Bingo Bango! BJ was selling cars, no question there. But when that pic came up a while a go with the Kia sign on the building, it looked more fitting than the Ferrari! After all, Ferrari had the worst, by far, building of any high-end dealer in Vancouver. Can't have that, time for a change! At the same time, BJ is a very smart business man. Why go and spend lots of money to build a palace of a dealership to only sell a (relative) handful of cars. If anyone doubts BJs ability to fund such a venture, or have the desire for a "nice" dealership, take a look at his new BMW dealership opening soon. It probably took 3x-4-x as much $, but makes sense, since they're selling 30-40x the cars!
Maybe with the new building and the American ownership pushing their U.S aggressive yet effective selling tactics there will be alot of motivation to sell more f-cars. Not just in B.C but all over the west since there aren't many there. Perhaps even a boutique store half way between B.C and Ontario too? I think there needs to be more of a push. I know that there is lot's of money out there. Just my 2 cents ;-) Vasco.R
Oh and Leonard, I would LOVE to here your synopsis of all this. ;-) You're the one who'd know best my friend. Vasco.R
Increase sales here... excellent! More spotting! BTW, I also heard from the same good source, that in the last couple years, my neck of the woods accounted for a solid 1/3 to 1/2 of BJs business. Maybe BS, but I'm sure we are a serious consideration for any store in Vancouver. If we aren't, we should be. Gotta love the oil money!
I agree with Vasco, Ferrari/Maserati needs a better presence in the West. Vancouver is the big draw but Calgary, Edmonton, Kelowna etc... need representation and service. I think that giving the franchise to an American firm was a mistake, this dealership should have gone to a Canadian that understands the demographics of the West and how Canadians deal. See Fly on the Walls comments: "This link is hilarious! A pathetic attempt by a American "Walmart" owner, http://www.rossdev.net/ , to try and do business in another country. "Brake Calipers Red Color", " Brake Calipers Silver Color" learn how to spell colour. "Handly Fire Extinguisher" right out of the incorrectly translated order guide! "2004 FERRARI 360 Modena, 100 kms" Their first four cars have exactly 100 kms!, Amazing. For more laughs, click here: http://www.buysell.com/advertisers/..._maserati_van2/ 1992 FERRARI 348 TS, 44500 kms , Targa & Bikini Top? I wanna get me one U them bikinis fer my Ford pick up. Please! Stick to selling non stick Tfal and 2X4's." I have to admit the Fly's comments are a tad harsh, but He has a point. The right Canadian would know how to properly run this operation just as the proper American would know how to market and service Houston, Fort Lauderdale or Vegas. For what it's worth......
BJ BMW is bragging on their website that they sold more BMW's in the month of June than any BMW dealership in Canadian history! They are definitely moving a LOT of cars.... My take on the BJ Ferrari thing was they were required to take a quota of Maseratis, which are not selling as well as expected....and yet more and more came each month. Gets very expensive to hold on to this inventory. I hear this is a problem for many of the Ferrari dealerships.
Exactly, Maseratis are a pain in the a** for dealers. But they are a pain for all dealers. Simply, BJ was "asked" to get a new location that is fitting of $300k (CAD) cars. He said, it's not worth it, Ferrari said, bye bye. I wouldn't feel too bad though. More rumours circulating about how much it costs to revoke a Ferrari dealership and I'm not talking about the how much it costs the dealer! Now about this representation. I assume, after Ferrari of Toronto opened, that it is at the discretion of the dealer principle to have a boutique or satellite location. Same allocation, but just spread across more stores. Is that how it works? Maybe a possible future scenario?
