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2 years ago i was of the opinion that everyone was now using satnav so a pitch was not necessary,autotrader was working fine and they all turned up,this last 2 years ive sold more stock from walk ins and referrals because im established and seeable from the road so my attitude has changed again to how it was ie you need some sort of pitch Roadside as said is free advertising so i wouldnt move now, as i did consider it to cut costs If you are off the main road then my favourite piece of saying is, 'advertise or die' and unfortunately advertising is not cheap ,as it unfortunately never was

I tend to agree with TML, well I guess having an ex filling station on a main road gives me no choice! Last year I was thinking of doing putting a car wash on the front of my forecourt and shifting the cars around to the back compound, thus making them more or less out of sight from the main road. I then worked out how many sales that I did from walk- ons and whilst it wasn't was it was, it was still a decent amount (especially in the summer when the holiday parks are open) so I knocked that idea on the head. Not far from me there are a couple of main road forecourts on a busy road. Before the internet they where the forecourt of milk and honey and nothing much has changed, when it did hands recently folk were fighting to get the keys. Even now, in 2016, the advertising spend on the pitch continues to be next to nothing. To answer the original question, no you don't need a road side pitch but it's an extra piece of armoury worth having in my opinion, although in the summer when I'm asked if I have a public toilet/ phone/shelter and having to give directions out every bank holiday it maybe doesn't feel like that!

50% of my sales come from walk-ins/drive-bys so yes its a must, I'm on quite a busy road so it works very well. I've seen internet based companies fold up you cant purely rely on the web. imho.

James, I use local press all the time and do get very , very good response ! , its not a magic wand every time you tick as ad in it sells , however to me its great return on Investment - its about being consistent and also depends on what message you're sending out. And I know we all think its always the 'older' generation sold two cars couple of weeks ago to a guy who's about 45 , and a couple mid 50's from press ad ! , so not 'older' in my eyes.