I think we all know that dealers have targets to meet on vehicle sales etc, either monthly or quarterly (or both) to maintain bonuses and various other perks – some targets include Motability sales, some not.
What Motability’s figures published by @js on another thread show is that since lockdown ended, the pent-up demand for Motability vehicles has surged – mainly as people couldn’t order for a period and had their leases extended, but can now order.
Motability’s recent missive about ordering during this quarter has also had an impact, with people trying to avoid possible AP increases next quarter.
So what you have is a perfect storm of dealers having already met their monthly/quarterly sales targets, with demand still walking in through the door and thus there being absolutely no incentive for dealers to ‘work hard’ to get a sale, particularly Motability sales.
When sales targets reset on 1st October, it could be a vastly different matter again.
However, as a Motability customer one needs to at least consider the warning from Motability with regards to not delaying one’s order.
Incidentally, it is not just Motability sales this affects. Our farm business wants to buy four brand new 4×4 double-cab pick-ups for two of our farms. When the dealer asks if there is any chance of delaying the order until next month due to them already having met their monthly/quarterly targets, with the lure of ‘we can give you a better deal next month’, then you know the business model of the motor trade has shifted from ‘sales incentivised’ to ‘bonus incentivised’.
In other words, they don’t want the business – at the moment!