Stellantis changes its sales model and turns its dealers into mere delivery agents without any influence on sales prices. In addition, 39% of them will not see their contract with the automotive group renewed.
In 2021, Stellantis informed all its dealers that the contracts signed with them would be canceled in order to be renegotiated. Later, in August of that same year, the automotive group reported that 39% of those dealers would no longer belong to their network for sale in Spain.
These movements are included in the framework of a Total renewal of the Stellantis sales concept In our country. Currently, each concessionaire has relative independence, but the group resulting from the union between PSA and FCA has decided to change that.
“We do not have the tools to know if this move to the agency model will mean a change in dealer margins”
Once the transformation is executed, dealerships will become something more like a multi-brand dealeralthough only from the brands belonging to the group (Opel, Citroën, Peugeot, FIAT, etc).
In addition, dealers will become mere agents assigned to the processing and delivery of vehicles, since they will not have any influence on the sale prices, unlike what happens today. All this in a climate of rising prices, sales crisis and uncertainty about the future of the automotive sector.
An exception that can become a trend
This change in concept worries faconautothe association representing Spanish dealers, as it fears that Stellantis is only the first of many manufacturers to adopt such a sales model.
Months ago, Faconauto started talks with the employers of the automobile companies, ANFACseeking an agreement that provides legal certainty to dealers in the event that a manufacturer decides to end the relationship with its distribution network.
However, and according to reports Five Daysthese talks are not going in the right direction and the first meeting between Wayne Griffiths, president of ANFAC and SEAT, and Gerardo Pérez, his counterpart from Faconauto, did not make any progress on it.
The estimates of the latter body with respect to the restructuring of the Stellantis distribution network in Spain indicate that between 10,000 and 12,000 jobs will be lost as a result of the layoffs. And it is that a total of 129 companies will be affected by the establishment of the new model.
In addition to all this, Faconauto asks Stellantis to provide more information about a business model that, according to them, leaves many loose ends. “We don’t have the tools to know if this move to the agency model will mean a change in dealer margins. We ask for a clear business model».
Photos: Stellantis