Window shopping has a new twist at Westshore Town Centre.
Victoria Hyundai has opened a new showroom but contrary to what many may first picture, the showroom is inside the mall, near the children’s play area.
“What is really cool about this is to watch all the people as they walk by and stop dead in their tracks,” said general manager Jody Dick.
The showroom is modelled after a sister store in Ontario, which has an even larger footprint inside a mall. “They sell 15 to 20 cars a month,” he added.
While he said the model is becoming more common, it’s still a relatively new concept. “Automotive manufacturers are always looking at different ways to expose people to their products.”
Having a location in a mall is a perfect way to do just that, Dick noted, as shoppers will come in and take a look at the vehicles on display. But many of them wouldn’t go to a dealership to do that unless they were already looking at a new vehicle.
While you can’t test drive a car straight out of the showroom, that can still be arranged with staff bringing vehicles from the downtown dealership. “We will literally be bringing cars out in a shuttle fashion,” Dick said.
Those vehicles will then be parked in designated staff spots – away from other cars joked Dick – so they won’t be taking up customer parking. “We’ll even be able to do deliveries …. right here in the mall parking lot.”
Dick noted their downtown dealership isn’t in the most ideal location and is faced with a number of challenges that comes with that. “We decided to branch out and get onto the West Shore,” he said. “We’re desperately seeking property to build a new dealership.”
And now Langford is on their radar.
“This process started in May,” Dick said, noting they were first rejected but a chance conversation got them on the right track and they recently received all of the needed approvals from the City of Langford and council.
“The relationships you create – with for example Bentall Kennedy [Westshore Town Centre operator] – are fantastic,” he added.
The West Shore location has been operating for a little more than a week with grand opening celebrations planned for Saturday.
Within that first week two cars had already been sold with a lease not quite finalized as well. Dick expects they’ll be looking at 10 to 15 sales a month.
“I’m really excited about this whole concept, just to expose our product to more people on the West Shore, it helps everybody.”
