November is always a loss-making month for UK motor retailers and these challenges were exacerbated in 2020 with the announcement of an England-wide lockdown at the start of the month, adding to...

The frankly stunning post-lockdown profitability results for motor retailers continued during the month of October, with the average retailer making a profit of £53,000, compared to a marginally...

2020 has been a rollercoaster year for motor retailers and September definitely proved one of the highpoints. After starting the year positively before having to cope with the lockdown during March...

Ever since the switch to a twin plate-change approach, August has been a poor performing month for the UK motor retail sector. Customers, and staff, have holidays and the upcoming new registration...

In normal years, July is a relatively quiet month for motor retailers, being the first month of a new quarter and marking the lead-in to the summer months. But we know that 2020 is certainly not a...

July saw strong demand return to both the new and used car markets, with Auto Trader reporting records across all metrics. And it’s not just pent up demand, with retailers reporting strong sales in...

Now that motor retail is up and running across the country we can start to decipher the cost of the pandemic shutdown to dealerships. I paused the detailed commentary during the lockdown, however we...

While May was the second full month of the UK’s Covid-19 lockdown it was also a month when activity started to increase. Service departments were opened to a greater extent, and we received official...

On the back of the some of the adjustments seen amongst the accounts of the listed companies, I have dug a bit deeper into the accounting for pension schemes and the effect they can have on the...

With the industry allowed to open the showroom doors from 1 June we are starting to see the recovery and will be able to determine the shape of that recovery over the coming weeks. There should be...

With the industry going into lockdown two thirds of the way through the busiest month of the year, it is no surprise that motor retail profitability took a hit in March. Even now the data is...

The Coronavirus Large Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CLBILS) launched on Monday 20 April. All viable businesses with turnovers of more than £45m can apply for support. Those with turnovers...

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In all my working career a month has never been such a long time. Given the disruption which was to come, the end of February seems a very long time ago. And looking back to that time the first...

The impact of the coronavirus lockdown on UK new car registrations has emerged from the latest data, highlighting that after a positive start to March, the final week saw an 82% drop in levels...

There is certainly going to be a lot of change as we go through 2020. We are going to see a huge amount of electric and hybrid product hit the market, which retailers are increasingly going to be...

2019 was undoubtedly a tough year for UK motor retailing. The industry is going through a number of seismic changes as customers change what cars they are going to buy, how they buy them and...

It would be very easy, given the negative press around at the moment and the profit warnings issued by some of the listed motor retailers, to assume that the sector was having a pretty dreadful time...

After the tough profit performance for the month of August it was great to see UK motor retailers produce a comparatively healthy result for the month of September. The average retailer made a profit...

Historically August has been a tough month for motor retail profitability since the registration plate change moved to twice yearly in 2001. If customers aren’t on holiday, then everyone has their...