I think the over-reliance on PCP finance is the root cause of the options problem, in the same way as it is the root cause of the list price inflation problem. These days a significant majority of cars are sold on the basis of £x per month. Look at Volvo's latest idea - the car subscription - https://www.volvocars.com/uk/care-by-volvo/.Silver Moose wrote: ↑Wed Aug 19, 2020 12:55 amShouldn't be this way of course as 2nd hand buyers value these features, seek them out, and are willing to pay extra for them.RichardXC wrote: ↑Tue Aug 18, 2020 9:25 pmI think you have nailed it, right there. I suspect many buyers are unwilling to pay £70/month for a sunroof or £30/month for a parking sensor etc...Silver Moose wrote: ↑Tue Aug 18, 2020 5:24 pm
Surely the biggest driver, though, is the huge % of buyers who buy on lease, for whom all the options are prohibitively expensive as they're written off over 36 months - have them included on, say, a Vorsprung model & they cost you half as much.
It's just that the industry relies on 3rd party providers for resale/trade-in values & they're too lazy-@r5ed to deal with options - too much work for too little return.
If the industry doesn't fix the problem, they'll just fail to sell many options (it's really hard already to find 2nd hand examples with all the toys).
Having said all of that, having worked in supply chains for most of my life I can certainly appreciate the opportunities for cost reduction that are driven by simplifying the offer. I've worked in too many businesses that were dominated by marketing people who insisted on the widest range of colours/specs - without any thought for inventory, sourcing costs etc.
So, on balance I'm all for the GT/GLX/Ghia approach.
