It’s not clear whether or not these earlier conversations had been hindered by the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. Maxwell instructed Automotive News in August that Costco executives recurrently focus on with automakers potential partnerships on incentives, together with on CPO automobiles. But in 2022, as dealerships within the Costco community continued to grapple with restricted new-vehicle allocation, Costco Auto Program revisited increasing incentives to used automobiles, he mentioned.
Volvo had been the primary automaker to associate with Costco Auto Program on a new-vehicle incentive with structured pricing in 2007. Since then, the 2 firms have supplied roughly 12 completely different automobile incentives, Maxwell instructed Automotive News. And each events got here to the identical conclusion in 2022, he mentioned: Why not design an incentive program for CPO automobiles, that are fascinating to patrons and never almost as scarce as new vehicles?
“Our dealers are no different than what dealers are experiencing in general [with] Custom inventory availability,” Maxwell mentioned.
It made sense to associate with Volvo on such an effort, Maxwell mentioned, as a result of the automaker and Costco Auto Program already had that “very good working relationship.” Volvo’s automobiles are also a well-liked choice for Costco members — usually the No. 1 or No. 2 luxurious model that they request, he mentioned.
Offering these members offers on used automobiles is just not new for Costco, nonetheless. The program has lengthy supplied prearranged member pricing on licensed used automobiles via authorized dealerships in its community. Costco’s first used-vehicle applications launched in a couple of markets in 2006.
If the brand new Volvo CPO promotion matches the success of its different promotions, it appears affordable that Costco would try to supply different automaker-specific CPO incentives, Maxwell mentioned. He didn’t disclose different manufacturers that Costco Auto Program might already be working with to develop such incentives.
“We have conversations with all of our OEM partners about all of our offerings, and with this being a new offering, everybody’s taking a peek,” Maxwell mentioned.
Source: www.autonews.com