealers the decline was 43%. Some countries entered a second lockdown in November 2020 and this time most countries were not caught unprepared, launching “alternative” sales initiatives; this reduced losses to an average of 18 percentage points although there were still stark differences between countries. With the third wave of the pandemic and the consequent new general blockade in January and February 2021, the impact was minimal: the difference in sales between countries with open dealers and those with closed showrooms was just 8 pp.
To put it into context, the percentage variations within the two groups (open and closed dealers) were highly variable: registrations in the first group fell between 38% in the UK and 14% in Ireland, while the range in the countries with operational dealerships it went from -45% in Spain to + 12% in Sweden. In this context, individual factors such as tax changes or the economic situation were particularly relevant. However, this does not mean that dealer closures no longer affect new car registrations, but rather that companies have learned to adapt more easily to online sales using leasing companies and key account managers. In fact, if private customers prefer the personal relationship with the seller and take a test drive before making a purchase decision, rental companies, dealers and manufacturers have shown that they do not need open showrooms to register their cars.

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