Carz4U, a partnership with John Hughes Group and former Westside Auto Wholesalers manager Idan Young, started in January this year and though traffic is good, Mr Hughes sees the concept strengthening in line with more vehicle offerings.

“It will have humble beginnings,” he told GoAutoNews Premium. “We are very encouraged by the way the business is going, even though it’s very early days.

“We have about 200 vehicles available but we believe the sales are increasing to a point that we will double the warehouse size.

“That will cost about $1.5 million but we will be able to stock up to 600 vehicles. That should be ready by the third quarter of this year.

“We now sell about 150-200 a month from the warehouse in Welshpool (south-east of Perth) but we believe that with the additions, we should be able to sell 350 vehicles a month.”

Mr Hughes said it was unlikely he would roll out the Carz4U concept anywhere else in Perth, though he has not ruled out expansion into other states.

He said the reason for the single Perth outlet is the difficulty in getting stock.

Carz4U is also different from a previous warehouse used-car facility run by the John Hughes Group.

“We had run that for a while but around mid-way through last year, the stock levels fell and it was competing with my open-yard lots in Victoria Park.,” he said.

“The problem is that with a warehouse, the vehicles inside can’t be viewed when it’s after hours. My used-car lots allow people to see the vehicles on weekends, after hours, anytime.”

But there are advantages with the Carz4U warehouse. The vehicles are fixed price, which according to Mr Huges, “means we have to get the price low enough to sell, and high enough to return a realistic margin”.

The warehouse is open on weekdays 8am to 6pm, on Wednesdays 8am to 9pm, and on Saturdays until 1pm, and closed on Sundays.

By Neil Dowling