Profitable used car sales helped the average dealer deliver a return on sales of 1.35% in April.
Dealer profitability specialist ASE said that despite months under lockdown strong profits from used car sales allied to cost cutting and use of government help schemes had driven the performance.
Used car return on investment has risen to 89.6% reflecting the strength in the sector we have seen since the end of lockdown.
“This has all been driven by an increase in average profit per unit, with stockturn lengthening to 63.6 days as stock shortages impact vehicle supply,” said ASE CEO Rob Jones.
“Overall turnover levels are down 10%, on a rolling 12-month basis. This is mainly down to the Covid lockdowns, however, also shows the early signs of the growth of the agency model.
“The fact that retailer profitability has grown during this period of reduced sales shows a potential path to retailer profitability in the agency future,” he added.
April and May 2020 saw most retailers place their finance departments on furlough, resulting in reliable data not being available for ASE until the end of June.
It said the comparative data will be fixed at the end of March until the June results are published, to ensure we are comparing a largely pre-covid performance against current results.