Car sales are likely evolving like sales of white goods and electricals. People research online. Some may want to see the product "in the flesh", many don't bother. They then search for the best deals for their chosen product.

Over 50% of sales are to businesses which require a different approach to sales. A large volume of new car sales are via lease or PCP deals and often there is no trade in issue to be dealt with.

Showrooms are expensive to maintain and are probably unnecessay for the volume of extra sales they generate.

Forum members clearly have more interest and knowledge of cars than the general public, and unsurprisingly they may take more interest in what they are buying.

But a large part of the general public dislike the stress of negotiation and historically the term "car salesman" ha s been code for "get ready to be ripped off" not a compliment.

If you are spending £10-50k on a new car, to see it you may willingly drive 50 miles to do so. The current dealer network for most major brands is simply to large.

Having read the Autocar article there seems to be some misunderstanding in this thread about what BMW are doing.

As far as I can see BMW are not eliminating dealers from new car sales nor selling all new cars online. The model simply allows BMW to set the actual customer price and handle all the financials. Otherwise the dealer role is much the same as ever except that they act as sales agents and receive a fee, rather like estate agents. The main change is no haggling with the customer over how much (if any) of the difference in wholesale and retail price the dealer is prepared to hand over as a discount. Of course as many new car buyers trade in there may still be an opportunity to haggle over the old car's value.

You don't test-drive a fridge or washing-machine: and you may well spend longer test-driving a car than you would looking round a house that you're thinking of buying.

Well, no. But neither do you sit in your fridge or washing machine for hours, expecting to be comfortable, and many people intend to customise any 'new' house they buy soon after moving in.

Edited by mcb100 on 17/11/2020 at 16:09

That process, particularly the last paragraph, will change completely in years to come.

Also, you say 'spend the kind of money'.... that's now the exception in a PCP/HP landscape.

With the vast majority of car 'sales' underpinned by finance, many customers are drawn to the deal before the car, only buying what they can budget for.