Targa Florio Cars disappears without trace, BYD announces dealer of the year, and TC Harrison takes on Omoda Jaecoo – with Nathan Coe, episode 240

The Cardiola podcast is sponsored by Autotrader.

John, have you ever wondered why I, along with 14,000 other dealers, choose to partner with

Autotrader?

Well, actually.

I didn't think so.

I'll tell you anyway, with more than 84 million consumer visits every month, it connects

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And now, with the launch of buying signals, we'll have brand new insights on every deal

showing how likely a customer is to buy the car they're interested in.

Plus, as someone who set out to use AI and data as much as possible in my business, I've

found their technology, data and tools genuinely invaluable.

But when I do get stuck, which is, let's face it, most of the time, Autotrader is

always on hand and committed to supporting us to get the very best from our package.

To find out how they can help you, visit trade.autotrader.co.uk.

Welcome back to the Cardiola podcast, where we pick our favorite stories of the week and

ask an industry guest to choose which were the best.

I'm John Ray and joining me this week, fresh from skateboarding down a mountain

or whatever he's been doing is James Bagger.

James, lovely to see you.

Lovely to see you, John.

Nice to be back.

One week away, but back with the bang, loads of stuff's been happening and looking

forward to the podcast.

How are you doing?

Are you okay?

I see you're in my house again.

Is it actually nice to be back there, James?

No comment.

Let's move on swiftly from that.

No, it's been an interesting week back at the dealership, lots of stuff going

on.

January was being a little bit quiet up until this point for us, but it really

started kicking off this week, so nice to get some inquiries, sold some cars.

January looks like it might be okay towards the end of the month already.

So yeah, it's been, we were sort of hoping that the year was going to kick off

with a massive bang like it did last year for us, but it hasn't been quite

so good on the sunny South Coast, but hopefully it will pick up now.

It's a very awkward time for 10 VW ups to arrive from Japan, which is

exactly what's happened.

So hope you sell those soon.

Yes, we need to.

Yeah, and the stock numbers have slightly increased as of yesterday.

We bought four cars yesterday that just happened to land in our lap.

We've got 44 cars in stock, John.

It's too many, James.

It is too many.

It's too many.

But anyway, people don't want to, people don't care what we've got to say.

Do they?

We've got a brilliant guest, so we should probably move on.

Yes, exactly.

So our guest this week is CEO of AutoTrade and Nathan Coat.

Nathan, thanks for joining us.

Well, thanks for having me.

Good to see you both.

Nathan, very good to see you.

Thank you very much for coming back on and chatting to us and the

MotorTrade.

We've had lots of questions, as I'm sure you can appreciate.

We've put the feelers out in the WhatsApp groups that we're in.

And on our and on our website, asking people if they've got any

questions, I've got loads for you.

So sorry, once again, a bit of a grilling.

But I'm sure you used to that now.

I'm sure you all good.

Good stuff.

Well, let's start off.

Let's start off with the big one.

There's a lot of speculation around this time of year about the rate rise.

How much are you?

AutoTrade or bills are going to go up.

Are they going to go up and if so, by how much?

Yes.

So we've looked at we've looked at our packages.

I think our communications officially goes out next week.

There has been there has been some posts, I know, in some of the

Facebook groups, but we're looking at doing a lower level

than what we've done, what we would ordinarily do.

And there's a whole bunch of stuff that we take into account,

how the market's doing, how dealers are doing, what sales

rates are looking like, how's our audience doing, what products

we've delivered during the year.

And we kind of put that all in a bucket.

It's a bit of science and it's a bit of art as well.

But recognising particularly for lots of big retailers,

if you've got lots of labor costs,

you obviously had a pretty abnormal increase in those last

year as a result of the budget.

So we kind of put that all into a bucket.

We know lots of people on Dealworld are enjoying it

and getting value out of it.

No doubt you'll come on to that later on.

Buying signals is out there as well,

but not everyone's got that.

So all that stuff put into a bucket.

And we're looking at a level of 5.5% for people.

But best for people to look out for that communications

when it comes out on Monday, I think.

I mean, 5.5%, Nathan, is a pretty hefty jump.

I know it's less than the 8% you did last year.

But is that really justified?

I think based on all those factors

that I mentioned kind of earlier,

I feel like it is justified or not.

I think no one likes costs going up.

We know that.

And we're exactly the same.

Our costs are going up much quicker than that kind of a race.

But what we endeavor to do includes stuff in the packages,

whether it's existing things or new things,

that allows you to more than offset that cost.

And that, to us, we know is more important

than the cost alone, because we know what makes or breaks.

As you know, as you're fast learning,

what makes or breaks a dealership is gross margin.

It's sales rates.

It's the margin that you get per unit.

You do need to obviously make sure your operational costs

can be covered.

But the swing factor in a dealership

is always going to be that.

And that's where we can help most.

That's where we focus all our product development.

So we want to, our whole strategy

is to work with retailers so that they get more value

in the next year than they did in the previous year.

I totally get that.

But as you rightly pointed out, I've

got a very real idea of how this is going to affect my business.

Five and a half percent is a hefty increase.

It puts that price up.

When am I going to find that money?

Because I certainly can't put the price of the cars up,

can I?

Because you tell customers how much they cost.

Yeah, I mean, at the moment, we've had it a whole year,

actually, where retail prices for vehicles

have been kind of stable to holding up.

So it does come back to that.

The thing that's got to pay for all your operational costs,

not just auto-trader, is that gross margin.

So I think the answer to the question is, you know,

you've got 44 cars in stock now.

That's a lot more than last time that we spoke.

Make sure that you get margin on those sales times,

sales times margin hopefully adds up

to a big year of profit next year

than you had in the previous year.

And hopefully, we can do some part to working with you

to help make that happen.

And I would hope that that more than washes away

the part of your cost base that relates to auto-trader.

But like I said, we do get that no one likes cost going up.

We've seen the cost of absolutely everything

go up spectacularly over the last few years.

But from when I speak to retailers,

you know, including in these listening sessions

that we've been doing over the last couple of months,

most retailers have had actually a decent year of it.

But that doesn't mean all retailers

are going to have a decent year of it.

And that, you know, it falls to us to make sure

that they're getting good value for money from auto-trader.

That's kind of the, that's the gig.

I'll come on to those, those customer groups

because I want to talk to you at length about this,

but I'm just, you know, just on this point,

you've clearly had a lot of backlash

off the back of Deal Builder,

which I've got some questions about too.

There's been a lot of discontent out there

in the industry.

Are you worried more dealers are going to leave

now you're putting the prices up again?

I mean, it comes at the wrong time,

do you not think?

Look, I think that we continue to invest in the product.

We continue to invest in auto-trader.

Like I said, I think that is when we think about this,

it's about partnership and what works for auto-trader.

We do have to think about what works for auto-trader.

