Discounting is returning to the UK new car market, as Nick Gibbs’s piece recently detailed on Autocar Business. It’s welcome news for car buyers after the staunch ‘no discounts’ policy during Covid rolled directly into the constrained supply of the chip shortage, but less so for car makers and dealers.
Many car makers are talking a good game about maintaining the ‘no discount’ policy, particularly with one eye on the agency shift, yet it’s hard to see that line being held when presented with losing sales to direct rivals who are more than happy to start discounting.