There sure are a lot of 'industry insiders' that seem to know a whole bunch of details. Does 'industry insider' translate to head inside your $%#? Jessel had purchased a new building for Ferrari that was sold right after he lost the franchise. Any other theories? Did he buy the new building and put up the "Future Home of Brian Jessel Ferrari" sign just for warm fuzzies? Kia replaced Ferrari and was gone in a puff of midnight smoke. The truth is that this market is about 1-2% of the whole North American market and it is not really an area that FNA will lose any sleep over. There are several facts to support this not least of which is the year Vancouver spent without a dealership while FNA searched for the 'best' candidate. FNA really had a free year with extra cars to allocate elsewhere because customers here could not buy them. The best candidate of course was the one who would pay the full price of the 'asking' cover charge at the door. One would have to imagine that there were several qualified and experienced dealers ready to go but the quick money was found in Ohio with a newly minted dealer. If you think FNA is worried about how it will go then see the above paragraph. If things were not to their liking then they would be free to repeat the process of course. With the BMW vs. Ferrari statement...how many BMW's must you sell to equal the Ferrari store's low volume high profit ratio. Do you want 60 employees or 7? High sales figures in this business tend to be followed by a month of low volume as you robbed Peter to pay Paul for the previous month. Also, a massive store has a massive nut that can shrivel the biggest nuts. I hope that makes sense. Sometimes though, the leap to largess can pay off in huge future dividends. Only the future knows but one can be sure the sign will be large and lit brightly enough to blind drivers into submission. Great location, beautiful store. Kia would have looked great there too!
Sorry, didn't mean to piss you off. You're right. There are a lot of industry insiders here. Those industry insiders do know the numbers on these cars, even the huge profit margins on Ferraris. Despite the size of these (alot bigger than most think), a BMW dealership selling 30x - 40x as many cars will make WAY more money. Don't forget, with that many new car sales, comes that many more used car sales and that many more cars to service. Also, you might have more employees, but the sales staff makes sh*t unless they sell cars (more money for the owner), the service area has a waiting time, because there are always fewer techs than they really need and the management only makes as much as they make for the owner in their department(commision sort of). As far as this being a "flash in the pan" for sales at BJBMW, the statement they made was referring monthly sales record for Canada. They've consistantly been the largest dealer in Canada for sometime and this isn't something that will drastically change anytime soon. You are also a little off on your market share. Ferrari averaged sales of roughly 1250 cars in the NA market from 01-03. BJ was selling approx. 35 new cars a year. That's closer to 3%. Not a big difference until you look at actual volumes. Each percentage is (obviously) 12 cars and that is enough. I'm sure Ferrari could shuffle those cars to other dealers, but Vancouver was just getting a Lambo dealer and Ferrari couldn't leave western Canada open to Lambo. BJ was also in the process of moving the BMW dealership. Now, he could use money for both or concentrate resources on the BMW side and get a return on his investment. The "future home of Brian Jessel Ferrari" was apparantly ok'd but then re-negged on and the new requirements weren't economically reasonable. As for dealers lining up to own a Ferrari dealership... sort of. The only ones lining up were those that would take it on as a hobby. You don't get rich owning this dealership in this market. The biggest factor in the whole thing was politics, plain and simple. I'm sure there were many other things done and said that no one will ever even hear about. You make a lot of good points, but you are very quick to discount everyone else. Since this is an open discussion, maybe it's you who should take your head out of your a$$, take time to listen to people that know something and then you might learn something yourself.
Well now...I was going to apologize for sounding blunt until I read your last paragraph. I was purely trying to offer some factual statements to add to the mix as 'enquiring minds want to know' as it were. You seem a little sensitive and defensive...try growing a thicker skin. Your paragraph is full of errors but far be it for me to discount the factual information from your sources. Sorry for my error on market share, I'm sure your insider must have all the accurate info...I am always willing to learn from those in the know,let me know when you actually talk to one of them.
Woah.. prancing 12..... I know who NOCAR is ( BTW - nice guy we talk via PMs when I bought my TR )... I wouldn't argue with him. I think he has the most "inside" out of any insider
Yes, there are a couple of other guys on here that I wouldn't argue with trust me. It's all good, were all here to learn, chat and have a great time.