All of us are in business,

but also think about what works for our customers too.

And the year does sound like it's got off

to a decent start.

So I think like as you, as we look back to last time,

we spoke actually, which was around November.

We had a lot of social media groups.

I've been doing the listening groups now,

which sounds like we'll come on to later.

And to be honest, there has been, in my mind,

a little bit of a disconnect between what we were hearing,

like what people were seeing on the social groups

and what customers are actually talking about.

Much more, I mean, pretty much every group that we had,

when Deal Builder was mentioned,

someone would say, well, you know,

what about this Deal Builder thing?

Are you going to roll it out to everyone?

And for any person that asked that question,

there was normally more people that said,

oh, no, I'm on Deal Builder.

I actually really like it, and I wouldn't want it to go anywhere.

But I think the way that you communicated

confused a lot of people.

And then you had that kind of the social media stuff

on top, which had a lot of stuff that actually wasn't true.

So a lot of the job for us

was actually about making sure people really understood,

you know, had the facts actually.

And you know, if based on those facts,

there were still things that weren't working for them.

That's why we've made the changes

that we've made to product pages.

You can now consume or a retailer can choose

to have someone to request a reservation.

We've made a whole bunch of changes based on that feedback.

So it's not like I'm saying, you know,

it was all not true and misinformation,

where we're not like that.

I think there was a good deal of that,

but there was some stuff in there as well

that we were like, do you know what, fair enough,

we'll get on and make those changes as quickly as we can.

Nathan, I've spoken to a lot of people who are in those groups,

you know, and I've spoken to a lot of people

who are there and chatting to you.

I mean, I understand from the IMDA

that they gave you a folder of feedback

of customers who weren't particularly happy

with a number of the changes that you've made.

I mean, what changes have you made

off the back of the feedback

that you've had from those groups?

Because from what I heard, one of those panels,

there wasn't a positive word to be said about DealBuilder.

No, I actually don't think that's true at all.

I would challenge that.

You can speak to people that were in the group.

I think there was definitely some people that said,

reservations doesn't work for my sales process,

but we've made the optional reservation change,

I think by and large, I mean, those people were in the group

so they can get in touch with me, send me an email

if they think I'm misrepresenting them.

But I would say DealBuilder was not a big focus

of any of the conversations.

I'd say, you know, the sorts of things

which weren't surprised you at all

because you've mentioned it before,

is things like price flags,

the ability to contact customers,

having more parity in the contact options for customers,

some questions around the login to inquire,

a bit of DealBuilder, but not a great deal.

Particularly because for a lot of,

we pretty quickly reacted and said,

well, we're gonna make this change.

So for a lot of people, those, you know,

the things about charging commissions for DealBuilder,

we were never going to do that.

Auto trader getting involved in stacking a deal for a dealer,

that's not what it was all about.

Us moving away from leads to deals,

no, DealBuilder is deals on top of leads.

A lot of those things just weren't actually true,

to be honest.

So I think, you know, sometimes you have to clarify that.

But no, I wouldn't say for the advisory groups,

I wouldn't say DealBuilder was probably one thing,

but there was probably, you know,

four, five, six other areas that we spent way more time

talking about.

One of those I know is the signing in.

You know, you're now asking your consumers using the site

to sign in before they contact dealers.

You know, I did a poll in some of the WhatsApp groups

that we've got, just asking readers,

what was the impacts of that?

You're asking those dealers out there in those groups,

what was the impact of those changes?

Most of them said their leads have fallen

from AutoTrader by half since those changes have made.

Now, that's the majority of those people who responded

said their leads have dropped by half.

Do you think it's the right thing to do,

asking consumers to sign in on the website?

And why do you think it's so important?

Let me start with why first.

Without a signed-in user,

a car buyer is not known really,

unless they inquire, not known to a retailer.

There is no permanent connection

between the car and the person.

And there is no way for us to be able to, you know,

put a profile around it, for example,

buying signals to say, you know,

this person's local to you and they look really interested.

And if we ever want to reconnect that buyer

with a retailer's car, which we obviously want to do,

because we want to drive more leads,

more inquiries, more sales for retailers,

then the only way to do that is log in.

So I think that is why every platform

that you use on the internet that has been,

you know, launched, we launched AutoTrader in 1996.

People have got very, very used to it.

The truth is, almost every consumer app of any size

you log into, and that's the reason why Instagram,

Facebook, car dealer, sub-stack reviews,

all these things you do sign into

because it creates some permanent connection.

So it's kind of just the way the internet generally works.

And for us, the specific reason is a bit more around

creating that permanent connection

between the buyer and seller.

However, if it leads across AutoTrader dropping 50%,

which I can tell you unequivocally they didn't,

some customers might have seen leads drop by 50%.

They tend to do that between September, October

versus December, then they should get in touch.

But when we looked at the metrics on the site,

what you actually saw, if you want to know

what the math says, is you saw a swing to calls.

So some customers that didn't want to log in

to inquire just jumped on and called.

We've changed product page now and even that up

and we are looking at the,

we're also looking at that registration process,

digging into it from a data perspective,

but also testing some different approaches.

So we're not deaf here, we'll take that on board,

but when it comes to the actual leads

on average cross-platform, you did see a swing,

but you didn't see leads really,

they're pretty flat to be honest,

on the same time previous year.

But when you're a car retailer

and you will have learned this,

this isn't your first year, is it?

But you tend to make money through to October, hopefully.

And then you try and hang on for dear life

during November and December,

because it's not about leads on auto trailer,

it's just the market quietens down and awful.

And then like you said when we were chatting earlier,

you hope that January comes out with a bang.

Yeah, it certainly hasn't felt that way for us,

unfortunately, in terms of January kicking off,

but I'm sure I will do soon.

Just, I'd like to just ask your opinion,

as the CEO of AutoTrader, you've made some big calls,

putting these things in place.

They are some, deal builder is a big drastic change

to the way deals are done with consumers.

The signing in is a big change.

It has, dealers are telling us

that there has been a drop off in leads.

They're also saying that they are looking elsewhere

for advertising.

There are other options out there.

Again, in those polls, I asked those dealers,

95% of those people who responded,

I've got more than 100 people in these groups,

95% of the people who responded said they'd looked elsewhere

as a result of the actions that AutoTrader has taken.

Does that worry you?

Look, I mean competition, you know, as a car dealer, right?

Competition is part of life in business

and that's no different for AutoTrader

than it is everyone else.

Does it worry me?

Look, I think we want all, you know,

we're running at the highest level of retailers,

there are thereabouts and we've ever had on the platform

and yeah, we've made some big calls.

We make a big call to stop charging retailers during COVID.

We've made a big call around deal builders.

So that is my job is to make calls along with the team

that we think improve AutoTrader for its customers.

So I do think that, you know,

these are the right things to do.

