trade vet

Ultimate risk taker,you must be exceptional DH retailing cheapies,I don’t know any quality pitches retailing cheapies these days.You must have a good system in place although plenty of Doorsteppers appear to still do OK with them without comebacks.I thought CRA 15 and ‘ fit for purpose etc ‘ put paid to proper pitches doing them.In the distant past I used to get excited taking in good cheapies and retailing them without touching them.Now cheapie punters expect a fresh ticket,pay by credit card and know all about CRA 15.

It’s now reported that BCA subsidiary Cinch have borrowed £1 billion to expand into Europe ? They have only been trading a few months.Any of us trying to borrow £100k from a bank and you need to sign a personal guarantee and show 2 years trading accounts.It might all end in tears,the prep and the subcontract warranty claims could kill them.Also if the likes of Lloyds ( Autolease ,Lex ,Black Horse etc ) decide to follow suit and have a go,that might cock things up for them.

Block of flats or whatever,I hope so.They must have put up with a lot of crap from manufactures for years.

Cap is more wrong than ever.The conspiracy theory of course is that the major auction groups are not correctly reporting their results to Cap because a lot of major vendors have contracts hedged with them at guaranteed 95% of C/clean.So keeping Cap values lower would be in an auction groups better interests if they get to keep above Cap proceeds.

It could happen.Look at Jeremy Corbyn who became leader helped by membership of the Labour Party being reduced to a quid or whatever which gave people the right to vote in a leader election.So thousands of Tory’s signed up and voted for Corbyn.

There was someone on here awhile ago who said he bought stock off Evans Halshaw forecourts as they would price them up cheaply because they needed paintwork.

Young people appear to live by social media and the level of anti vaccine messages they receive causes many to fail to turn up for jabs.The worrying increase in the Indian variant appears to be in areas with a lower vaccination uptake.A doctor friend of mine does the jabs and he was telling me that he found schoolteachers took the longest because they ask so many questions about risks and after effects.I did tell him the trade has similar problems with teachers.However he did point out that Maths teachers were easy because they could calculate the risk. All the Covid money is likely to create inflation next year followed by higher interest rates although it cannot be as bad as 89/90 when inflation and base rate mortgages were 15%.Back then the banks cut back and so did the finance companies who then pulled the rug on smaller dealers.So don’t be surprised if debt is called in and also the Poundshop rebrands as the 2 Poundshop.

It’s certainly dire if you have a Stellantis franchise and today you have been terminated with 2 years notice.Some of these will be smaller long established family owned dealerships ( especially in rural areas) who have put their neck on the line and loyally stuck with Vauxhall,Citroen Peugeot through thick and thin for generation’s.Then with this Stellantis merger creation and new management they have terminated every dealer and want to renegotiate. I would hope there will be those who just decide to tell them to stuff it and pack in now.

Ha Ha,Sounds like the old days.Huge Bung Motor Company

No repeat punter deals in the last 5 weeks ? may I enquire how long have you had your pitch.My old pitch still gets them every day.( except during lock down) Mind it took me 20 years to get the flow going.Trade Survivor may have a similar experience.With the exception of those dealing heavy tackle,I think it is better to keep your best stock for your local punters and pick and choose retail swappers.Everyone to their own !

I can think of dozens of Labour MP’s who would find it difficult to hold down any job in the private sector.Mind Dennis Skinner although a bit tall might have been a good valeter.Ex Miners were usually good valeters,they never stopped working in all weather.If I went on holiday I think I would prefer to leave the pitch with Kier Starmer in charge rather than Boris.

