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Swansway director Peter Smyth has made a scathing critique of Cazoo and its founder, Alex Chesterman, as the bankrupt second-hand dealership continues to search for a buyer.
The former online disruptor is lately under management after years of significant spending and Smyth says the result came as a surprise.
In his appearance on the most recent episode of the Car Dealer Podcast, sponsored through JATO, he said the company’s style was from the start and accused its initial plans of being “all fictional painting. “
Smyth, who was one of several people interviewed on our Cazoo special in 2022, also accused Chesterman of “disrupting everyone” with derogatory comments about the auto trade.
He told podcast hosts Jon Reay and James Batchelor, “Nobody likes pants, right?But from the beginning, after reading the initial prospectus that he [Chesterman] published, it was, for me, quite a picture of fiction. JK Rowling: I would have been proud!
“In 4 years, this guy said he’d sell more cars than Arnold Clark and employ other people who had no knowledge of the industry in the process.
“If you look at Eddie [Hawthorne] and his team, between them they’re going to have to spend many, many years of delight promoting 300,000 used cars and this guy blatantly comes in without revel and says, ‘You’re all dumb. The company is broken. You are all distributors side by side. “
He didn’t do himself any favors from the beginning because he went with everyone. He lifted mine.
“Is he a sensible businessman? Well, I think he sold some of his stock and walked away with a penny, which I think makes him a lot richer than you and me. Was it morally right to have done this? I don’t know. I know. It’s not for me to question it, but I don’t think he ever made a profit and blew his brains out.
He added: “You can tell [where Cazoo went]. I know this job. I know what the margins are on cars and you can’t start sponsoring Everton, Aston Villa, Valencia, there’s a team in Italy, billiards, Derby, tiddlywinks in Wilmslow.
“You can’t keep sponsoring all those occasions and think you can create a logo overnight because our margins are so thin.
“I’m going to do it again. I think that if we manage to get 1% – 1% of our turnover – to reach the net result this year, we will have crossed the channel this year because it is a very complicated year. “.
Although he is highly critical of Cazoo, Smyth still believes that there could have been a situation in which the company would have survived.
He also credited Chesterman with helping distributors “play their game” when it comes to digitization.
However, he insisted that an omnichannel brick-and-click technique will be more effective than a purely online model.
He said, “I think they may have made it work, but he [Chesterman] vastly underestimated the determination of the other people who are lately performing in the industry.
“Honestly, is he a disruptor? Yes, it’s been a disruptor because one thing’s for sure: it’s particularly upped our game and the way we think about promoting used cars today as it pertains to digitalization.
“We don’t think of our gas station as our gas station, we think of our virtual gas station as our gas station. So for us, it’s not about how quickly we can pick up a used car, buy it, prepare it, and get it up and running. in the field, but how temporarily can we get a used car, prepare it, and get it from Auto Trader. or any of the other sites like Motors or CarGurus or others.
“They [Cazoo] approached me [about employing their online marketplace] and I turned him down.
“I told them if they let it loose for 12 months, I would, but they turned around and said no, which is good. “
He added: “I think it’s possible that they survived?In fact, many used car purchases are made digitally, but the best advice is when a visitor actually comes to see the car. The day they test drive the car is probably the day they drive it.
“One thing’s for sure: when they arrive, they’ve done all their homework and they’ve talked to the dealer via email or phone and they have an idea of what they want to pay, and we tell them. “, if you have come from far away and want to leave the same day, here are the documents you want to bring. “
“It’s changed, but I think it takes bricks and clicks. “
On the Car Dealer podcast, sponsored through JATO, an industry guest signs up for our hosts to talk about each week’s biggest auto industry headlines.
Among the topics discussed in the most recent episode were Auto Trader’s monetary results, the updated Nissan Qashqai, and Alfa Romeo’s prominent license plates.
A full list of the stories can be found here:
You can pay attention to all the episodes of the Car Dealer podcast on Spotify or anywhere you get your podcasts.
Jack joined the car dealership team in 2021 as a copywriter. In the past he worked as a journalist for a national newspaper for the BNPS news agency. He has provided automotive news and reports for several national publications, including The Sun, The Times. and The Daily Mirror.
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