You've just got to make sure

that you get that balance right and recognise

that when it comes to retailers,

there are, you know, there are 14,000 retailers

that are on AutoTrader's platform

and they all have different experiences.

But of course they're welcome to, you know,

we would never suggest

that someone shouldn't use alternatives.

Our business isn't that fragile though.

People wouldn't use AutoTrader on mass

if there were loads and loads of, you know,

great alternatives out there that could drive the scale.

And I think it is just the numbers we generate.

I think the number of the amount of time spent on AutoTrader

is probably six times more than all our competitors put together.

So we've just got to keep our head down,

make sure we're delivering really good value for dealers,

make sure we remain the biggest platform

and make sure that we're providing advice

so that actually what you get with AutoTrader

isn't just some leads, but it's data, it's pricing,

it's what to buy, it's how to buy

because they're the things that make a difference to a business.

But, you know, it is ours to earn.

And, you know, do I want all those customers

to be using AutoTrader as their main sales channel?

Yeah, absolutely, and that's our job to prove that

and make sure we can do that.

Nathan, your share price has fallen dramatically

in the last six months though, hasn't it?

It's down 31%, accelerated two

since those changes were made in November.

Does that worry you at all?

Is it connected to this discontent

that customers are feeling?

Not at all, not at all actually.

It has really got, if you look at all marketplace businesses

like ours that are listed, realestate.com in Australia,

car sales, Baltic Classified's Group, Riot Move,

all these marketplaces all around the world,

like software businesses as well,

have seen their share prices come down.

That's all about investors' concerns about AI.

That, you know, on one hand AI is a really good thing,

but on the other hand, you know,

maybe it changes some of these businesses.

And until investors can work that out,

you know, those prices have re-rated.

But it wasn't really since,

it was kind of since the day after our results

when Riot Move actually put out an announcement

saying they need to spend more money on their technology.

I wouldn't say that started it all globally,

but it was around that time that that happened.

So not really, I mean, it's mostly all driven

around bigger AI concerns.

So on the AI front, you know,

I'm fascinated with because I think it's gonna

drastically change the way consumers search for a car.

They're using it as a mate, aren't they?

They're chatting to chat GPT or Google's Gemini

and asking it for advice on buying a car.

How does this impact your business?

Does it cut you out at all?

No, I don't think so.

I mean, it's certainly not at the moment,

but and who knows what the future holds.

What, we all use AI, well, maybe not all of us,

but lots of us use AI all the time.

What you find is really good at doing

is summarizing content that's been on the internet forever

and it does a better job of that than, you know,

those constant Google searches

and trying to stitch that truth together.

When it comes to looking for a car

and narrowing down like the real top of funnel decision,

we find that people do that all over the place.

We've never really been big on, you know,

content, study content.

We've got reviews on dealers,

if we've got reviews on cars,

but it's never been a really big part of what we do.

And the reason why, I mean, you know,

this is the reason why we have a partnership

with what car, they are a real top of funnel site.

We were really happy to just plug into the back of that

and provide the actual new used cars

and new cars that are available on the back of that.

So where I would say we're pretty agnostic actually

to how people narrow things down,

but when it comes to right,

well, I'd like to see what's available.

That's the job auto trader does.

And I think I suspect in a world of AI

it will work in more or less the same way,

but it'll be a bit like when Google came along

and a bit like when the Apple App Store came along.

So I imagine there'll be some level of integration

between us and those AI platforms.

You've seen some of that in the US.

So I think it'll help people make a good decision,

what suits them based on all the things

that the AI model knows about them

and then plug them into real cars.

And those models will be exactly the same as Google.

They'll try and provide the very best answer to users.

And, you know, that's one of our jobs,

whether it's SEO brand, all those things.

Our job is to make sure that we are the best answer for that.

And I think that will remain true for the time to come.

But listen, AI is moving really, really, really quickly.

It's something that's happening completely outside all of us.

You know, you're a publisher of content as well.

You'll be thinking about these things as well.

It's you've just got to kind of play each day

as it comes with a, you know, a bit of an eye

on how the different scenarios might play out in future

and kind of get your positioning as best you can

based on everything, you know,

and we're no different to everyone else like that.

Nathan, I understand there's some offers coming out for customers.

Can you talk me through those?

And are they going to be available to us all?

Yeah, I mean, I won't go through the detail of the offers

that you'll get all that on Monday.

But we've got three there around stock, around levelling up

and one other one as well.

The reason for doing them is actually quite simple.

It's kind of not to do with...

I mean, it does give value alongside

auto traders' package prices changing.

There is explicit value in that.

You would otherwise have to pay for.

So I guess it's part of the answer to your first question.

But that's not really why we've done that.

We recognize that retailers, you know,

at the moment they are facing challenges.

They would, you know, many of them would like to try products,

but they don't necessarily want to pay, you know,

upfront in inverted commas for those.

So we've given them a chance to be able to try those things out,

give them a good kick at the start of the year, you know,

in terms of lifting up their business,

being able to choose what works for their business

and the time that works for their business as well.

So it's quite a degree of optionality

that we're built into these,

which is kind of that, you know, the partnership

that we're trying to create,

recognizing that it's your goals, not our goals,

and trying to give people the tools to be able to do them,

whilst providing some control around it as well.

So I think that, you know, they are very, very good offers.

And like I said, you can choose when it works for you

and you can choose what works for you.

So it's something that we haven't really done it like this before,

but from what we're hearing so far,

it's gone down pretty well.

Is it available to all customers?

It's available to all customers on a standard package and above.

So there is a starter package,

which is kind of a really basic stripped back version

of AutoTrader, less leads, a bit less functionality as well.

So the starter package doesn't have the offers.

We have kept that for all our customers on stand and above,

just kind of a fairness thing, to be honest.

We did have some customers that went down to start

because of the cost pressures during last year.

That's why the package is there, but it is stripped back.

It's a bit like any mobile phone plan

or anything that you buy, an iPhone,

you know, you pay more to get more.

It would kind of be a bit crazy if we did our packages

where you got exactly the same

and some other people paying more for it.

So we offer that package

when people want to make that decision,

but it is stripped back and less valuable

than the other packages.

Otherwise, the flip side would not be true.

Why would someone take standard?

So we try and give, you buy more, you get more.

And there is that different in the starter package.

Those customers though, for many customers

when they did talk about leads,

so I speak to loads of customers,

lots of them are very happy to email me.

And I will say that when I looked into

outside of the systems, you know,

if they said my leads are halved or,

and sometimes there were places where, you know,

texts and chats are actually down.

And for some customers that are reliant

on those leads have come down.

But for a lot of them, it was they had less stock on

and they had lower packages.

And that will tend, that will just reduce your leads.

Otherwise, auto trade is not providing good value

on the other way because if you were spending more,

you'd expect to get more leads

and have more cars on auto traders.

