IMAGINE paying cash for your £50,000 business car. Now, for some small business owners with a cash-rich company this may not be such an extravagant notion. But that’s not the case for most small businesses.
However, it happens all the time in China where customers will walk into a showroom, produce the money and expect to drive away in their brand new car there and then, my Headlineauto source tells me, reporting from the Shanghai Motor Show. Here’s what he witnessed.
”Cash will get you just about anything and there is very little bought on finance,” said one China industry veteran.
And this is not restricted just to the showroom.
How about going to press day at a motor show hoping to make your purchase on the spot?
It happened on the Jaguar Land Rover stand. Within moments of the Range Rover Evoque being unveiled, five people had come onto the stand and wanted to buy one. They were not impressed when it was explained to them that no sales could be completed that day because it was press day and there were no sales staff on the stand.
Your correspondent witnessed this at first hand. Two Chinese journalists (well, they were wearing media passes) wanted to know the price of the Range Rover Autobiography Ultimate (a cool RMB3 million – about £300,000). They were totally unfazed when the price was written for them in your correspondent’s notebook as 3,000,000. They then pointed to one of the Evoques on display. That will be 648,000 (about £65,000). They nodded approvingly before reaching for what appeared to be a cheque book.
Your correspondent left the bemused Land Rover PR staff to explain that, no this was press day, sales staff would be here tomorrow.
I’m not surprised the Range Rover Evoque should be a hit in China: it has all the right ingredients – British, luxury, and great styling. It’s sure to be a hit here in the UK, too, with small businesses – the chance to drive a compact Range Rover will do wonders for any SME owner, and reflect well on the professionalism and success of their business.
Whether or not they paid cash outright for the car!
Editor’s Blog on doing business in China
