Sunday, March 12, 2006
Parallel Car Importers
What's with the parallel car imports selling the new Honda Civic ? I saw they were advertising the Honda Civic for $70K, vs Kah Motors 78.5K, and when I call them, they go "Ya, but if you don't take loan, it is $79K. And by the way, we bid 9K for your COE". Really ? At the time when COEs are 10+K and rising, you are bidding 9K ?
I call 2 other importers. Same story. Look, I know you guys make profits from the loan, but come on, if you wanna do business as a parallel importer, you CANNOT be more expensive than the authorized agents under ANY circumstances !!! Get this into your thick skulls !!!
Follow me carefully here : you MUST be cheaper, because price is your ONLY weapon against the authorized agents. Its not prestige, or peace of mind, or service, or you've got more beautiful saleswomen ( you don't ), but price, and lower price at that. If you charge higher than Kah Motors, and bid a measly 9K COE at that, I'm taking my business to Kah, which I did. And guess what ? At first bid, Kah secured my COE despite a 2K jump in COE price.
The parallel importers with their 9K COE will fail, and then ask you to top up another 3-4K so they can bid higher COE, bringing the price of their Civic to 83K, waaaay above Kah's price. Sheesh. Idiots.
And, after test driving many cars and visiting numerous showrooms ( Honda, Nissan, Toyota, Opel, Ford, Peuget, Mazda, and several parallel importers ), I see that Toyota (Borneo Motors) has the prettiest saleswomen. The lady who served me was young, sweet, cheerful, and had a smile to die for. Too bad the Toyota cars are frigging boring, or I would have given her my business :-)
I call 2 other importers. Same story. Look, I know you guys make profits from the loan, but come on, if you wanna do business as a parallel importer, you CANNOT be more expensive than the authorized agents under ANY circumstances !!! Get this into your thick skulls !!!
Follow me carefully here : you MUST be cheaper, because price is your ONLY weapon against the authorized agents. Its not prestige, or peace of mind, or service, or you've got more beautiful saleswomen ( you don't ), but price, and lower price at that. If you charge higher than Kah Motors, and bid a measly 9K COE at that, I'm taking my business to Kah, which I did. And guess what ? At first bid, Kah secured my COE despite a 2K jump in COE price.
The parallel importers with their 9K COE will fail, and then ask you to top up another 3-4K so they can bid higher COE, bringing the price of their Civic to 83K, waaaay above Kah's price. Sheesh. Idiots.
And, after test driving many cars and visiting numerous showrooms ( Honda, Nissan, Toyota, Opel, Ford, Peuget, Mazda, and several parallel importers ), I see that Toyota (Borneo Motors) has the prettiest saleswomen. The lady who served me was young, sweet, cheerful, and had a smile to die for. Too bad the Toyota cars are frigging boring, or I would have given her my business :-)
