The emotional decision to close a 20-year family business
Scott Williamson will depart the car sales business without any bitterness, but with plenty of energy and a stack load of memories attached to him.
Naturally, it’s been an emotional decision for Scott Williamson to grapple with. But he’s content.
Williamson will this month finish up in the car sales industry. He has decided to wind down his business, X Factor Cars, in Invercargill.
He’ll depart without any bitterness, but with plenty of energy and a stack load of memories attached to him.
The 32-year-old has spent half of his life selling cars for the business. Fulltime since the age of 18.
His father Graham was the mastermind behind the start of the company in 2004.
“When Mum and Dad started the company, their idea was to have a market with a bit of a niche where the imports were grade one, immaculate, tidy, but under that $15k budget.
“As the business grew a little bit, and they started to turn over some money, the stock started getting better and better.
“Dad had always owned V8 Holdens, they were his vehicle of choice. And he always had people asking if he would sell his Commodores. He thought there was a gap in the market and he would give it a crack.
“They relocated to another site and went and bought a shitload of Holdens and Fords and gave it a crack.”
It was a bold move given at the time there was a global financial crisis playing out.
“It was against everyone’s advice. It’s something that I’m very proud of him to be fair. They tackled it and it just went berserk, it went off. [The cars] were coming and going as quick as we could get them.”
Southland’s enthusiastic vehicle culture certainly helped, Williamson says.
“Also, there are certain sectors, like the dairy sector for example, when they went well they all had to have a V8. Truck drivers, they spent all week in a truck and would have a nice V8 waiting for them in the weekend.”
Williamson took over managing the business in 2013 when his parents shifted to Cromwell to take on a dealership there.
A matter of days before the nationwide Covid-19 lockdown Williamson took over the ownership of X-Factor Cars from his parents.
While that delivered some unique times, car sales following the lockdown surged.
After that golden period, there have been some challenges though. Mostly around stock availability.
The market has changed, quicker than Williamson anticipated.
At the end of 2017, Holden wound up producing V8s and Ford also dropped production of the Ford Falcon.
Williamson believed over the next 10 years they would still come and go. However, what wasn’t factored in was that those vehicles become collectibles and soared in value as soon as production stopped.
“The ability to buy them for stock wasn’t there, locally anyway.”
Williamson could have gone down the track of importing from Australia and America, but that would be hard to stack up financially.
“With new Government legislation, emission taxes, clean car taxes, registration costs, it’s made it uneconomical.”
There was a brief moment when Williamson thought about pivoting.
He had been offered trips to Japan to go on a buying mission and get back into the Japanese market like the company had done at the start in 2004.
Williamson says it’s a good market, you can get cars and there will always be buyers.
“It was doable, but in all honesty, it wasn’t something I was passionate about.”
“X Factor Cars has built a brand, if you like, around power and performance, and the cars having the X Factor. To then go and fill the yard up with just stock, didn’t fit our mantra, it didn’t fit our brand. It almost went against everything we represented.”
On top of that Williamson says there are already other players who covered that market well in Invercargill.
The decision to close the business is far from an impulse decision. It’s been in the pipeline for about 12 months, he says.
Williamson couldn’t suddenly one day turn off the tap when he had a yard chocker full of cars sitting there.
They had to get to a point where they stopped buying new stock, and the focus turned to selling off the remaining cars.
That was initiated at about Christmas. April 20 has been circled as the last trading day for X Factor Cars, but it may be open a little longer to try to clear any remaining stock.
Williamson doesn’t take for granted the support the business has had from its clients over the years. He thanks every single one of them for choosing X Factors Cars when making such an important purchase in their lives.
It’s that support which is why he says X Factor Cars has tried to get itself involved in the community, as much as it can, through different sponsorship offerings.
“It was Southlanders that got us going, it was Southlanders that backed us and continued to support us.”
Williamson’s father was once the president of the Blues Rugby Club in Invercargill, he understood the importance of local businesses offering up help where they can.
Williamson’s content as he now eyes the final days of the business.
“I’ve been doing this particular job since I was 16, I’m now 32, so I’ve done it for half my life. I just thought, ‘Hey, I might enjoy something else’.”
The family element to the X Factor Cars journey has been something special.
“We’ve always had the same ideas; we’ve shared a lot of the same visions and had the same level of passion…. There’s never been a time that working together as a family has been a challenge. It’s been really special.”
Williamson’s initial thought was to pursue his SW Finance business interests further. However, a job with a nationwide finance firm surfaced that he says he couldn’t turn down.
He’s excited about that next challenge.
As well as the decision to close down the car sales business, a decision also looms as to what to do with the yard on the corner of Gala St and Dee St which it operates from.
The business owns the property and Williamson says a decision hasn’t been made as to if they will lease it out or sell it.
What he is encouraged by, is the fact they have had plenty of interest since revealing the closure last week.
“There’s definitely been things that have come out of the woodwork in terms of potential tenants or potential buyers. The interest has certainly been a little overwhelming, more so with the potential developments, if you like, which I obviously can’t disclose.”