Rising supply chain costs may close one in ten aftermarket businesses

A survey of businesses in the motor trade has yielded some alarming results.

Of 303 businesses polled, 31% said they have already had to make redundancies due to rising costs with a further 35% considering making staff cuts ‘within six months’.  10% of respondents indicated that they may be forced to permanently close their businesses if the outlook doesn’t improve. Similarly, two thirds of motor trade professionals plan to reduce working hours within their business, leading to further unemployment.

Conducted by Censuswide on behalf of Gallagher Insurance’s ChoiceQuote brand, the survey was conducted in the summer, but the results have only just been published.  The pessimistic picture shows that 89% have either already increased prices, or expect to do so imminently, while 82% said that their business is facing ‘serious’ or ‘very serious’ issues linked to inflation. 77% of those surveyed don’t expect things to improve over the next six months.

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Derek Henry, Managing Director of ChoiceQuote commented: “It’s definitely a worrying outlook. In recent months, rising new and used car prices, as well as fuel prices have meant that many businesses and traders have had to rethink their strategy or make some incredibly tough decisions on their future.”

Despite the negativity of the respondents, all sections of the motor trade other than new car sales have enjoyed a buoyant September and October, spurred in part by the knock-on concequence of the MOT ‘spike’ created by 2020s MOT extension.