Bangkok--17 Jul--24 คูณ 7
- 10 more showrooms are ready this year
- 100 more showrooms will be on service by the end next year
- Breakeven around 3 years with sales target of 30 – 50 cars per month per branch
V-Gulliver Company Limited, the franchiser of Gulliver International Japan used car brand, has gone ahead its plan to expand its nationwide network by promoting interested business units to join the Gulliver Family through its franchise business, according to Mr. Katsushi Nomura, Managing Director of V-Gulliver.
Mr. Nomura said now V-Gulliver has been discussing with interested firms to join with V-Gulliver as its franchisees, some of which are from Japan.
“Our next step is to communicate with our target groups to join with us under franchise concept,” said Mr. Nomura.
He said V-Gulliver in the near future would start communicating with the target groups, including the used car dealers, better known as used car tents, new car showrooms, leasing firms, car rental firms, and businessmen who are interested in used car business.
“Of course, we will provide our Franchise Support Programs, including training program for every franchisees, so the one who does not have any experience in used car business, but has strong intention to join the business, we will be able to grow together through our programs,” said Mr. Nomura.
He said now Gulliver Franchise Network is one showroom at Sri Nakarin Road and is planning to open two more showrooms in Nakon Sawan and Chiang Mai in the next few months.
“We are talking with interested partners to open more showrooms and by the end of this year we will have 10 showrooms and 100 showrooms nationwide by the end of next year,” said Mr. Nomura.
Mr. Nomura added that the franchisees might need 25 million baht as its initial investment and operation cost for each showroom, 10 of which for construction and the rest for vehicles stock and administration, with around 3 years for breakeven period.
He disclosed about the achievement of breakeven, Gulliver would support training program to the franchisees in addition to transfer knowledge from Japan to Thailand.
“I would say the Thai market currently is very similar situation as Japan in last 20 years and we have been trying to modernize Japanese used car market. Right now, I can say the market in Japan has already accepted used car,” said Mr. Nomura.
He said right now, for the customers who want to buy or sell their car, it is difficult to have trust for the current system, as they are fear of cheating practice from the used car traders. However, Gulliver has developed its own system to support franchisees to operate transparent and trustable used car trading from 20 years of experience in Japan.
“In Thailand, we have developed Purchase and Sales Assessment System, called PSA, in order to create transparent transactions. We have collected all trading data from auction houses and retail market. We also keep our trading record as our reference for customer when they want to know prices,” he said.
Moreover, the PSA which also offered share stock for every franchisee encouraging them to have lower cost from the large variety of vehicles being offered to the customers and adding that V-Gulliver was very confident that Gulliver brand would be well accepted in Thailand soon because Gulliver had introduced the success used car business platform to the Thai society, including 30 days or 5,000 km customer’s satisfaction buyback with six months or 10,000 kilometers warranty and 1 to 3 years warranty options depending on the aging of the vehicle.
He said franchise platform offered the express way to success with annual growth rate of 20% as a result of the brand with proven system as well as strong nationwide network.
“I would say about 98% of Japanese knows Gulliver brand and I’m sure that we will be able to build the brand to the Thai society as well,” said Mr. Nomura.
He said Gulliver was very confident on the used car market in Thailand because the market had high potential to grow as the ratio of car holders among house holders is only 13.8 % in year 2010. On the other hands, Japan is 86.5 %, regarding to JETRO’s report.
Gulliver is the largest used car firm from Japan and it established a joint venture, V-Gulliver, with V-Group, a leading automotive related firm in Thailand, to develop used car business in Thailand. It is now building some more showrooms in addition to its first showroom on Sri Nakarin Road with an initial investment of 10 million baht and by the end of this year 10 Gulliver showrooms will be in service nationwide.
Gulliver has been established more than two decades and now it is Japan’s number one used car company in Japan with 430 branches in Japan. It is buying 200,000 used cars a year and selling 60,000 cars through its 430 nationwide branches.