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Tony Whitehorn, Hyundai president and CEO, on new ways of selling

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Tony Whitehorn Hyundai president and CEO: Tucson a critical car

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30 January 2015

Tony Whitehorn Hyundai president and CEO
Tony Whitehorn Hyundai president and CEO

HYUNDAI is one of just three manufacturers with a presence in a retail shopping centre – the other two being Tesla and Infiniti (which launched on 28 January in the Westfield Shopping Centre, west London).

Hyundai launched Rockar at Bluewater, Essex in mid-November. Since when the store has achieved, says Whitehorn:

•    35,250 stores visits to date
•    average age of buyers – 37 years
•    82% funded on PCP
•    48% included part exchange
•    Top sellers i10, ix35, i20
•    60% buyers female
•    Just under 100 cars sold

“It is interrupting their shopping with something interesting,” says Whitehorn. “There is a requirement for some customers to explore different ways of buying a car – Rockar is it. Essentially it’s an Apple store for cars. There are product angels just like Apple, but there are no salesmen.

“People don’t buy the car immediately at Rockar – but it leads to a test drive and then later a sale. It also offers another route to Motability, user choosers and SMEs to see the brand where they might not otherwise see it.”

Whitehorn went on to say that Rockar was part of a blended approach to the new car market. Hyundai was looking to increase its dealers by five in 2015 to 165 dealers, but said it was struggling to find metro dealers.

“We plan to sell 88,000 cars in 2015,” continued Whitehorn. “That’s growth of 7% in what will be a flat market. But we have the new products to do that.”

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Ralph Morton

Ralph Morton

Ralph Morton is an award-winning journalist and the founder of Business Car Manager (now renamed Business Motoring). Ralph writes extensively about the car and van leasing industry as well as wider fleet and company car issues. A former editor of What Car?, Ralph is a vastly experienced writer and editor and has been writing about the automotive sector for over 35 years.

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