Since March Peugeot has stopped encouraging its dealers to pre-register cars as one of its strategies to maximise residual values.
It has also refused to get drawn into knee-jerk end-of-the-month registration programmes, managing director David Peel told AM sister-title Fleet News yesterday at the Paris Motor Show.
It’s all part of Peugeot’s aspiration to be the best generalist carmaker in the UK by 2021. Peel (pictured) cites Volkswagen as the one to dethrone.
“We don’t get the result in fleet that we should with our great product. The key was to find a way to have a stronger residual value,” Peel said.
“Our channel mix strategy is starting to pay off. Our mix is 60% fleet and we have increased our share of green channel fleet and reduced our high-cost tactical fleet.
“It takes a bit of doing because market share is important to manufacturers. But we have shared our vision with Paris about what we need to do to be competitive.”
Peel cites the new 3008 as an example.
Peugeot has focused on every detail of the launch, including the mix of trim, engine and colours for its own employee cars.
“In the past we have never taken this into consideration,” he said. “It would’ve been an open choice and everyone would’ve chosen the same trim and the same colour which would’ve hit the residuals from day one.
“We’ve done the same for daily rental; we’ve even stacked the options and taken less profit from the deal but the effect on residuals will benefit us in the end.”
The dealer network has also been tasked with focusing more on the SME fleet sector, as well as vans; each one now has a light commercial vehicle on display in the showroom.
For the past three years it has been rebalancing its channel mix by reducing volumes into daily rental.
When it started the strategy it was selling 16,000 cars to rental; this year it will be around 5,000, according to UK managing director David Peel.
Jeremy has been a journalist for 30 years, 20 of which have been in business-to-business automotive. He was a writer and news editor on AM-sister brand Fleet News for three years before setting up the AM website. For the last five years he has been Bauer B2B’s head of digital helping to manage the digital assets of AM, together with Fleet News, Commercial Fleet, Rail and Smart Transport.
Iceage - 30/09/2016 20:58
Yada yadayada we've heard it all before. Very quickly Paris will get a warm feeling down their legs and will cave in. These boys should simply recognise that they are a budget brand and INCREASE the discount levels accordingly.