So it is one to watch customers.

So I mean, I heard from one dealer, excuse me,

who did downgrade as a result of the deal-builder action

to a starter package.

And they were obviously told by their representative

that they weren't going to be eligible for these offers.

And they felt they were being punished

for downgrading their package.

What would you say to them?

I don't think it's punished.

I think it's just a really,

like I do think it's just a pretty standard thing

in business, you've got, you know,

we have created a stripped-back package

that has less response, it costs less money,

but it comes with less stuff.

And that's just kind of pretty standard packaging practice,

you know, across food, across mobile telephones,

across internet plans, all those things.

And that's the way it works for us.

So no, I don't think we're punishing someone

for being on starter at all,

but it is a package that is stripped-back,

costs less money, but we strip it back

so it can cost less money and meet those people's needs.

But yeah, the offers aren't applicable there.

It's definitely not punishment though,

that's not the way we do things.

Nathan, I obviously wanted to give you

the opportunity to put the record straight as well.

When that action took place,

there was lots of claims about how many people have downgraded,

how many dealers have quit auto-traded completely.

What's the truth?

What do you actually see?

What were the numbers looking like

in terms of dealers leaving and dealers downgrading?

Yeah, so I think I said at the time,

it's a bit of a hard one, if I'm honest.

James, because we are publicly listed,

so you've got to bear that in mind.

It's not like I'm trying to bounce the question.

At the time, it was just under 100 customers

had downgraded and just under 100 customers

had taken part in the action.

Then you go into December,

and we typically do see customer numbers

drop off a little bit as people take a break,

take holidays, it's a really slow time of year,

just save costs, and no doubt some of those customers

that came off during that time were linked

to some of the, say, deal-builder,

but the kind of, I guess, campaign

that some people are running or the deal-builder stuff.

And then as we come into January,

you start to see customer numbers come back.

So it's a bit kind of juries out at the moment.

Well, juries out at the moment,

those customers haven't all come back.

We'd really like them to come back,

but you've kind of got to give time

for January to kick off customers

to start to have a bit more money in their bank accounts

before we start judging those things.

Nathan, we talked about those consumer groups.

Just like to circle back.

Customer groups, customer groups.

Sorry, yeah, customer groups.

I'd just like to ask you what you took from those.

What have you actively changed

as a result of the conversations

that took place in those groups?

Because I don't want those dealers

thinking you're paying lip service

just listening to them.

They want to see action, don't they?

So what action have you done?

Yeah, I mean, to be fair,

the ones that are in the advisory groups

know what we've done

because that we've talked about.

I mean, this is your opportunity

to tell the rest of the motor traits.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, sorry, I wasn't going to not say.

I wasn't going to not say.

So in terms of the actions,

we've changed Deal Builder

and allowed the optional reservation.

That's something that we've tested with customers as well.

We've changed the product page.

We're in the process of rolling that out to apps now.

And that was based on the feedback

that it feels like you've prioritized

Deal Builder over other leads.

We obviously started the advisory groups ourselves.

We're thinking about some areas

because we've had conflicting views

in the kind of advisory groups.

They're listening sessions that we've done first

and then we're kicking off the advisory groups.

We're also looking at different contact options,

lots of independent retailers.

So I would say there was more about price flags

and can you do WhatsApp

than there was about Deal Builder

in most of those advisory groups.

I think people kind of agree.

So there's a few areas where we're still investigating.

You can't just do these things quickly,

but we've kind of combined actions

that we've taken straight away.

We're also looking at the reservation fees,

£99 work for everyone.

Does it need to be a higher level?

We're kind of getting less comments around that

in the listening sessions

because they've said, well, I can just do an optional.

I can just get a consumer to request a reservation

if that's the way that they want to go.

And there's sign-in stuff we're looking at

as well as I mentioned earlier.

So that's a few of the things that we've done.

We're also some of the other points

that were raised in those groups.

Some of them had a mixed experience

around the contact with auto trade.

They said, I want to speak to auto trader more.

I'd like more regular reviews.

I don't always hear from my customer rep.

It's a bit of a mystery to me, to be honest.

It was probably the most confusing thing that I heard,

but I've definitely heard it.

The reason why I say it's confusing is

because the people in our partnerships team

have about a one in 10 hit rate

when it comes to calling our customers.

So we want to speak more.

They want us to speak more.

Something's being dropped in the middle.

So we're looking at our systems around that,

looking at our CRM system, putting a new one in.

There's quite a few bits and pieces,

but a lot of it, a lot of what we'll do

with the advisory groups will be exposing products

that we're thinking of doing moving forward.

So I'd say our roadmap has actually changed

for the next year quite a bit,

quite a bit on the basis of those groups,

what we're going to do with portal,

making it easier to use the way that we present leads

and deals, the language that we use in portals change.

You'll see that we're not calling them deals anymore.

They'll be called online inquiries,

understand that some retailers said

that deals just feels presumptuous

and that's actually not what you're driving.

I mean, there's literally loads of changes

that we've made and will continue to make

in the next year.

And I just like touch on buying signals.

It's a new product that you have put in place

alongside deal builder.

So I've had mixed feedback on this.

Dealer says to me, I don't know what benefit it's given me.

I mean, your opportunity to write a reply on that front.

I mean, what does it give dealers?

I mean, functionally what it gives retailers

is it tells you based on the huge amount of activity

that happens on auto trader,

you can never know what a consumer has done

when they walk into your store,

when they come through on an inquiry particularly,

which is where buyer signals work.

There's no way you know what journey that they've been on.

What buying signals does is bundle that down

into a, well, it's a number in the background,

which becomes a flag to say actually,

based on what auto trader has seen

of this consumer's behavior,

they look like they're really keen.

So make sure that you give this one priority

when it comes in, good for the car buyer,

good for the retailer as well.

You can also find subject to the consumer's position,

whether the consumer's consent, sorry,

you can also find out potentially what other vehicles

they might be interested in

if you don't have one that's for them

and whether they're a local buyer.

So to be honest, I haven't had low,

I'm not sure I've had a great deal of,

I'm not sure I've had any negative feedback,

but I guess that's not what you're saying,

what use is it for me?

It depends, for some retailers,

I think actually maybe buying signals isn't going to,

you know, if you've got five cars on your four court,

you get to every lead,

whether it's high intent or no intent,

you're gonna get back to them.

But for a lot of retailers,

and we've been mystery shopping retailers

for 10 to 15 years,

for them not being kind of sneaky in the background,

and typically the number,

and it hasn't changed in that 10 to 15 years,

it's half of leads go unanswered.

So for retailers that are in that situation,

you'll make sure you get to the half

that are gonna convert into sales.

So, and for retailers, if buying signals

is not something they value,

you've got deal builder there as well.

And most customers are on deal builders

certainly in those sessions,

but I don't just rely on those sessions,

I speak to lots and lots of retailers.

