Market magic MARITIME TRANSPORT How to find a market for
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your own used vehicles Maritime Transport uses its trucks then makes them disappear through its subsidiary secondhandtrucks.co.uk Words: Kevin Swallow There are a numberof hauliers that remarket their own fleet — Devon-based Gregory Distribution and Northampton-based EM Rogers, for instance — but no operator does it on a scale similar to Suffolk-based Maritime Transport.
Maritime buys the truck, uses it, then sells it through its Tilbury, Essex-based company secondhandtrucks.co.uk, which was set up in 2005. Matt Heath, general manager — fleet sales, has led the remarketing business from the start after joining Maritime in 2003 from Stobart Group.
He started out as a lorry driver before moving into the office and a career in planning and operations. The switch to sales in 2005 was not an obvious progression. "The challenge was where to go to get a sale, and how to market it properly and generate interest in what we do," he says.
Unlike traditional used truck dealerships that source from all and sundry, secondhandtrucks.co.uk has just a single supply of trucks: its parent company. That parent runs a 700-strong fleet of tractor units with big cabs, 6x2 chassis, 440hp-480hp engines and predominantly automated transmissions from five manufacturers: Daf, MAN, Mercedes-Benz, Scania and Volvo.
At Tilbury, Maritime parks up each marque for people to look at, but the rest are all working. "We choose from a rolling stock of 700 vehicles that we can sell and pick from at any one time. No dealer or manufacturer has that type of stock to choose from," says Heath. The company uses repair and maintenance contracts from the manufacturers for its vehicles and employs a robust de-fleet process through a network of workshops. Heath says they sell a lot of trucks to owner-drivers and the small to medium-sized hauliers who cannot afford to buy downtime. "Each truck has an audit trail. We micromanage the truck, we want it to be as good as new when we sell it," he says.
To help keep the trucks in good order, Maritime employs a one-driver-one-truck policy and hasn't used an agency driver since 2004. Andrew McNab, marketing director, says that approach was driven by MD John Williams in order to have a strong driver culture. "They play the most important role for Maritime and it works for us in second-hand trucks because the drivers know how we deflect the trucks. They have really bought into it and our trucks are in top condition as a result," he says.
Heath's first sale in 2005 was a Scania Topline tractor, RX03 EEA, to Titmarsh Haulage for £42,000, but perhaps as important is the fact that he sold the truck with guaranteed work. "Maritime needs a balance of ownerdrivers and subcontractors, so it is a natural progression to sell our trucks with work. So if they come onto the fleet by buying a truck, we guarantee them work," he says.
In its first calendar year, secondhandtrucks.co.uk sold approximately 100 trucks, a third of the fleet at the time. "Specifying a consistent product means customers can simply call — they know what we have on the fleet. We can even give them specific number plates, and you can buy sister trucks with sequential plates," says Heath.
Alan McNicol, group financial director, says Scanias achieves the best residual value because they are willing to protect those values. "Scania operates its business in a completely joined-up way from sales to remarketing," he says.
He is wary of Euro-6 and the company has been proactive in ordering new Euro-5 vehicles ahead of the deadline on 1 January, he adds. "Each manufacturer has had to invest heavily to make Euro-6 and that is reflected in the sales price: the quote differential is €6,000 to €7,000. That is effectively the same truck with no benefit, so why take it early?" he explains.
With everything pointing to a sales collapse in 2014, McNicol believes a lack of demand will dictate the final Euro-6 price increase. However, Maritime has ordered a small number of Euro-6 trucks to see how they work in the fleet.
He stresses that the company won't be pressured into deflecting to meet any increased demand from the open market for Euro-5 next year, however. "The mainline business dictates what we will do — we have to support it with the right amount of resource," he says. •