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After the huge success we have had with our now Sales Manager -Phil (25) and our salesman Andy (22)we have decided to recruit yet another 'Junior Sales Assistant' or what I would call an 'Apprentice' however as there is NO recognised apprenticeships for Car Sales in Scotland this new start will do all this hard work and training without any recognition from the SVQ. According to the IMI , who I contacted there are apprenticeships available in England and Wales but not Scotland and even the ones in England and Wales have a very poor uptake! Why is that the case? Training young people to sell is not that hard, if you get them at an early age you can mould them to the way 'we do things' and they are very easy to adopt change and pick up processes. What do other non-franchise independents do? Is it the case that they take on 'salespeople' that have been 'round the block'? or are they training youngsters? Hopefully Liam, is as successful as Phil and Andy have been as I will be a very happy man if that is the case.

I haven't read the comments above but we stopped opening Sundays a few years back and have never considered re opening, sales have improved, communication is better and i think that's the one item that is key to this, also we could only justify one person being in due to our size so meant no test drives, a day off in return, holidays become awkward. I guess it depends on dealer size but for us it worked being closed sundays

Green Giant and Umesh - fascinating comments as always. Love this thread it's great to read what your side of the fence thinks. Think we'll make this a special on next month's Comments Page :)

Jim, i think this is a great move as I posted on FB , I Have always closed from day one -17 Years ago I decided i would not work 7 days a week , its too easy to get into doing that 'routine' and lose out on quality time, chill out time and recharge time even if you read trade mags on Sunday at home its a change of space and thinking time.! when I started many of trade people /colleagues / friends ALL said I was mad and would lose a lot of business ? I said the type of stock / cars I sell people will come back in the week or make appointments that we could both accommodate! I'm sure I've lost the odd deal or two over the years but I've enjoyed my Sundays off - either with family/ friends or simply DIY at home! No regrets at all and best decision i made. I've made appointments on Sundays if thats the only day that a prospective customer can make it and then its only been between 20 minutes to ..max an hour AND 90% of the time sold a car - other times we simply couldn't do a deal - it happens !! but not wasted all day waiting! Now my next dileama is do i close 6 days and only open one !! Thoughts:) One day ONLY to buy a car will there we queues ? PS - Forgot to mention some of the dealers who said I was mad all those years ago now close on Sundays due to lack of business - I think either 3/4 OR 5 dealers of them ! It is a 'personal' choice to what suits each of us!

Good call Jim. It's time the whole world (not literally) slowed down a bit. In my many years in this business I have studied the browsing/buying patterns of customers and tried different opening hours to accomodate everyone, so we didn't miss a sales opportunity. Or so it appeared. Fact is, no matter what your published opening hours are, there will always be browsers who come in half an hour after you close. Over a 4-month trial (Feb-May) a couple of years ago, we surveyed everyone who purchased a car on a Sunday. In only 2 cases (out of 51) did the customer say they wouldn't have bought the cars from us during the week if we were closed on that day. And they were both New car deals that, quite frankly, hardly covered the leccy bill, let alone the wages! However, the powers-that-be decreed that if the opposition was open, then we would be too. A compromise was reached. At the moment, we're open every Sunday from April to October and only by appointment over the winter. Do we miss any walk-in deals? Probably. Do we worry about that? Nope. Do we get calls on the Monday after? Yep. Are the deals still done? Again, yep. It is certainly a location-based decision though but if, at the end of the day Jim, you're still surviving and the staff and customers are still happy, it's all good.