Dealers have expressed ‘clear concerns’ over the current and future profitability of running their franchise.
That’s the headline finding of the Dealer Attitude Survey from the National Franchised Dealers Association which said that topics relatinbg to profitability and margins were among the lowest rated in the survey.
Current profit return from representing the franchise was the third lowest scoring question in this edition of the survey and also showed the biggest decline of any question compared to the previous survey.
Dealer satisfaction with current profit return has dropped down a ‘significant” -0.6 from the last edition, with an average score of 5.5, a –9.8% change.
“Assessing the trends from previous DAS surveys, dealer sentiment regarding current profit returns has seen a drop in every survey since Winter 2022, as dealers have navigated global supply chain shortages and a cost-of-living crisis, although the market is gradually recovering to pre-pandemic levels,” said the Survey.
EVs once again received the lowest score in the entire survey. While there was some improvement in OEM training for dealers on EVs, the issues of profitability and model choice continued to be bugbears for dealers.
Four of the six questions saw increases, with substantial rises in average scores for manufacturer’s EV training and information. This question saw an increase of 0.6 from 6.2, in the previous edition, to 6.8 in this survey, a 9.7% change.
“However, return on investment from EV equipment and training remained at 5.5 and when comparing the total margin between EV/Hybrid and their internal combustion engine counterparts there was a -0.4 drop in the average to 5.2. This score means once again a topic on EVs sees the lowest rating of all questions.
“Verbatim generated on the section centred around ‘low margins’ (38%) and ‘lack of product offering’ (31%), echoing the key concerns of the wider sector,” it said