Conquest | GM Authority

GM Stays Aggressive With Sales Incentives, Offers 0% Financing For March
by Manoli Katakis
Posted March 11th, 2010 at 3:38 pm

GM is offering zero percent financing for sales that occur during the month of March. Interestingly, GM’s announcement comes days after Toyota introduced the same incentive to help alleviate the sales dive experienced by the automaker due to recall afflictions and PR atrocities. When coupled with GM’s exclusive sales incentives for disgruntled Toyota owners, it becomes clear that The General is making a commitment to conquer as much market share (from Toyota and company) as possible.

The zero percent financing move is said to cover roughly 55 percent of all 2010 GM models currently on sale. Moreover, The General is also offering 0 percent financing for 72 months on remaining 2009 model inventory. In total, both incentives cover about 97 percent of what’s left on dealer lots.

Top top it all off, March is also Chevy and GMC truck month, with GM Vice President of U.S. marketing, Susan Docherty, saying “We’re going headstrong into truck month for both Chevrolet and GMC, which is a traditional play that we have normally done during March.”

But not only is March truck, reading, and college basket hoops month, it also marks the end of the first quarter of the year. Both GM and Toyota are most likely striving to capture as many last-minute sales as possible before the quarter comes to a close in an effort to have as strong a bottom line as possible. If GM succeeds, it will pile onto the previous booming months of January and February.

[Source: Automotive News via Autoblog]

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Toyota Loses Consumer Reports Recommendation
by Wilson Nunnari
Posted February 1st, 2010 at 7:02 pm

Many a dog owner will tell you that their pups are very reliable, loyal creatures. Some may even say they’re a man’s best friend. And while their dogs may be faithful, owners can sometimes be even more loyal to their pets than vice-versa. This kind of relationship is mirrored between Consumer Reports and the publication’s readers, who are devoted to the magazine, and the magazine, conversely, to them.

No matter what you think of CR (it does err on occasion – remember the Toyota Matrix and Pontiac Vibe reviews?), the mag is perceived to have a reliable reputation. Most recently, Consumer Reports removed its “Recommended” status of any Toyota vehicle under the current recall. According to the publication’s parent company, the removal is temporary since Toyota is hard at work on righting its wrong, recalling and fixing the effected products. CR claims that the danger of unintended acceleration and lack of known repair for this problem is the reason for dropping the recommended status of the Toyota vehicles in question.

General Motors is already kicking Toyota while it’s down and Consumer Reports has begun the process of swinging its leg. All this should assist General Motors’ already-increasing market share and provide another reason for buyers to take advantage of The General’s zero percent financing with a Toyota trade.

Since the recall is temporary, the magazine will re-recommend Toyota models once everything is fixed up and the vehicles are deemed safe again. Will it then be too late for Toyota? Only time will tell…

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50 Percent Of Chevy Camaro Buyers Traded In A Competitive Vehicle
by Alex Luft
Posted December 3rd, 2009 at 2:58 pm

We just reported that upon releasing its November 2009 sales results, GM also let us know that nearly 50 percent of Equinox buyers traded in a non-GM vehicle.

To our luck, we also found out that the new hot-rod on the block – the all-new Chevy Camaro – is just as much of a sales conquest success as the Equinox, with VP of Sales Susan Docherty saying that 50% of Camaro buyers “traded in a competitive vehicle.”

As if that isn’t enough, the new Camaro has sold 35,000 copies and has outsold its cross-town rival, the Ford Mustang, for six consecutive months.

Again, we can’t emphasize enough how important conquest (also known as switcher) sales are to The General at this point in time. We hope GM continues the trend of taking sales away from competitors and, with the amount of class-leading products coming from The General, there’s no reason why this shouldn’t continue to be the case. That said, GM still has a lot of work to do in the foreseeable future and beyond.

[Source: GM]

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Nearly 50 Percent Of Chevy Equinox Buyers Traded In A Non-GM Vehicle
by Alex Luft
Posted December 3rd, 2009 at 1:55 pm

When GM reported its November 2009 sales results, one of the more interesting details was the sales performance of the all-new Chevrolet Equinox: retail sales were up 247 percent compared to last year and up 27 percent calendar year-to-date.

More importantly, Vice President of Sales Susan Docherty reported that nearly 50 percent of Equinox buyers traded in a non-GM vehicle.

This is good news all around for The General: all GM brands need as many “switchers” as possible – especially at a time like this. (For those not current on the latest marketing speak, “switchers” are people making the switch from one brand to another.) And while we don’t know how many switchers actually traded in a competing compact or mid-size CUV (like a RAV4 or a CR-V, or Highlander), a sale is a sale – and we’re glad these buyers picked a GM product.

[Source: GM]

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