Local car dealerships have been hit especially hard by the coronavirus, but both Champion and Don Moore are doing everything they can for their employees and are trying to maintain a positive outlook on the future.
With their showrooms closed by order of Gov. Andy Beshear, sales have dipped significantly — though both dealers are still able to complete transactions by phone and internet, and they can still make deliveries to the house.
Still, employee’s jobs and compensation have been a main priority.
“We haven’t laid anybody off,” said Champion President/General Manager Duke Brubaker. “That was one of my goals. We are a family here, we have a team atmosphere. I can’t see doing that, especially in our community. My family doesn’t operate that way. We want to take care of our people and come through this on the other end.”
John Moore, who runs the Don Moore family business with his brothers, offered similar thoughts.
“Trying to protect people is the most important thing in all of this,” Moore said. “In all of this, you’re just trying to help protect their livelihood to at least not make too big of an impact in their life.”
Neither dealership was taken by surprise when the mandate came out to close their doors to the public. Other states had taken similar steps, so it was only a matter of time before Kentucky followed suit.
“I expected it,” Brubaker said. “I knew it was coming. It’s effective and it keeps people healthy, so I’m for it. It’s fine.”
Moore added, “In some ways, it made life easier for us to just say let’s close for a little bit.”
In the weeks leading up to the closure, both dealerships had actually recorded a high sales volume despite everything going on with the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The first part of March before we had to shut down, new sales were up compared to last year,” Brubaker said. “We were on a good trend. We had a few good days right before the governor issued the executive order for us to shut down. It’s unfortunate because we were on a pretty good roll.”
Brubaker said the service department at Champion is still thriving, and they are offering free pickup and delivery or loaner vehicles.
Moore said sales at all their locations were surprisingly high during the first few weeks of March, but it was an obviously sharp decline over the last week. Still, he said they’ll be glad to help anyone looking to buy, and their service department is also open
“There are certain deals that people may want to take advantage of and there’s some people who have maybe had accidents,” he said. “There’s reasons that people may need to purchase, so we’re certainly glad to help if we can.”
Though the timeframe is uncertain, both dealers expect sales to pick back up quickly. Manufacturers are likely to showcase some especially enticing incentives once the restrictions are lifted.
“The good news is right now they’ve got all this time to be planning that,” Moore said. “I do think that’s going to cause a quick rush. We might make up 50 percent of what we lost pretty quickly.”
Brubaker said he thinks people will be eager to take advantage of those offers, and a big boom in sales would be a nice result.
“There are going to be some great deals for customers to take advantage of,” he said. “Manufacturers want to open those plants back up and move the iron that’s sitting on the lot. Plus, I think there is going to be a lot of pent-up demand from the customers.”
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