2011 - European new car sales falling in Q1

The Europe wide figures for new car sales across europe fell by nearly 2 percent in the first quarter of the year. Whilst some countries experienced an increase a number of factors, including economic troubles in Portugal and Greece contributed to the overall reduction. Within the top five markets: Spain, Italy and Great Britain all experienced negative retail figures for new car sales.

Whilst this is gloomy news for much of the Motor Trade (particularly within the UK), there have been some brands that have bucked the trend. Alfa Romeo sales have increased 60 percent within the year to date, much of this change has been attributed to new models such as the Mito and Giulietta - which have provided unprecedented recent success for the brand.

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Motor Dealers urged to extend opening hours

Over half of the visits to Car Dealer websites occur outside of the traditional 9-5 office hours. Online enquiries tend to peak, between 7-10pm - but a response is usually not processed until the following day. The automotive director of Google UK stated that the average time for a UK dealer to respond to an online enquiry is 72 hours (compared to just 4 hours in the US).

Motor Traders can use a variety of services to deal with enquiries out of hours, including call centres or 'live chat' applications to respond to site visitors. In the current trading climate, effectively processing these out-of-hours enquiries can make the difference between profit and loss. For car dealers who are currently processing their out-of-hours enquiries in under 15 minutes, they report a higher conversion rate and quality of enquiry outside of the standard working day.

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