You know, deals come through,

they're a relatively small number

compared to the inquirers that you get

and the sales you get from walk-ins

are even bigger again than both of those.

But the deals that they do get,

they find them good because a bit like buying signals,

if the highest intent is someone's reserve decay,

you know you can probably convert that one

to a sale at a very high rate.

What buying signals is trying to do

is give you the same kind of high quality,

high converting lead opportunity

without a customer having necessarily done deal builder.

So I think it's a really good product.

But like all our products,

you know some will value others more than others.

And I'm not going to pretend for five seconds

that we're going to be able to build a product

that all 14,000 of our retailers say,

you know, this absolutely works for me.

It's a real mix and does depend

on their business models as well.

Nathan, we've talked a lot about the market

and how you've seen the start of 2026

and what you've actually seen in the data.

I mean, you've mentioned you've chatted

to a lot of dealers out there.

I mean, what's the sentiment out there at the moment?

Well, until I spoke to you, good.

Sorry.

No, so the numbers, it is important.

Audience looks good, interest is strong.

When we look at the sales on Auto Trader,

which is something that our retailers share with us,

not every single retailer, lots of retailers.

That was up on last year.

Pricing's been stable since,

or pretty much through all of last year.

I wouldn't say it's growing.

So we're certainly, we're getting back to normal.

I think that's a lot of the pressure.

And I would say from the advisory groups

and my reflection on what happened in November,

these retailers have had, you know,

we are returning back to normal now.

It's, you know, the high days of COVID are over

and we're getting back to more normal environments.

But pricing's stable.

It's not declining like we've seen before.

That sets you up pretty well for margin.

All the demand transactions look good,

demand data looks good.

And if we look at transactions

and our forecast for transactions for the year,

it'll be the first year that we think used car transactions

will get pretty close to pre-COVID.

So there will be more stock out there.

Maybe we'll come on to this later.

The shape of that stock's gonna be quite different

to last year and it'll be really important

to get that right in terms of running your business.

But more stock, good solid audience,

macro stuff in the UK kind of feels good.

Pricing's stable and customers are,

you know, most customers I've spoken to.

Not all, to be fair, I got an email yesterday

from one customer who's had an absolutely terrible time of it.

But most customers that I speak to,

particularly the big ones,

are saying both new and new sales rates

are off to a really good start.

And then what about the big challenges then

for dealers this year?

I mean, is there anything that you've identified

that they should be worried about?

Yeah, I kind of flagged one there

and apologies for the ding there, John.

I thought we had it right,

but it's ignoring, do not disturb.

So I think the stock, the shape of stock

is the biggest thing.

So if you look at last year,

we had new car sales,

we started to see a bit more push in the new car market.

For some retailers,

if you're dealing at the younger end of the market,

that's probably going to ramp up a bit this year.

There's some, you know,

we've seen a lot of growth in Chinese volume.

They're competing quite aggressively.

That will kind of ripple across the market.

And those, you know,

if you see pressure in the new car market,

that does tend to hit the one year old cars

and the one year old cars hit the two year old cars.

It kind of peters out after then.

So you've got to watch that young end of the market.

There's still good opportunity,

but you want to be turning those cars pretty quick

and buying them, kind of buying them well.

Last year, under five year old cars

was down on the year before.

So any, you know, lots of franchise retailers,

the ones that did well

actually pushed out into some of the older vehicles.

Well, this year there'll be a lot more vehicles

in the under five year category,

but where people did well last year,

which was the five to 10 year old category,

that is going to be down

because you're starting to see that ripple through for COVID.

And then over 10 years, you know, there's plenty of supply.

So you need to think about that

because what happens with supply

is when supply is up,

it will put pressure on trade prices

and potentially retail prices.

When it's down, you'll tend to get a bit more margin.

So all those cars are good for trading,

but in terms of getting volume, getting margin,

you need to make sure you're playing in the right spot.

So work for your business, but also work there.

So I think that's probably the number one thing.

When I look at who did really, really well last year,

and you know, there are big retailers, I know,

very, very good operators

that were up kind of double digits

in terms of used car volumes.

If you want to do that again,

that stocking strategy becomes quite important,

especially if you're talking, you know,

hundreds and hundreds of cars,

which maybe this time next year,

you'll be at James.

The, don't know about that.

The other thing is like margin is obviously

getting your pricing right.

You should be selling cars 30 to 40 days

once they've gone on auto trader.

You want to be pricing them well from the start.

Auto trader can obviously help you do all those things.

One thing we can't help you with,

but I think it's really important to margin

and goes missed

and actually has been declining over time,

probably been the bigger pressure

on dealer margins than anything else,

is part exchanges.

If you can get a part exchange,

your margin is so much better on that vehicle.

And if you want to really maximize margin,

that is the single best way to do it,

much harder than it used to be

because there's lots of car buying services

we've seen and talked to retailers

and they're telling me their part exchange rates

have gone from, you know,

what used to be 40 to 45%

as standard on used vehicles down towards 30

and some of them even a shade below that.

So if I was running a dealership

and I'm not pretending I know what I'm talking about,

I just talked to lots of people that do,

then that's one of those things.

I would be really paying attention to.

And then there's operating costs, obviously,

which is, we've talked about labor costs being up.

There's another increase,

but it's a bit more normalized this year.

So hopefully that beds its way through.

Typically you find costs that affect all dealers together.

We'll find their way into the margin

because no one can operate a business at a loss.

And a lot of the stuff that we're doing

is about improving that margin

and helping to improve operating costs.

Deal builders in early stages,

buying signals in early stages,

but both co-drivers has kind of been rolled out a year ago.

All of those tools are about,

well, how can we use auto traders stuff

to help retailers with their operating costs?

It goes back to that value point by the start.

So I would say, get your stock strategy right,

recognize that this year is actually gonna be quite different

to last year, part exchange and pricing

and turning your cars 30, 40 days

when it comes to margin

and use whatever you can to get those operating costs

as efficiently as you possibly can.

And the big operating cost is labor

for most businesses, not smaller retailers necessarily.

Nathan, just finally,

we've given some dealers some bad news here, haven't we?

We've given them that you've told them that 5.5%

if bills are gonna go up.

There's some other things

that they will listen to this podcast

and they won't be particularly pleased about.

This is your opportunity to speak directly to them

and just tell them why to continue using auto trader.

Look, I think auto trader is the biggest pool of car buyers

in the UK, there is no question about it.

Just coming on auto trader doesn't mean

you'll automatically be successful,

you're joining 14,000 other retailers

and it's your job to kind of compete for those retailers.

I think the message to us is that,

sure, our costs have increased

because we continue to invest

and we continue to provide tools and retailers,

continue to get a good return on investment.

That's what we live or die by.

It's mathematical, you can kind of see that in the numbers.

