The average local car dealer is independent relative to the car company whose product they sell.\u00a0 However, increasingly car dealers are no longer independent, privately owned firms.\u00a0 Car dealers are generally owned by large corporations such as Group 1 Automotive:<\/p>\n
\n\nGroup 1 Automotive, Inc. is a Fortune 500 company, founded in 1997. It has its headquarters in the One Memorial City Plaza building in the Memorial City district of Houston, Texas. Wikipedia<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\nStock price<\/a>: GPI<\/a> (NYSE)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
What does that mean for you as a car buyer?\u00a0 Even the manager of your local dealership isn’t the Owner — who may not even live in your state.<\/p>\n
Of course Autonation, arguably the largest automotive retailer, with ~266 dealerships across the US, is clearly a large presence in the market.\u00a0 Autonation stores, however, generally are clearly branded and\u00a0 marketed as Autonation and not as Independent Dealerships.\u00a0 When a Buyer goes into their local Cadillac Dealer, named as it has been after the family that started the dealership, the Buyer may be under the mistaken impression that the store is in fact family owned.<\/p>\n
What does that mean for the overall model constructed around the theory that independent car dealer sell more cars than factory stores?\u00a0 Is the theory still valid in this age of large “corporate” retailers? If the best way to run individual dealerships now is to bring them together into large corporations why is it not even MORE efficient (and profitable) for Cadillac to own all the Cadillac dealers as an income generating subsidiary instead of relying on partner corporations that own and sell a variety of brands?<\/p>\n
Should GM and Cadillac start to buy up large car sales groups?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The average local car dealer is independent relative to the car company whose product they sell.\u00a0 However, increasingly car dealers are no longer independent, privately owned firms.\u00a0 Car dealers are generally owned by large corporations such as Group 1 Automotive: … Continue reading