Car dealerships are still open despite the epidemic 7
Car repair services are considered essential by dealers because they believe that users need to buy or repair a car to go to work, or to other important places, such as the hospital.
Narc Cannon, marketing director of AutoNation – America’s largest auto retailer, said: `There will be millions of employees who still have to work in the medical field, they always need transportation.`
To make sellers and buyers feel comfortable, dealers are implementing a number of activities such as `social distancing` at the showroom, delivering cars to the homes of buyers, allowing solo test drives, and eliminating
In addition, agents provide some genuine strong discount policies to compete for the market.
Most AutoNation showrooms remained open and received shipments of 10,000 disinfectants to serve customers who came to view and test drive vehicles.
At Sonic Cars, one of the largest dealer networks in the United States, the situation is similar.
`Customers do not need to worry about contact with sales staff. We will disinfect the vehicle before and after the test drive, in addition to disinfecting at the outbreak site,` said David Smith, president of Sonic Automotive.
A Toyota dealership distributed by Auto Nation in the state of Ariona.
It’s important for service departments to help customers have vehicles to continue with work, Smith said.
Sonic is adopting a no-contact service and is encouraging customers to fill out most paperwork online.
In addition, used car retailer CarMax has temporarily closed at least 39 of its more than 210 stores, including 27 stores in California.
At Carvana, which bills itself as a `car vending machine,` some locations are closed but customers can arrange `contactless delivery` if they live nearby, CarMax said in a statement.
Auto sales are expected to plummet because of covid-19, as Americans don’t make big purchases, like they did during the Great Recession of 2008, which sent General Motors and Chrysler into bankruptcy.
At the beginning of 2020, forecasts suggested that auto sales in the US this year would be around 16 million vehicles.
The National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) has asked federal, state and local governments to ensure their members are not prevented from operating due to stay-at-home orders.
To overcome the decline in sales, automakers have offered a series of incentives to customers.
`The auto manufacturers have been very supportive, they’ve publicly announced incredible offers,` Cannon said.
