Hi All,
Just thought I owed it to the community here to explain why I decided to close the doors for car sales at Mercland.
It was this club that encouraged me to start this business in the first place.
Not sure many here will remember the early days of the club… My passion for the brand started with my yellow W123 and Mercedes became an obsession through my adult life.
Mercland started trading in 2005 when I left my job at JP Morgan in the city, to come and help my dad with his service station business, as he wasn’t in the best health at the time.
In 2006 the company was born properly and that was that. It was always meant to be a side hobby as I was due back to my city job in 6 months.
As it happened, I met Janki, my wife. She had no interest in moving to London, so we stayed, she joined the business and the rest is history…
We have given around 20,000 cars new homes since then….
What a journey it has been. Many ups and downs. Good times, bad times, ive been beaten up physically and mentally, ive been called all sorts of names when a car has maybe gone wrong and on the same day ive been given gifts and hampers etc.
It’s a funny old business.
We have met some wonderful people, I have made life long friendships and its sad to think I wont be supplying some of our regulars with their next cars.
When I am in a better place in my head, I want to write up some of the colourful stories from the years… ill share them here for sure.
Back to why I am ending the car sales….
Not an easy decision and one that I have pondered many times over the years. Ultimately, financially it hasnt been worth the hours that myself and my family put in... the last couple years have been terrible in that regard and therefore the decision in the end was pretty obvious. We needed to hit reset and take a break from the side of the business that was draining us in many ways.
Margins in the business have been very tight for all of us in this industry.... and on top of that the business just seemed to get more and more difficult in general.
Customers expectations have been on another level since covid, the grief/abuse we get on a daily basis, even though I feel we always go well above and beyond for our customers…
I think it was important for my family for me to make a change for my own mental wellbeing....
My family rely on me.. and for too long I have spent every hour at work, most days into the early hours, seven days a week…
I realised my kids are teenagers all of a sudden and I have no idea when that happened.
I love Mercedes, its been my life since a young child, but the sales side was killing that passion.
I tried to delegate my day to day work to others in the business, but ultimately, paid staff just do not commit in the same way as I do... I have tried for years to foster my ethics and philosophy through the business. Whilst I had some fantastic people working with me, in the last couple of years when we were selling 140+ cars a month, I needed over 30 of me to make it work well, if that makes sense?
Being a very niche, specialist business, the business never really worked without me at the centre of it.
Lots of other little things drove the decision also.... If i never hear the word "Nox Sensors" again, ill be a happy man... We have spent literally hundreds of thousands of £ on them...
I think a focus on the service side will give me more time to do the things I enjoy... help to diagnose and fix cars, fun projects and I hope to reignite that passion for the brand again...
For now, I want to try going home before they switch the street lamps off, see what that feels like and then we will see where we go.
Who knows what the future holds, Im sure ill be selling cars again at some point… for the moment, Im just so tired of it!
We will be open fully for service, MOT, bodywork and so on. We have plenty of capacity now that we aren’t preparing our sales cars and would love to see more enthusiasts visit us.
Who knows, maybe I have time to organise a summer get together now?
I do sincerely thank everyone who we had any dealings with over the years.
Thanks all.
Jay
Just thought I owed it to the community here to explain why I decided to close the doors for car sales at Mercland.
It was this club that encouraged me to start this business in the first place.
Not sure many here will remember the early days of the club… My passion for the brand started with my yellow W123 and Mercedes became an obsession through my adult life.
Mercland started trading in 2005 when I left my job at JP Morgan in the city, to come and help my dad with his service station business, as he wasn’t in the best health at the time.
In 2006 the company was born properly and that was that. It was always meant to be a side hobby as I was due back to my city job in 6 months.
As it happened, I met Janki, my wife. She had no interest in moving to London, so we stayed, she joined the business and the rest is history…
We have given around 20,000 cars new homes since then….
What a journey it has been. Many ups and downs. Good times, bad times, ive been beaten up physically and mentally, ive been called all sorts of names when a car has maybe gone wrong and on the same day ive been given gifts and hampers etc.
It’s a funny old business.
We have met some wonderful people, I have made life long friendships and its sad to think I wont be supplying some of our regulars with their next cars.
When I am in a better place in my head, I want to write up some of the colourful stories from the years… ill share them here for sure.
Back to why I am ending the car sales….
Not an easy decision and one that I have pondered many times over the years. Ultimately, financially it hasnt been worth the hours that myself and my family put in... the last couple years have been terrible in that regard and therefore the decision in the end was pretty obvious. We needed to hit reset and take a break from the side of the business that was draining us in many ways.
Margins in the business have been very tight for all of us in this industry.... and on top of that the business just seemed to get more and more difficult in general.
Customers expectations have been on another level since covid, the grief/abuse we get on a daily basis, even though I feel we always go well above and beyond for our customers…
I think it was important for my family for me to make a change for my own mental wellbeing....
My family rely on me.. and for too long I have spent every hour at work, most days into the early hours, seven days a week…
I realised my kids are teenagers all of a sudden and I have no idea when that happened.
I love Mercedes, its been my life since a young child, but the sales side was killing that passion.
I tried to delegate my day to day work to others in the business, but ultimately, paid staff just do not commit in the same way as I do... I have tried for years to foster my ethics and philosophy through the business. Whilst I had some fantastic people working with me, in the last couple of years when we were selling 140+ cars a month, I needed over 30 of me to make it work well, if that makes sense?
Being a very niche, specialist business, the business never really worked without me at the centre of it.
Lots of other little things drove the decision also.... If i never hear the word "Nox Sensors" again, ill be a happy man... We have spent literally hundreds of thousands of £ on them...
I think a focus on the service side will give me more time to do the things I enjoy... help to diagnose and fix cars, fun projects and I hope to reignite that passion for the brand again...
For now, I want to try going home before they switch the street lamps off, see what that feels like and then we will see where we go.
Who knows what the future holds, Im sure ill be selling cars again at some point… for the moment, Im just so tired of it!
We will be open fully for service, MOT, bodywork and so on. We have plenty of capacity now that we aren’t preparing our sales cars and would love to see more enthusiasts visit us.
Who knows, maybe I have time to organise a summer get together now?
I do sincerely thank everyone who we had any dealings with over the years.
Thanks all.
Jay
