Earlier this month saw Glass’s predictions for car dealers for the year ahead, with finance being a hot point in Rupert Pontin‘s comment on the subject.

Not only will the new car sector see growth in “registrations of around 3%” he predicts, but there will be a need for innovations in the used car market in aid to “bring more customers into a market that is starting to see signs of oversupply”

The car market has increasingly been driven towards finance in recent years- with credit and PCP’s meaning that finance packages are appealing to more customers.

In 2016, these packages will need to be made even more competitive to keep driving interest.

However, what effect will this proposal of increased finance deals have on the used car dealership market when these contracts expire?

  It’s very heartening to see the used car traders optimising their earning potential – and its vital they do so. We fear that their margins could soon be coming under severe pressure. The rally in new car sales figures in the last few years owes a great deal to the availability of cheap credit and improved consumer confidence levels. With the proliferation of personal contract plans in the new car sales market, in the near future as these contracts expire, there will undoubtedly be downward pressure on used car values as high volumes of these vehicles become available for resale. So used car sales operations need to maximise all earning opportunities available to them. Grant Georgiades, Marketing Director

As Pontin summaries – “The key for manufacturers and dealers will be to embrace market insight and intelligence to ensure that anybody buying and selling new and used cars can see exactly what is happening at any given time, allowing them to make quick strategic adjustments to their annual plan.”