How many independents are left

[Phil H 124]

I recently read a report that state's there are only 4500 independents left in the country, I thought that this figure was low as where I live on  the Wirral the independents outnumber the franchise's about 3 to 1. Is this figure of 4500 correct or does anyone know the true amount left?

[DanNextGear 4]

When our business was set up in the UK we were advised of the same number.

 

I cover the Wirral as a patch though and it does buck the trend - lots of used dealers there.

[Max Branning 149]

If you also count the independent layby dealers this number would surely be in the 10s of thousands?

[Wheelerdealer1 91]

Get through some of those private AT ads that are quite obviously not! A tell tale is a list of 4 or 5 motors all private, pics taken in the same area with the same back drop 

 

ok so who is  going to do a survey of how many illegal traders there are out there, now that's something that may actually be useful to us !

[umesh 336]

Problem is Wheelerdealer1 - if / when we find hundreds of these 'illegal traders' - no easy task - what do we do with the information, who do we report them to .. and WHAT Will the do about it.. just have to be very careful we don't waste time and get distracted away from our core business ! #justsaying 

Last time I had a VAT inspection I asked the inspector why were there so many 'road side illegal traders ' and what were they going to do about it ? his reply was we don't have the man power to go after them ... I said looks like because I am legally registered , you know who I am - Where I am - I am an easy target for you ??

 

[Wheelerdealer1 91]

Don't you worry umesh I know exactly what to do with them 

[Ben at Glass's 2]

We have purchased lists of independent used car dealers in the past (from the likes of Automotive Management) and they contain around 4,500-5,000 dealers. However, taking 20 independent dealers at random from AutoTrader and comparing them to this list we found that only 4, or 25%, appeared in the AM list.

We googled all 20 dealers and they all had a website, so it would suggest the number could be somewhere nearer to 20,000 independent dealers (though admittedly 20 is a very small number to base this on!).

[Phil H 124]

Ok I think the figure of 4500 independents left is absolute TOSH, Whilst it's been quiet over the last 2 weeks I've been gathering a database of traceable non franchise independent dealers (website, dealership address, phone number, CCL details, email address's etc) Located within a 50 mile radius of rainford and I'm up to 1220 already and by no means finished. Collate this with the rest of the country and I think you may find as many as 30000 traceable independents are left if not more.