I didn't mean for anything in my post to come across nearly as harshly as they sounded, particularily the last paragraph. I don't use smilies, but maybe I should start to avoid these kind of things. Anyways, no offense intended. When NOCAR said insider = head in a$$, I laughed. I didn't mean to come across any worse with my comments than I interpreted NOCAR's comments. I stand by my statements that Vancouver is an important enough market for Ferrari that they simply could not ignore it, especially with Lambo there now. I also stand by my statement that a large BMW dealership will be more profitable, overall, than all but the biggest Ferrari dealership. And lastly, I'm not sure if anyone questioned them directly, but I stand by my sales numbers. I am open to hearing what errors I made. I trusted my sources, as I think I should be able to, but if anyone can tell me exactly what details I had wrong and how they know, I would love to know. Stuff like this always interests me, so don't let a simple misinterpretation over the internet put a hault to the exchange of info/views! Sorry guys!
I admittedly have no numbers to back up my opinion but I don't think Ferrari will be any huge success in this city. I hope it's true that this is just a hobby for the owner because even though we're all glad to have it here Vancouver just isn't the place for any strictly high-end product to focus on. It's difficult selling Bruno Maglis to a market that adores Birkenstocks. I hope they make enough to stick around but the market here just isn't one that I'd take a chance on. I wish them luck though and hope I'm wrong. Again, I don't have the numbers but as far as this city goes that's probably an understatement.
Vasco, Thank you for the welcome and I'm sorry if my post came across as a statement that all car salesmen are sleazy. That wasn't my intent. I know very well that there are good salesmen vs. not so good salesmen. I'm simply stating that there is no reason at all to be intimidated by a salesman and if this is how a salesman makes you feel, he might want to remind himself of his actual job description. This applies to any industry.
I don't think you should be that hard on Vancouver. You are right though, being a Ferrari dealer better be a hobby 9 times out of 10. Welcome by the way!
I think ross just injects the money and the gm runs the business. of course, they have to have business sense, which i think they do. they will be moving the store downtown in a few months and that is very important for its presence to be known. they have been attending a few italian car events locally. vancouver is an odd market. lambo just came back, and you see all these ppl driving a dime a dozen 996TT and SL55 around. where are they moving upmarket? the fact that the upper luxury/sports car market is widening itself (continental gt, DB9, gallardo, etc etc) does make a ferrari necessary in vancouver. i have high hopes of them. however, seeing their CS sitting around is sad. that car should have been sold and be happily driven. BJ can be very successful in selling BMW's. have you seen the size of their new BMW centre? the new dealership has its own quibbles. hope they work things out as the business runs uphill.
Yesterday, a Bentley Arnage at the Canadian Tire on No 3 and Capstan Way in Richmond. Then today, a black (w/ silver stripes) Dodge Viper GTS at that same body shop where I've seen the red 355 Spider a couple of times (no damage to either of them, just parked out front). And the best one, an orange Gallardo at the Blue Sea Health Spa (theres usually some nice cars there, BMW 7's, Merc S's, etc.) at No 3 and Capstan in Richmond.
I dont know if this is considered "spotting" a Ferrari but a friend of a friend has a blue/sliver drop top Ferrari 360. Its has some mod's like aftermarket rims and its located in Vancouver. Hopefully I can get around to taking some pictures but the thing that amazes me is he's only 24 and he's driving a Ferrari, imagine that. Oh by the way, I also spotted a brand new Rolls Royce Phantom in downtown, black with some large chrome rims. It was near Opus in Yaletown and all I can say is what a amazing car when you actually see it person.
yesterday yellow 360 spider near the truck crossing. last night (early this morning) around 1am, silver gallardo down by english bay.
Hey, don't forget the red/tan 328GTS heading northbound on Granville downtown around 3pm today, Sunday 8/29. Had Alberta plates
