Run by director James McConville and fellow director Stephen McConville, James’s dad, the Anfield-based business employs 11 people. Tony McDonough reports
Liverpool car supermarket Solo Cars is actively seeking a bigger site after seeing sales soar since 2017.
Run by director James McConville and fellow director Stephen McConville, James’s dad, the Anfield-based business employs 11 people and stocks more than 100 premium-branded cars.
Rising revenues
They started the business in 2008 with just 20 vehicles and one member of staff. In 2017 Solo sold 651 cars and saw turnover hit £3.5m. In 2018 sales were up 33% to 972 and turnover up 55% to £5.6m.
James is now projecting another healthy increase for 2019 with estimated sales 13% higher at 1,100-plus and turner expected to rise 32% to £7.4m. He said the search for new premises is now becoming a priority after an initial plan fell through.
He told LBN: “We are currently fully self-funded but we have £800,000 in place to finance our expansion. Our site is running at 100% capacity and the need for a new one is an everyday problem.
“Liverpool is a thriving city and, because of that, we can’t find the showroom we want or the correct site to build on. We thought we had site secured after two years of conversations with Liverpool City Council.
“But, at the last minute, they said they had other plans for the site under a larger scheme. It was a huge disappointment as we had spent several thousands of pounds preparing designs and plans.”
Top reviews
James says Solo has the the best car dealers review in Merseyside and AutoTrader rated the business as 47th best car dealer out of 13,000 in the UK. This is based on a number of factors such as business practices and review scoring.
He added: “After a slow year in 2017 we invested heavily in modernising the showroom with a refurbishment, invested heavily in industry leading lead management system (Click Dealer).
“We also created a bespoke set of operational procedures, improved our stock profile to premium brands, developed our social media and lowered our finance rates to a flat rate of 3.5% which is totally unheard of in the motor industry.”