The reason they should use auto trader ultimately

is to put all our competitors together,

18, 10 people actually use auto trader

and six out of 10 only use auto trader.

So that is kind of the,

I guess the functional answer to your question,

but what I would really say is with auto trader,

we invest 170 million pounds a year

in making auto trader better.

No one else does that for retailers.

It means that we can have the best tools

which can help you or help retailers

with the most important number in their business

and that is the gross profit line

because that's the number that will swing you

into good profits versus bad profits

and that's really what we're trying to help retailers do.

So we're trying to bring more value, not more cost,

but I think actually the other thing I would say is

we've gone with a much lower level price

kind of package adjustment

because we've taken into account

all those sorts of things.

But it is really about us,

retailers feel like they're not getting value

with auto trader.

First thing I would say is make sure you understand

your return on investment,

share your sales data with us.

We can play that back to you so you get a really good idea.

We don't use it really for anything else.

And after that,

have the conversation with your account manager

about I want to get more value out of auto trader.

How do I do that?

And that is not always about buying more packages.

Sometimes that is the answer.

If you're competing with people in your local area

that have taken bigger packages than you,

then it might affect your business.

But sometimes it's just description, pricing, stocking,

all those sorts of things.

Nathan, thank you as always for coming on

and taking our questions and our readers questions,

your customers questions.

I do appreciate it.

And hopefully you'll stick around

while we do some stories.

But John, we've probably taken up a lot of Nathan's time.

So we should probably just wedge some stories in

and let him off the hook.

What do you think?

Absolutely.

And you've got 44 cars to sell

and there's only so many you can do at one time.

So you've got a hot footy back there.

We'll be right back.

Running a dealership means making

hundreds of decisions every day.

But James, when do you get the time

to step back and think?

Well, John, I don't.

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and how the best dealers are growing faster

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Hmm, maybe you'll actually learn something, James.

Bit rude, John, but you're probably right.

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John, have you ever wondered why I,

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Well actually, I didn't think so.

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Plus, as someone who set out to use AI and data

as much as possible in my business,

I've found their technology, data and tools

genuinely invaluable.

But when I do get stuck...

Which is, let's face it, most of the time.

AutoTrader is always on hand

and committed to supporting us

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To find out how they can help you,

visit trade.autotrader.co.uk.

Now, back to the podcast.

So, James and I go on through our favorite stories

and at the end, Nathan gets to decide

which one of us chose the best ones

and who's the winner.

Batch last one, one last week in your absence, James.

So, if you go, you can go first.

Oh, really? Is that how we're doing it?

Okay, thank you.

And we always do it, James.

Yeah, okay.

Yeah, because I've kept a note of the scores

and you are one nil up, John's day.

But thank you for that

because I've had an interesting week

covering the motor trade

back after my holiday,

straight in with the breaking news

that Supercar dealer Targa Florio Cars,

based in Chichester, had suddenly disappeared.

So we got wind of this on Sunday

and I started investigating it then.

And knowing they're just down the road from us

in Chichester, you and I, John,

hot-fisted it down there, didn't we?

We did our proper Dominic Littlewoods impression.

No, we didn't.

But we popped down there, didn't we?

And poked our head around the bushes

of Targa Florio Cars

and actually found this Supercar dealer

had, in fact, disappeared.

I knocked on the gate.

They're a valentine business

that was based next door, opened the gate

and actually took me over to the dealership

where I knocked on the door, which was open,

so I could poke my head in

and see what it was like.

And I mean, the computers were still on the desk,

pictures are still on the walls,

no cars anywhere to be seen.

You know, it's not unusual for a dealership to disappear

but it's the circumstances in which this one

that has disappeared that is unusual and very worrying.

There are a number of customers online

saying that they're owed money.

They are alleged to have had a sale or return strategy,

which is where the dealer obviously takes the car in

from a customer, sells it on their behalf,

takes a margin, and then obviously the trust element

of that is handing the money back to the customer

that had the car in the first place.

But it seems that this dealership hasn't done that.

So they've kept hold of customers' money

and the cars have disappeared.

There are other customers say that they're paid

for deposits on cars and they haven't been returned.

There's outstanding warranty claims

and others say they had finance agreements

on cars that they part exchanged

to the business that weren't settled.

So a very worrying situation this,

the website has disappeared, the phone number doesn't work.

It says they're permanently closed on Google

and I had the sole director, William Kirkham's mobile number

handed to me and that mobile number no longer works either.

So he's disappeared, the cars have disappeared

and the car dealership has closed.

We've contacted William Kirkham many times,

asking him for comment.

There's a video on our YouTube channel

all about the collapse of this dealership.

But it's rumbled on a little bit.

I spoke to Sussex Police.

They've confirmed to me that they are investigating

this dealership.

They said they're aware of a number of reports

involving payment issues over vehicle sales

relating to a company in Chichester

and their inquiries are ongoing at this stage.

And I also spoke to trading standards this week

whose local trading standards to this business

who say they're paying very close attention to this case.

So I think it's a very worrying one this.

Target Flurry cars have not a fly-by-night operation.

They've been going since 2009.

In fact, they've won a number of our used car awards

over the years, very successful business at the time.

Fantastic feedback on AutoTrader and on Google

in terms of their reviews.

But it just shows you how fragile

these supercar businesses can be.

I mean, I spoke to a number of dealers, John,

off the back of this and they said,

that sale or return policy of a way of running your business

is so risky, especially when you're selling Ferraris.

You know, you imagine if you've sold a Ferrari,

the engine goes, you've handed the money to the customer,

the previous owner, the engine goes pop,

all you've taken is a margin,

that customer comes back under sale of goods act

and says, I want my money back.

Well, you have to find the money and hand it back to you.

And it's not you, all you've been

is the middleman in that situation.

So you only need a couple of those to stack up

for this to be devastating.

And it clearly has been for Target Flurry cars.

We don't know what exactly's happened.

As I say, we've contacted director William Kirkland

several times, asking him for comment.

He has not responded.

Social media pages have gone dark.

Their LinkedIn pages have been disabled.

So we can't contact him.

We've got no way of doing it.

If he's out there and wants to comment,

he can contact us.

But at the moment, it does not look good, does it?

No, and it's sad news for them,

sad news for the employees,

sad news for their customers who are alleged to have been,

many of whom are alleged to have been left

in the lurch with money owed to them.

I mean, as you say, we can only speculate.

We've looked through companies house records.

I mean, there are some company house records

outstanding at the minute.

I think it's confirmation statements overdue, isn't it?

But based on the last few years of results,

you can see there's not a lot of money in the pot

for, as you say, supercars and things going wrong.

And if the majority of them were sold in that way on SOR,

you can see how it would go wrong very quickly.

I think it's just this along with GVE

and I think there have been some others as well

that we haven't necessarily reported on.

