
Don’t Bet on Direct-To-Consumer Automotive Retail Yet - sgustard
https://medium.com/@RudiThun/don-t-bet-on-direct-to-consumer-automotive-retail-just-yet-c6d9fe0c5d08
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jbob2000
I think the arguments are pretty weak here and it comes off as a little
"dealership-apologist". All of the cons of direct-to-consumer can just as
easily apply to the dealership model. Yet none of the cons of the dealership
model apply to direct-to-consumer.

It's also a bit of a mistake to assume that the way Tesla does things is the
way the rest of the automotive industry would do things. Tesla has inventory
problems because they're new and can't keep up with the demand. As if Honda is
going to have problems keeping Civics in stock.

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jpgvm
It also doesn't do a good job of explaining that the advantages of the
dealership model in the early days have been greatly eroded by just in time
supply chain techniques and other improvements in manufacturing efficiency.

That and most of the actual argument boils down to "it's too hard to do both".
Which I think is a poor argument at the best of times when the 2 goals are
orthogonal and not at all at odds with each other.

Almost every industry is going back to direct sales. Even Microsoft a behemoth
of the channel style of distribution and sales has started making direct sales
one of it's higher priorities.

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jbob2000
Yep, McDonald's has begun purchasing franchises back as well. I think you're
right, that this distributed ownership model is an artifact of an earlier
time. I might attribute this to better communication abilities. It made sense
to have autonomous dealers; it was hard for everyone to communicate with each
other using telephones and snail mail. With the internet, companies can run
advanced inventory databases, run prediction algorithms to shift inventory to
areas with expected demand, have regional managers focus on local communities,
instantly update pricing across the country etc. etc.