When or if we get over the pandemic,there could be many enquiries set up.Of course enquiries can take years and the general rule appears to be that you carefully choose a judge and water down the brief.WMD springs to mind.Boris appears to thrive on chaos,being PM is hard enough but can you imagine his personal and financial problems.Parliamentary rules are not top of his agenda.He is paying for ex wives,apparently at least 6 kids which we are not allowed to know about and he might have to pay off his American ex girl friend to stop her writing a book.She has a short window to get maximum sales and financial impact. Can you imagine employing Boris,he would probably be your top sales guy but he would leave havoc.Forget to get docs signed,forget to get MOT’s for swappers,do HPI’s,misplace deposits etc.I have seen sales guys like that and the best solution was to employ a minder who did all the paperwork and the handovers.

Excellent,you need to get fast tracked into the Private Lounge.

Hi TS,great posts.We need more pros on here.Keep posting please.

I bet the camper van conversion guy who comes on here would like his vans back to rent them out.

Apparently it’s a correctly submitted claim but it appears No 10 spinners have chosen to ignore it.Some unnamed mail office minion in no10 will probably get the blame.If Labour were streetwise they should start a trend.

For the long established pitches,the loyal repeat punters are the backbone of the business and they are back after being missing for a long time.These punters who generally buy bread and butter stock don’t like click and collect.They want to come in and have some banter,try it out after usually saying they are buying it.They are straight forward and tend to rely on you and you can get their swappers in ‘right’.Living in the past,I still think that the local punters are the best.

It appears Boris is now classed as a ‘Chucky Duffer’ as he has had a County Cap for £500 registered at Downing Street.A bailiff could turn up and take the new curtains.You cannot make it up.

Off topic.Unless it is on over age stock,slow punters,’doubting Thomas’s ‘,that expect extras or money off,especially if it is on older stuff,don’t deal with them.It takes 2 minutes to qualify a punter either on the pitch or on the phone.When I used to buy from main dealers,they often had a hard boiled sales guy who sold the most who could spot proper punters by their body language alone before homing in on them.

He who dares Rodney,good luck.

In the 70’s if you had a top car where we are and it got nicked,a third party would quickly contact you about getting it returned provided you paid the ransom and they usually did.Nowadays it is probably better for thieves to forget stealing cars and just steal the keys.For example I think the latest Bentley key costs about 7 grand and is encrusted with diamonds.

AT directors will need to come up with something to protect their share price and their bonuses.It hasn’t moved yet so it could be fake news.AT might want to lock dealers into longer term contracts in return for bigger discounts for increasing stock.On the other hand Google have the firepower to offer dealers free introductory advertising providing they drop Autotrader.We started using AT mag in 84 ( I think) and it was far cheaper than local newspaper advertising and it was brilliant for nearly 20 years before being sold and the rates then gradually went up and up.I do agree with the Autoraper tag as they have been netting 70% of their t/o for several years when the trade find it difficult to net 2%.

CD mag news reporting that Google are test marketing their own platform which they intend to be global.I think that would be good news for the trade.Apparently there is no way they would be charging anywhere near Autotrader or it could even be free from the outset.

Going off topic,it reminds me of our helpfull family run PO from long ago.We were taxing stuff every day but because the PO was so busy and you had to queue up,it was quicker to leave the docs and make 2 trips.The postmaster suggested we just left an open cheque made out to the Post Office and he would complete it on a weekly basis.Months later I checked to see that the PO calculations corresponded with ours for mostly 3 month and the odd 12 month tax.It didn’t and we had been charged for a lot of 12 month instead of 3 month taxes.I asked them for an explanation and they invited me into their house.They said they used the PO computer system to calculate the weekly amount and they would never steal any money from us.They were very nice people but of course I didn’t believe them as there was thousands of pounds involved.They repaid us the money and we never used them again and the PO later closed up.Now reading about hundreds of cases where the Post Office had forced Post Masters to admit theft of thousands when all along it was their faulty computer system.Many of them had their lives destroyed ,went bankrupt,got jailed or died of ill health caused by the worry.I often think about our PO people because there was no way they would be ripping us off.I think it is a huge scandal especially the Post Office Cover Up which has taken years to uncover.

Look forward to episode 2.