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Blog Entries from 2008
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New Trend Tracker research on automotive sales training
The December '08 issue of the excellent Auto Retail Bulletin newsletter (see www.auto-retail.com if you haven't seen it before) has a summary of a pilot survey carried out by Trend Tracker this year - the first ever independent survey of UK franchised auto retailers' satisfaction with the short sales training courses offered by carmakers.
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New data on the German aftermarket from Trend Tracker partner
Later this autumn Trend Tracker expects to be able to offer UK customers an unrivalled new report on the European aftermarket, published by our German colleagues at Wolk & Partner following a very extensive research programme. As soon as we have more information, we'll let you know full details.
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Pre-publication offer on The Castrol Professional Car Service & Repair Trend Tracker 2008
The latest addition on our Reports page offers advance information on The Castrol Professional Car Service & Repair Trend Tracker 2008 report. Due for publication in October, this report can now be ordered at an 'earlybird' saving of £225 off the published price of £1,250 plus VAT. While we're grateful for Castrol's sponsorship which continues a long association with Trend Tracker, this latest report represents a major development of an established series. To see why we feel justified in believing this report will be THE definitive UK automotive aftersales market study, go to the Reports page on this site
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Tips on car paint care
Wisdom has it that the Web works best if live links lead browsers to information sources they may not have suspected existed, and in that spirit, links to this site and others appear on a consumer motoring site which has recently offered tips on caring for the paint on your car - at http://www.cararticles.co.uk/uk-car-paint-care-tips.html
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Dealers: Bet the farm on used cars
In 2006 when we published our used car report, we took the view that disposable income would fall over the ensuing five years to 2011. And while the basis of our reasoning - tighter monetary policy - now appears almost irrelevant in the light of recent events, the reduction in disposable income has surely come to pass and is likely to get worse before getting better.
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Comment on EU block exemption review and service regulation
An initial reaction to the current state of play in the run-up to the revision or abolition of the automotive block exemption: I'm inclined to agree with the European Commission's desire to simplify things, having found some of the 2002 Regulation's clauses irrelevant. It's clear that the 2002 block exemption gave vehicle manufacturers an opportunity to tear up old contracts and write new, sometimes more onerous ones. Also, that it has facilitated none of the retailing innovation or cross-border investment by dealers that the EC hoped for.
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Don't put all your eggs in one basket
Whether 2008 will see a downturn in the UK economy is hard to say, but the media is doing a brilliant job of talking up a recession. With 30% of motor trade employees under 30 years old, and a further 50% between 30 and 50 years old, there are probably not too many in the business old enough to remember the last severe recession in the early 90's. The lessons learned back then are surely applicable today - don't put all your eggs in one basket and act quickly to cut back overheads at the first sign of trouble.
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The law of unintended consequences
'The Law of Unintended Consequences' says that for every action we take to achieve a particular result there will always be another fall-out result that we did not intend. It might well be that the Chancellor's latest budget could have unintended consequences for the new and used car markets and the future shape of the car parc.
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Welcome to the new Trend Tracker site
With the 2008 re-launch of www.trendtracker.co.uk to fully automate our online reporting shopping facility, Trend Tracker has also launched into the blogosphere, with a mission to alert our customers and associates of any new facts, figures or issues we believe can usefully inform readers' thinking and business planning. To live up to this mission, we will contribute new content to these pages whenever we have good reason to, rather than daily or weekly.