Well, in fact, there was, there was a,

well, I suppose there was a criminal,

there was something involving criminality

with a Porsche dealer in North Yorkshire.

Lots of supercar dealers have been disappearing

in the last few months and years.

And you just wonder how much of it is to do with SOR

because it's so tempting, isn't it?

If you're, I think with GVE, for example,

you can see there was an element of,

dare I say it, perhaps showing off a little bit.

There's a heavily social media enriched dealership

and the more fancy supercars you have in that dealership,

the more successful you look, but none of them belong to you.

And as you say, when it goes wrong, it really goes wrong.

And I just don't think it works for cars.

Cars are that awkward thing and we have,

sometimes you kind of take with a pinch of salt

dealers complaining about the sale of goods act

and how it shouldn't really apply

in quite the same way to cars.

This general six year,

depending on how you want to argue it in court,

amount of time that consumers can go back to you

with complaints, it doesn't,

it's very different from buying a kettle

or to take the sale SOR type thing,

where this works probably is in, let's say,

antiques or something like that.

No one returns a bureau to an antiques dealer

that was SOR because somebody's fallen off it.

You accept this 300 years old.

And maybe at the very, very high end

of your Tom Hartley junior type stuff,

the stuff that is literally relics,

you probably don't have people returning cars

in quite the same way.

But with things like your modern Porsches

and Ferraris and Lamborghinis,

you are going to get people coming back

with warranty claims and there's no money in the pot.

So...

We felt like proper reporters doing this story, John,

didn't we?

When we turned off the proper journalist...

It's a nice change, doesn't it?

But we turned up at the Targa Florio Cars.

We spotted another cameraman who was outside,

who was filming away with his DSLR camera.

And I said, John, that must be...

It looks like the BBC are here

because we knew the BBC had got wind of this story as well.

And John went, no, there's no way that will be the BBC.

This camera's terrible.

It's probably some YouTuber, he said,

in some derisory manner.

And I went up to him and said, oh, where are you from?

He went, oh, yeah, BBC mate.

Yeah.

Brilliant.

But it was good, wasn't it?

Trying to scoop the BBC, which we did.

It was. They were very displeased,

the both of them, I think.

They were very displeasing with the cameraman and reporter.

But there we are, as we would be if somebody had turned up,

if AM had turned up to scoop it from us.

Unlikely.

But anyway, Nathan, did you see this story?

I mean, I know it's hard to comment on it,

but it's really...

I mean, what are your thoughts on the sale or return kind of?

If you were a dealer, would you do sale or return?

Listen, I think it's a model.

I kind of agree with everything you said.

I mean, first of all, it's not great

because these things can ripple through the industry.

It'll make anyone, you know,

buying a supercar have that little bit of nervousness.

And it's not good for the staff.

It's not good for the customers that have lost money.

I think the sale or return model,

it's been around for a while, hasn't it?

But I think because it's a bit easier,

you don't have to put the same level of working capital into it.

So on the surface, it kind of looks all right.

You don't have to worry about stocking loans, depreciating cars,

all the things, you know...

All the things that retailers have to deal with every single day.

But like you said, with the...

with the rights that consumers have around buying cars,

it's a really, really highly leveraged model, isn't it?

And buying and selling supercars,

these things aren't turning quick.

You can't have them all the time.

And you can't have loads.

You're just not going to get loads of them

because there aren't that many of them around.

So, no, if I was a retailer, I'd do it like that.

I'd just accept that if you want to play the game,

you play it like a good retailer.

Try and run with as little debt as you possibly can.

Try and keep your cost low.

But you've got to buy the cars and be a retailer

if you want to make those margins.

And if you want to have some degree of comfort

that you're selling because you can...

You can't ever promise that a car's not going to go wrong.

But if your prep standards are good

and you value your reputation and you've got good reviews,

odds are nine out of ten times,

maybe nine and a half out of ten times,

you'll be all right.

So, no, I think it's...

Retail is a hard business, isn't it?

Even if you do it in the more traditional way.

But I think the retailers that have been around for years

are doing a very, very good job of it.

I don't think there's one that I can think of

that runs on like a sale or return model

for the majority of their stock.

They might do it on some,

but I don't know the super car market as well,

because it's obviously been up to Tom Hartley

and around to Rome's and some of our other customers,

but they run pretty niche models.

Yeah, I wouldn't be able to sleep at night

with the sale or return business.

It would worry me so much.

I'd just be constantly fearful.

But yeah, an interesting story that John...

Yeah, very sad,

but an interesting one that's dominated our week.

Over to you.

Indeed.

I'm going to combine two Chinese car-related ones,

one of which is that the family-run dealer group T.C. Harrison,

of course, very famously Ford-only pretty much until this point.

I think they might have a KGM franchise as well,

but they've become the latest dealers to sign up with

Omoda and J.Q.,

which they're going to slot in alongside Ford

at their flagship Peterborough sites.

And I just thought this was,

firstly, this story was very telling

about where the market was going.

You know, a dealer that has stood by Ford

for a very, very long time

hasn't really ventured into other things.

I could be wrong, but I don't think they have.

Has an enormous...

Well, we went to...

We didn't go to Peterborough, did we, James?

We went to a different T.C. Harrison site.

But enormous sites.

I think with Derby we went to...

The fact that they're now looking to diversify

is an indication, again,

that things are not all well in

legacy manufacturer land.

And then the other one is a sort of

a more local bit of news to me,

or formally local to me,

which is that BYD have had

their first UK retailer awards,

and their retailer of the year

went to chariot specialist cars in Kettering,

which I used to drive past every day

to go to Tesco to buy my fresh baguette

of a morning.

Good detail. I like the detail, folks.

Yeah, yeah, why not?

The reason I mention that is because

in the five or six years that I lived there,

driving past that once a week,

that was, it was a very nice site,

but it was a used car dealer.

They did not have any franchise at all.

This is not one that slotted it in alongside

a Ford or a whatever.

And they've, you know,

risen within the space of, I don't know

how long they've had it a year, 18 months

to be their number one dealer

as far as BYD are concerned.

And I just, it's interesting

that actually used car dealers,

dare I say, are pretty good

at selling new cars as well

when the right opportunity comes around.

So I just thought that was interesting,

and it's telling also of where

the opportunities that Chinese car makers

are looking for in entering the market.

We were out and about

weren't we on the road this week

buying some, buying some cars.

And we popped into a couple of Chinese car dealerships

just out of interest, didn't we?

We popped into a BYD one.

And the one that I walked into

was a really, really nice showroom.

And what I was really impressed about

is the staff, like the staff

quickly came up to me.

Well, you know, if you've got any questions

or anything, I mean, I know that

in most dealerships you would get that,

but I've walked into someone

I've just been completely ignored,

and I tell them who I was, I just said

I'm interested in the BYD,

I'm thinking about buying one.

