This can't be good news in the city.
Ford Motor Co. said Tuesday it plans to trim the number of dealerships it has in 18 metropolitan areas across the country, blaming sliding car and truck sales for the decision.
It's a fact of business. Either customers or employees take it on the chin when a business struggles.
This just about says it all.
“If you think about where we were in terms of sales and market share and where we are, you quickly realize that in certain markets, we have more dealers than our market share can support profitably over time,” said company spokesman Jim Cain.
The blame is kind of like a goulash. Equal parts of competition, poor quality, economic downturn, unsustainable contractual commitments, and sprinkle on a dash of corporate malfeasance - or better yet, hubrus.
Its market share has declined from around 26 percent in the early 1990s to 17 percent at the end of July.
Ford's inability to compete has resulted in a kind of canibalism.
In some urban markets, Ford dealers compete against each other rather than other automotive brands, Cain said. Some of those dealerships aren’t profitable, he said.
“In these multipoint markets, that’s the toughest place to make money,” Cain said. “You have many more Ford dealers competing for limited market share.”
So, it looks like some cities are going to get hit again. That's truly unfortunate.
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