MINI USA Allows Some Dealers to Open Service Only Centers

It’s been a MINI owner ask for almost two decades to place service centers in areas that MINI USA dealers aren’t located. It would seem that finally MINI USA is relenting. Automotive News recently had a chat with Head of MINI USA Mike Peyton about the state of MINI dealers and he touched on the new program.
Peyton told Automotive News:
“We’ve recently launched Mini Anywhere, our online sales tool, that will allow more people that maybe don’t have a Mini dealer near them to get a Mini. But then the next question will be, ‘OK, if I don’t have a full dealership near me, how do I get it serviced?’ “
MINI USA has shrunk its 127 stores down to 111 stores over the last two years and will be closing a handful of dealers in 2022.
“We had too many dealers for the opportunity that was out there. Back in 2019, we had a significant number of dealers that were not profitable,” Peyton said.
Additionally MINI USA has also begun allowing MINI dealers to co-locate with BMW dealers to streamline operations.
It’s always interesting to see different take-aways as we also had some time to sit down and came away with a much different conclusion. Automotive News focused on sales dropping where we went beyond that and spoke about the health of profitability of the dealers – which is excellent for many. You can listen to our interview with Mike Peyton in the late Whiteroodradio.