Lincoln to Cut More Dealership Locations This Year

[ice-capades]

Lincoln to Cut More Dealership Locations This Year After Record 2023 Decrease

https://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/ford/2024/01/25/lincoln-cut-dealership-locations/72358331007/

 

 

Lincoln said Thursday that it cut approximately 100 U.S. stores last year, a record number, and could shed around that many this year in an effort to bring its footprint closer in line with other premium brands.

 

The Ford Motor Co. luxury brand is working with dealers one-on-one on details of the buyouts, said spokesperson Anika Salceda-Wycoco, who declined to provide details on those transactions. Lincoln sold close to 82,000 vehicles in the United States in 2023, a 2% decrease year-over-year. Meanwhile, Cadillac sales rose 9%, and Lexus' were up almost 24%.

 

"Our priority is to be where the luxury clients are and where the luxury market is," Salceda-Wycoco said.

The consolidation has been ongoing for several years and is not related to electrified offerings, she said. Lincoln had approximately 500 stores at the end of 2023, down from 685 in 2021. The brand is looking to decrease that further to about 400 by the end of this year.

 

It's focused on brand-excusive locations to provide a luxury experience. Those stores total 164, including 58 "vitrine" boutique-style locations, with 23 being added this year.

 

Automotive News was first to report the 2024 consolidation target.

 

Lincoln isn't the only brand closing stores. In December, Buick, General Motors Co.'s oldest brand, said it reduced its dealer count by 47% after offering a buyout program in 2022, when it had 2,000 U.S. dealers. A similar program at Cadillac cut the luxury brand's dealer count by a few hundred franchises nationally.

Edited January 26 by ice-capades
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[Dequindre]

I really don't understand this. There are rural and suburban communities where Lincoln is the only luxury brand present. I would think that it would create a captive audience for individuals in the market for a luxury vehicle. 

[GearheadGrrrl]

Got not one but two Lincoln/Ford dealers within 50 miles, Cadillac and the luxury imports are at least 70 miles away. Nice to have the dealers, too bad they don't have anything like a Caddy CT4/5, BMW M2, and Audi RS to sell.

[tbone]

1 hour ago, Dequindre said:

I really don't understand this. There are rural and suburban communities where Lincoln is the only luxury brand present. I would think that it would create a captive audience for individuals in the market for a luxury vehicle. 

I get it when the brands are completely combined at a dealership and you are trying to create a brand separation, identity, and experience, but it’s hard to understand context when you don’t know anything about the dealerships in question.  
 

But I don’t understand trying to shutter dealerships in smaller areas where you effectively restrict access to your product because of geographic location.  Nobody wants to work with a dealership that is two hours away.  
 

13 hours ago, ice-capades said:

Lincoln sold close to 82,000 vehicles in the United States in 2023, a 2% decrease year-over-year. Meanwhile, Cadillac sales rose 9%, and Lexus' were up almost 24%.

Hard to sell products you don’t have. A medium sized Lincoln dealership near me rarely had any Lincoln stock this past year.  It doesn’t help there are only four products to sell, one of which was going to be discontinued, and two that are pretty long in the tooth. Doesn’t necessarily create an ideal sales environment.  

[Chrisgb]

It's amusing to me that automakers seem to think that they must provide a lavish experience to sell their luxury brands, while offering $80,000+ SuperDutys,  2500s, Grand Wagoneers etc on the same show floor with Escapes, Trax' and Compass'.

What also seems odd is that many, if not most, of the Buick dealers are dualed with GMC; there can't be very many standalone Buick stores anymore. It will be interesting to see how GMC does going forward.

[GearheadGrrrl]

The "dealership experience" gets pretty ridiculous at times, like the wall the local VW/Audi dealer had to build through the middle of the dealership to separate the VW and Audi sides, including separate waiting rooms. I checked, coffee and cookies are the same on both sides. In bigger markets it gets even more ridiculous, with whole separate showrooms and lots next to each other and an attitude to match in the upmarket showrooms. I look like an elder farmer's wife, small town dealers get that but in places like Naples, Florida I've been challenged while wandering through the same dealer's Audi and Mercedes showrooms while waiting for my VW to be serviced... They'd probably call the cops if I wandered into their Porsche store!

 

If I was a small business owner shopping for a Sprinter I would have driven straight from that Mercedes dealer to the Ford store for a Transit. We've got a lot of elder women here that are unassuming millionaires due to farmland appreciation, like our last City Clerk who still worked for us part time in her 80s until she had to quit for health reasons. Fortunately the local Ford dealer didn't chase her out of the Lincoln corner of their showroom when she bought her Lincoln.