The interest has soared, said Rockar founder Simon Dixon, since GoAutoNews Premium first investigated and wrote a report about the UK dealership’s fresh approach to selling cars and its (then) novel shopping centre locations.
“We have had such a lot of response from the GoAutoNews Premium article,” he said.
“We had quite a few emails from Australian businesses asking us to talk to them.
“We wanted to concentrate on the UK first but because of this level of interest we have had from Australia, we have had to look at gearing up internally so we can now meet demand from Australia.
“We’ve been a bit sidelined because of the launch of the Jaguar Land Rover site and other things, but we now have a dedicated team to start responding to the inquires we are getting from Australia.
“Quite a lot are at the very early inquiry stage and we have a group flying over in November to start discussions, so there’s lots of interest from Australia.”
Speaking from Rockar headquarters in London, Mr Dixon said there were 16 different inquires from Australia “ranging from a couple of manufacturer brands, current retailers and an interesting retailer that is not in the industry at all”.
“That’s our model. We should look to enable brands and dealers and new entrants to come in and then we can help them with the technology,” he said.
At first glance, it seems that Rockar’s main point of difference is the way it bases it dealerships within high-traffic shopping centres. It has two stores in London selling Hyundai products, and has recently added Jaguar Land Rover at the request of the car-maker.
Mr Dixon agrees that the shopping-centre concept is a marketing gem.
“From a marketing point of view, shopping centres do an excellent job,” he said.
“You can present a brand of vehicle to people who may not have ready access to that brand.
“Brands are having fewer and fewer visits by people at traditional dealerships compared with the potential floor traffic at shopping centres.
“Being able to do sales transactions at the shopping centre is also a big move.”
But the core of Rockar’s success is the online technology that facilitates the vehicle purchase.
“The main business for us going forward is to license the software for the online sales system,” he said.
Rockar has completed its software mapping for Hyundai and more recently Jaguar Land Rover in the UK.
“We have also pretty much worked out the mapping process for Hyundai in Australia,” Mr Dixon said without indicating that Hyundai may be Rockar’s first client in Australia.
“The mapping represents about a month of work for us. With JLR in the UK we have done the mapping but, for example, if we looked at the mapping for JLR in Australia, we reckon we could go live in about three months.
“What we have developed in the mapping system can be taken anywhere around the world, though it may need to be modified to suit specific markets with certain vehicles, for example.
“In Australia, there would be different vehicle data including specifications and for the used cars that would be traded.
“We would modify the software to suit the market,” he said.
By Neil Dowling
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