JOIN USThis Dashami, car dealers make merry on sales surge
Two months ago, very few customers would be in sight selecting or taking delivery of cars of their choice at automobile dealerships here. On Monday, automobile sales executives across the City said they had to labour hard as they all delivered an average of 20 cars to customers.
For the entire Dasara period, that began some time back, car sales and deliveries have gone up with customers insisting that the vehicles be handed over on Vijaya Dashami.
According to RTO officials, car registrations in the City peaked during the Dasara period. Shafi Ahmed, an RTO official said: “Saturday alone witnessed in excess of a thousand vehicles coming in for registration. And the average new registrations over the last week was in excess of 500 cars per day.”
For Ahmed, the sudden spurt was in sharp contrast to the days leading up to Dasara. “Before Dasara we were registering a paltry 25 to 30 cars a day and even before that we only peaked an average of 150 cars a day,” he said.
The RTO was closed on Monday. But the day, which marked the culmination of Dasara with Vijaya Dashami, was no different as car salesmen in the city reported for duty to service customers ranging from ‘mildly aware’ to “ultra aware” of the auspices. Vikram D S, a sales executive at Sundaram Motors, said his other colleagues and mechanics were around to address specification issues raised by different customers. “The past three days have witnessed a spurt in delivery and today, so far, we have had 15 deliveries and we are expecting many more out of the door by the end of the day. All back offices and departments at the dealership are closed today except sales,” he said.
TAFFE Access Ltd sales executive Harish corroborated Vikram, saying: “We have already delivered 18 cars and we are expecting another seven or eight, taking the total number of deliveries to 25.”
In certain cases, customers insisted that the dealers reverse the decision to be closed on Monday so that car delivery is ensured. Pradeep Kumar, a professional in the financial services industry, was initially disappointed when he was told that the dealers would remain closed for Vijaya Dashami.
“We insisted on taking the delivery of my uncle Balakrishna’s brand new Hyundai Santro on Vijaya Dashami but the dealer said he was closed. But we managed to convince him to reverse the decision and we were told that they delivered a total of 18 cars so far today,” said Kumar.