Volvo aims to net used CV buyers
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If you think the Internet is only for speccy geeks and has nothing to do with road haulage, think again—you could be buying your next used Volvo through the net.
• Brian Weatherley Take it as read. Over the next five years the toughest competition between the vehicle manufacturers will involve the disposal of used trucks.
This struggle is reflected in CMs Truckmart pages (starting this week on page 49), which are packed with adverts for used truck schemes run by franchised dealers with backing from .the manufacturers.
Forget new vehicle sales; no manufacturer is making any money out of original chassis. Fewer and fewer customers want to end up with the asset. With upwards of 45% of HGVs going out under contract hire/lease or guaranteed buyback deals, the chassis manufacturers have been left holding their babies. As a result they're continually seeking new ways to WOO buyers in the second-hand market, where price has always been the be all and end all.
Several major players are eyeing up that most enigmatic of sales arenas: the Internet. Volvo is running no less than three Internet-based used truck sales schemes, including one which is
restricted to dealers (see box below). One of these schemes, Volvo Truck Finder, even allows prospective buyers to nominate a particular chassis which will then be found within the dealer network. "You can log a request on the system to look for vehicles for either 30, 60 or 90 days," says Chris Sansome, Volvo's used truck business development manager. And if you give us an email address, the dealer will email back to you saying he's got the truck of your choice. It brings the customer and dealer together very quickly."
But are hauliers, generally seen as a conservative bunch, really ready to embrace ecommerce? Yes, says Sansome: "Fewer and fewer operators are willing to travel big distances to see a used truck. They value their leisure time more, and fewer want to go looking for a truck in their own time. As a result of that we're coming to see customers looking on the Internet." Paul Hughes manages used truck sales at MC Truck & Bus's purpose-built used truck site in West Thurrock, Essex. He is equally sure the Internet is becom
ing a sales tool for dealers, not least because operators are taking less time to decide what and when they want to buy "You need the information straight away," he says. "There are so many people out there looking for vehicles and the quicker you can meet their needs, the more likely you're going to get the business. This will become a way of life."
Sansome adds: "It's about speed of communication. People usually look at the trade press. Where I see it going is there will be another level of communication for customers where the dealers get more than just a stock sheet."
Cynics might suggest that manufacturers are simply desperate to embrace any sales tools when they have so many vehicles returning to them via contract hire, leasing and buybacks. Sansome certainly sees e-commerce as a way of handling chassis sourced from Volvo Contract Services (VCS) and BRS."I'd like to see VCS supplying, say, 50% of all the vehicles on the Selected Used Truck Scheme," he says. "I see no reason why they shouldn't. The dealers will be more confident as we get going and I'd certainly like to hit that target within a year or 18 months."
Sansome stresses that the electronic schemes currently being developed are not compulsory for dealers: It's not like a signing-up; it's another sales tool." But he adds: "The intention is that all the dealers will be on the net by the end of the year—and it will be totally in the public domain."
Operators finked to the Internet will be able see what Sansome describes as an "enhanced electronic classified page". He says: "It's like home shopping. There's a lot of disciplines and enhancements the car manufacturers have that we can learn from. I was in a Scottish dealer recently and was amazed by the number of e-mail requests we'd got."
The one area that won't be open to hauliers is Volvo's Extra Net programme. This is a dealer-only system with information on vehicles coming back to VCS.
"With Extra Net we'll have a truck locator accessible via a password," says Sansome. "So our dealers can come and look at what's potentially coming off contract and will become stock in, say, two or three months' time, So the used salesman can target his customers, and this enables us to be more proactive. If there are going to be 50 trucks in the yard in four weeks before you have to advertise them you've got the edge. This is where e-commerce comes in; it speeds up the sales information."
Don't forget that Commercial Motor's Truckmart pages are also available on the web every week; they can be accessed via www.roadtransport.net. You don't have to be a subscriber to visit our site; you can even search by manufacturer, vehicle type or name of dealer.
For more information phone 0181 652 3274.