Luis Ceriotto
10/20/2020 6:00 AM
Clarín.com
Economy
Updated 10/20/2020 7:12 AM
The sale of zero kilometer cars this month will be about
4,000 units less
than last month.
And not because of a demand problem, but because many dealers opted to "keep" the cars and
not sell them
.
The reason?
The raise, for now without a roof, the blue dollar.
"Those of us who have years, we know that our own stock is the cushion that protects us from inflation. Our great concern is replacement, the fear is that with the money we obtain from the sale of a unit
we will not be able to replace it
, generating , in this inflationary context, a
decapitalization
", explained the owner of one of the main Toyota dealerships.
Cars are priced according to the official dollar.
And although the exchange rate gap worked since the end of April as an engine to sell more and more cars, even in the midst of a pandemic, now the hardened dealers have decided to hit the brakes: they do not want to risk that an eventual devaluation will surprise them with fewer cars and with pesos in hand, before having obtained the replacement units.
"The dealership is an SME and they have always handled the
replacement cost
concept
, they always try to sell at the price they can replace," explained an imported car dealer with 30 years of experience in the market.
"Replacement at the same price is never guaranteed, but in this context it
becomes more complicated
."
This behavior goes beyond one, two or ten dealerships, since it is impacting the total sales of the group.
According to the statistics of the
Association of Automotive Dealers (ACARA)
, based on the daily reports of patents, after 20 days of October they estimate to reach the end of the month with a total of
30,500 units sold.
Last month, with the "blue" dollar much lower than now, and therefore with a less tempting "gap" for many buyers, the patents
were 34,700.
The fall against the previous month
will thus be around 12%.
Of course,
buyers are not lacking
.
"If I have a
Hyundai
to sell,
they take it out of my hands before they get it off the boat,
" he gave as an example one of the strongest dealers in the country, with four brands and several salons in three provinces.
"People
are desperate to get rid of the pesos
and offer any price in order to get something that is priced at the dollar value. In this particular situation, I only sell the number of units necessary to pay the costs, which are many. But the important thing with national brands is that they give us room to negotiate, "he added, with a tone of" you understand me. "
-In other words, surcharges.
-The idea is that we win on both sides of the counter.
If only the buyer wins, I go undercapitalized.
The price premiums are not necessarily below the table, since the dealers
are not obliged
to respect the list price that the factory informs them each month.
But there are brands that are more jealous than others about
the prices
they charge, or
the terms
promised by the entrepreneurs who represent them.
"I 80% of what I sell is
Fiat Cronos,
which is a national car. Although it is not that they send me the replacement unit the next day, the truth is that it is a model we can sell with some
peace of mind
. But with the other models, which come from Brazil,
we walk with lead, "
said one of the main dealers of the Italian brand.
In ACARA they assure that there are fewer cars than they were promised.
"The Government agreed with ADEFA that it would allow them to enter 80,000 units imported from Brazil, between August and the end of the year. So far, as far as we know, no more than 25,000 have entered," said a director of the entity that groups the official concessionaires. .