The impact of Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic on car dealerships can vary. For Street Volkswagen in Amarillo, business has increased in some areas because of the services now being offered.
“We have seen that some of the smaller independents, who we feel horrible for, just kind of had to close. You don’t see that many of the oil change centers, kind of running Walmart, Sams. They backed down a little bit on theirs, so we just kind of put out the word that we will work on anything. Call us. We’ll figure it out. It may not get done very quick, because I may have to go find components and oil. I don’t stock those things, but we will take care of it,” said John Luciano, who is general manager and managing partner at Street Volkswagen Amarillo.
Even with limiting the number of people in an auto showroom, Luciano says sales have not declined much because of technology.
“Everything is starting with online. I mean, we’re not having many people that are just physically getting into the store saying ‘hey, can I just check out some cars.’ That’s kind of gone. On our website we actually offer an ability to go ahead and completely purchase a car online,” said Luciano.
However, locally owned auto dealerships with not as strong of an online presence are seeing a drop in sales.
Rockin’ J Auto’s says the few sales they are seeing are because of stimulus checks and tax refunds coming through, which is decreasing the cost of cars being shopped for.
“Usually around tax time, cars under 10,000 is kind of what you’re looking at, but then with people being out of jobs, that brings the value of the vehicles that they’re looking at, where they can pay cash for the vehicle and not have to go through financing,” said Jace Fincher, co-owner of Rockin’ J Auto’s.
When compared to the last round of stimulus checks sent out in 2008 following financial recession, Fincher says business, for them, was better during that time.
“I think it’s helping, but at that time, more people were still working, so there wasn’t restaurants closed. People were still able to be hired from that, so that was a big game changer there. Where now, people are having to work from home and being laid off, so their priorities are survival,” said Fincher.
Rockin’ J Auto’s is working on cars through its auto shop, which has seen an increase of customers who are now having free time to bring their car in to get repaired.
About 1,158,536 people in the US have been confirmed as being infected with the coronavirus. The virus has killed 67,067 people in the country.