Well, they couldn't have done more to help me.

And I think it was clear to me

that many people do that all the time,

walk into those showrooms,

not knowing anything about the brands,

and these people were just used to

explaining what a Chinese car was,

what a BYD was.

And it was at that point, I just thought

I can see why they're so successful.

And the deals were amazing.

I mean, what was the one we saw, one for

£350 deposit,

£350 a month?

Yeah, that was for SEAL UDMI,

which is what a sort of mid-sized SUV plug-in hybrid.

So I don't know what you'd pay

from your Peugeot deed or whatever for a...

Well, in fact, I do know, because we saw

a competing offer for a 3008, and it was

something like, I think it was about £300,

£400 a month, but then £3.5 grand down.

So that's the difference, isn't it?

It's changing the face

of the landscape. Nathan, you must see this all

time. I know you guys are really

close to it. I mean,

are you amazed at how quickly these Chinese

companies have taken a foothold?

Yeah, in short.

I mean, to put some

numbers, I think I have these about roughly right,

but in

literally in the space of a year,

some of these manufacturers have got

to the same market share as

very, very well-known legacy manufacturers.

And they've got up to 5%

market share reach. That's 10

between the two of them, and there's more

brands coming. It is

gobsmacking, to be honest.

And from what I hear from retailers

too, is that they're

very pragmatic to work with. They're very

quick to respond. They're very quick to make

decisions. I think what you're seeing

with the used cars, so

I wasn't aware of that one, actually,

the chariot, but you are

seeing that for a lot of retailers where

there are pressures on other brands,

we know Ford is selling a lot less

passenger vehicles than what they used to

as strategic decision that they've made.

Actually, it allows retailers

that are sitting on some legacy

property to be able to fill them in.

So it kind of works for the Chinese manufacturers, works

for the retailers as well. Some of the retailers

I speak to though are saying that those spare

sites are starting to run out.

And so the big question is, well, how do

you, where are we going to

find the space? Because what's quite helpful

is when you're filling out a site, there aren't

the AI CAPEX requirements that the Chinese

manufacturers are putting on them.

And the cars are

selling, but the British

public have shown that they

have not got a whole massive

brand loyalty when it comes

to EVs. We

thought actually that whole

education process of what's JQ, what's

a motor, what's BYD, what's

a seal, would be

much more bumpy a road

than what it's turned out to be.

So yeah, I agree with you. I think it is totally

changing the

landscape. In a way though,

if you're a franchise retailer, you kind of got to be

thinking about this, don't you? Because the world's

going to EV whether you like it or not when it

comes to new cars. And it feels like

that lower price

bucket or even the upper price buckets as

well, these manufacturers are going to be a big chunk

of that in a way that they never

did before. So,

I think most of them that you speak to,

even those that were holding off

starting to say, you know, I need to

start placing a few bets

with some of these new manufacturers, because it's

pretty clear whether they're all here to stay.

Some will, you know, we've gone from 40

new car brands to 70 in the past

four or five years.

Are they all going to, will they all be here

in five years time? No. Do you know which ones

that they are? No.

So, it's super

interesting, but it's working out for retailers.

Yeah, I've been looking into this Chinese

cars side of things for

for a feature or upcoming feature and some of

your colleagues shared some stats with me

and one of them just

absolutely blew me away is the fact that

on AutoTrader, one in four

new car leads

currently goes to a new

brand. One in four 25%.

I mean, that is absolutely

staggering, isn't it? Yeah.

Now, there's two

things behind that. I mean, the brands themselves

are doing a lot of advertising. They're also

the price point works better, generally the lower

the price point.

When it comes to new cars, the more response

that they'll get. So they're playing right in that bit

of the market that actually has had less product

from traditional manufacturers lower price

point. It's like

red carpets laid out to get

more leads.

Yeah, madness. Well, John,

we've probably run out of time and so it's

one story head to head,

isn't it? It is.

Well, first, Nathan, I'm going to ask, are there any

stories you think we should have covered this week, but we haven't.

I mean, probably quite a lot to be honest with you.

No, I think

you talked a bit around Renault,

didn't you? And the

Stellantis talking about

these cars are just costing a bucket of

money.

I think those do pick up

one, the fragility of retailers and

two, the rise of

EVs. I think they're two pretty good stories.

I'll do exactly the same as I did last time

because I'm going to be optimistic

and character the likes to look

on the brighter side of life. I think, you know, the fact

that retailers are doing well out of

some of these new Chinese manufacturers

when, you know, the businesses

are some of their other brands are under pressure.

I think it's kind of

a good news story. It's not all

Chinese manufacturers do them and gloom

and, you know, the industry's going downhill.

It shows

the thing about retailers that I just find

so impressive is that they're the most

adaptable group

of people that you'll ever

have ever come across and they find a way

of making it work.

Whether it's COVID, whether it's new manufacturers,

whether it's cost pressures,

you know, they manage to keep changing,

keep doing well

and keep serving kind of the UK, making

sure that they're in the cars

that they love so much.

Couldn't agree more and I'm not just saying that because

you've chosen my story there. It does sound

like you've won there, doesn't it?

That was a win to you, John.

That was a win to you.

Thank you for that, James.

I will write it down and I'm sad my

investigative journalism story.

I will credit you with that.

That was very high quality investigative journalism,

so not taking anything away from that.

Well, thank you. I'll take second place

at your praise. Much appreciated.

Yes, and if anyone would like to see James

comedically bending down to talk to a man

through a gate, the video is available

on our YouTube channel.

Well, thank you for that, Nathan.

That's fantastic. I will take that win

and all that's left for me to say is

thank you for joining us and thank you for putting up

with James's many, many questions.

That's a pleasure. Hopefully the rest of your day

is a bit more relaxing. That's okay.

You've got investors next.

No, I don't.

Thank you for that.

Nice to see you, Nathan. Thanks for your time.

Cheers. See you guys.

Thank you as well to James

for coming back from his skiing.

I'll just give you a small anecdote, listeners,

before we go, which is that when James announced

skiing the other week to his employees

in his dealership on New Employee Lucas,

in fact, he said,

he said, I'm going skiing. This is what James said.

And then he turned around about five minutes later and went,

I'm a snowboarder, by the way.

And Lucas immediately started laughing,

which I don't think was the reaction that James

was looking for there.

It was embarrassing, but even more embarrassing

than you brought up on the podcast. Thanks for that, John.

No worries at all. Thank you all for listening.

We'll be back next week with another episode

where I make more fun of James.

Don't forget to subscribe to be notified when that goes live.

If you want to check out the stories you mentioned today,

take a look in the show notes below

or head to cardiganmagazine.co.uk.

Thanks for listening and goodbye.

Targa Florio Cars disappears without trace, BYD announces dealer of the year, and TC Harrison takes on Omoda Jaecoo – with Nathan Coe, episode 240

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