Shriram Automall The Beginning of a New Era

The operating environment for fleet operators in commercial vehicles and equipment industry, has been waning over the past few months. The major factors that influence the feasibility appear to be the increasing cost of operations and fleet management. Valuation of existing fleet and replacing the same with the new set of vehicles is also an agonizing task. The rise in overall cost of maintaining the fleet combined with considerable efforts that go in managing the fleet and capacity utilization are displaying signs of pressures on fleet operators. Due to all these concerns, several operators either postpone their expansion plans or at times even forgo the same. All these scenarios have also given a push to the market of pre-owned commercial vehicles and equipment. It helps the fleet operators to reduce their cost of acquiring new fleet and replace their obsolete fleet with much better models at a cheaper price.

Given the current environment where the fleet management has become an extremely crucial task in the industry and the market for used commercial vehicles and equipment is also growing day by day, there indeed is a need for an organised platform to meet these requirements. Identifying an opportunity and leveraging on its experience of operating in this segment for decades, the Shriram Transport Finance Company (STFC) launched a new venture Shriram Automall India Limited, an ideal platform for buying and selling used and unused commercial vehicles, agricultural and construction equipment. It extends a helping hand to the fleet operators, NBFC's and end users and offer several services to meet their wide-ranging requirements.

Shriram Automall India Limited represents a One-Stop Destination for buying and selling commercial vehicle and equipment. This unparallel concept of Automall meets all the requirements of customers under one single roof. The concept of Automall has become a unique platform for buying and selling pre-owned industrial equipment by the way of organised and transparent auctions. It also provides fleet management services to the entire community along with various other facilities which are extremely valuable for the fleet owners and individual customers. Some of the major services offered by Shriram Automall are secured stockyards, convenient Parking Facilities, full-fledged service stations to refurbish old vehicles through NEW LOOK, documentation and valuation.

As per the surveys conducted by several relevant agencies, the trucking segment in India is witnessing interesting trends, while the M&HCV segment is witnessing steady increase in share of heavy duty, long haulage trucks owing improvement in road and highway infrastructure, M&HCVs which tend to be more influenced by the macro-economic indicators is likely to register a huge demand along with the steadily growing LCV segment. It is expected that the M&HCV industry will grow by 3-4% in FY12 and LCV industry by 17-18% in FY12. This further justifies a need of an organised platform like Shriram Automall in Indian CV and Equipment industry. With over 90% financing penetration, funding and insurance availability also plays a significant role in influencing the demand for CVs besides other demand drivers and so to meet this requirement of its customers. Shriram Automall also offers FINANCE & INSURANCE facility through Shriram Transport Finance Company.

Shriram Automall offers services through several channels – Auctioning (physical and online), One-Stop (Virtual Truck Bazaar), New Look (Refurbishment Unit). A brief about all these businesses is given as under:

Auctioning: Each Automall is spread across 3 – 5 acres of land and is strategically located near the highways. It addresses the needs of buyers and sellers with utmost transparency where our customers are invited to inspect the vehicles and equipment parked in the automalls/yards and buy the same if they are satisfied with their condition/quality. Shriram Automall conducts more than 100 Auctions in a month all over India. Various other services like documentation, parking and valuation are also available at all Automalls. Besides offering direct interface through physical auctions, we also offer facility of online auctions through our portal www.samil.in/bids.

New Look: New Look is further engaged in 2 major services, it offers the facility of refurbishing vehicles and then selling the same with the consent of the owner. New Look service stations are present in almost all the automalls/yards and the services offered by them have benefited the community in an exotic manner.

One Stop: For those who are not comfortable to participate physically or online auctions, Shriram Automall has introduced ONE STOP Kiosk, which is based on intranet. With around 500 kiosks placed all over the country, more than 20,000 vehicles are always listed on these kiosks. Customers can go through the details of the vehicles over the kiosks and if interested, can contact the representative available near the kiosks for further details and procedure of transaction. This is more of a negotiated sale wherein the representative acts as a mediator between the buyer and seller and helps them to close the deal.

This way Shriram Automall India Limited intends to serve the Fleet Management of Commercial Vehicles and Equipment unlike anyone in the industry.