DISPLAYING INTEREST IN COMMERCIAL CARS.
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it is Not Enough for a Garage Proprietor to be Willing to Sell and Repair Commercial Vehicles : He Must Make Owners Believe that he is.
By " Vim."
MOST GARAGES welcome commercial vehicle business. Their proprietors are quite wideawake to the fact that it is the best kind of trade. It may not have about it the dash and the glamour attaching to the touring car trade ; but it is good, solid, all-the-year-round revenue. Profits accruing from it are snialler, but what they lack in size is made up in quantity. Hence the garage proprietor who deliberately discourages van and lorry work is not only extremely foolish, but is also a very rare bird indeed. It is my belief that, as the years go by, we shall find garages depending more and more an commercial vehicles for the bulk of their income, and touring traffic gradually receding into second place. Transport of goods and parties of passengers by road will increase prodigiously within the next few years, for the railways are showing themselves as unfitted to carry on the rapid door-todoor service that is an essential feature of trade to-day, as the canals, with their innumerable limitations, were unfitted to cope with the expansion of .trade that followed the supplanting of hand-labour ; by machinery. Large transport companies—and
• there will be many undertakings of this description —will undoubtedly maintain their .own repairing and fuelling stations at strategic points all over the country ; but they will not be able to cover every
mile, of _road. In between stations, the ordinary garage will be called -upon to render service when required, which will, probably be pretty frequently, because of the volume of traffic that the roads will -, then ,carry
.': But, taking no account of the business which will .i, be done with vehicles belonging to big transport ' companies the growth of privately-owned vans and .• lorries will, in my opinion, exceed all expectations as soon as industry in general recovers from the ; after-effects of the war. With luck, our next Minister of Transport (if that office survives the seeming determination of the nation to have all forms of -Government control of commerce abolished, and to have unnecessary expenditure cut down), may be a motor man., instead of a railway superman. Failing. this, the administration of the roads may be put into different hands from those which control the railways. If either of these, to my way of thinking, greatly-to-be-desired things should come to pass, motor transport will receive a tremendous impetus. Therefore the intelligent garage proprietor—and, in spite of the nasty remarks sometimes passed about the motor trade, most of them are by way of being very intelligent—is keen to secure just as much busi ness in selling and repairing commercials as he can, even though the present distribution policies of many manufacturers offer small inducement to him to do so. He knows that, sooner or later, it must become recognized that his help; is necessary if efficient. service is to be given to users and he bides his time.
Nevertheless, to 'be willing to do business is of little use unless the fact is impressed on the public. 'Garages Must show something more than willingness: they must impress on users of commercial vehicles that they want their custom. At ninety-five out of .a hundred garages you will find plenty of evidence in the shape of displayed signs. and window dressing, of a desire to help the Iprivate motorist, but no mention at all of commercial users. At two • out of the remaining five garages, you will notice a half-hearted attempt to attract yan and lorry repairs. At the.other 3 per gent. you will observe
that commercials are being given at least an equal show with private cars, with beneficial result to these firms, judging by the goods vehicles under repair.
To the 97 per cent, who consider that the tradesmen of their localities should take for granted their willingness to handle commercial vehicle sales and repairs as efficiently as-they handle private ear trade, I .would point out that "meaning well" goes precious little way in these days. They must give. plain indications that they are not entirely absorbed in the private car trade, before they can reasonably expect commercial vehicle -users to inquire into their ability to give them service. The public simply will not run after sellers of anything, whether boots, lump sugar' or automobile engineering. ' Advertising has made buyers lazy. "Those who don't ask, won't get," is one of the principal rules of commerce to-day.
It is neither a difficult nor a costly matter to let commercial vehicle users know that a garage eaters for them. A well-written sign, placed in a prominent position outside the premises, stating that the firm are specialists in commercial vehicles, or something of the sort, means only an outlay of a few pounds, but it helps wonderfully. Not less than half the available window space should be devoted to a display of accessories for vans and lorries. A giant pneumatic tyre' for example,' attracts a great deal of attention, and forms a. good central feature for this purpose. Newspaper advertisements should always contain a reference to commercials. There is not much in any of these suggestions, is there ? And yet few garages -appear to have thought of them for theinselves,°or to realize how effective they can be, when adopted, in working up a valuable connection with owners of commercial cars.
Here is an illustration to prove the value of showing the public the relative importance. of two branches of the same line of business. It is not drawn from the motor trade, but that does not affect its significance. A jeweller, who is also a clever optician, has a double-fronted shop. For years he had both his windows filled with jewellery and silver ware, and relied-on a. framed notice hanging on his door to bring him customers for his spectacles. In time, mainly by recommendations, he got together quite a nice lot of customers with defective eyesight ; but, by most Qf the residents of his district, optics was regarded as quite a side line with him; and, consequently, all but those who were pefsonally advised to go to him went in preference to other opticians, who seemed to take a greater interest in eyesight than he apparently did. But there is profit in selling glasses, so. one day recently this optician decided to change his window arrangements. He cleared all the jewellery from one window, and dressed it very tastefully with a large model of the human eye, flanked by a number of those bloodshot diagrams beloved of the eyesight specialists, and surrounded by a neat array of spectacles of all shapes and sizes, not forgetting specimens af the horn-rimmed kind, now so much favoured by the learned. What was the immediate effect of this change? Well, I have Won his own authority that within one month his turnover in eye furniture and fees for advice exceeded his turnover in jewellery, although the latter part of his business remained steady and showed no inclination to decrease. He put the improvement down to his having had enough confidence in his skill as an optician to tell the public, through his window, that he considers optics as important as jewellery.