Club Car is targeting the commercial market with the Carryall 700 and other vehicles.

With the golf car fleet market declining or stagnant the past few years, key suppliers like Club Car have had to look to other markets to find growth. A key target is the commercial UTV market. Towards that end Club Car has recently rolled out some new marketing initiatives emphasizing their Carryall utility vehicle.

One of the initiatives is Club Car’s Corporate Solution Program, which provides customers with fleet management and maintenance programs. The initiative is designed to address the problem of haphazard fleet vehicle development, where over the years an organization purchases a mixture of vehicles from a range of different manufacturers. This can lead to non-uniform vehicle standards and maintenance schedules, as well as more parts inventory, complexity and employee training. Under the Corporate Solution Program, experts from Club Car examine a customer’s vehicle needs and help them find the right mix of fleet vehicles to meet those needs. They also can establish maintenance schedules and logs and assign accountability for various aspects of fleet management. Key customer segments are universities, resorts and government agencies.

Another initiative targeting the commercial customer is Club Car’s new Bank on Carryall sales event which allows qualified commercial customers to purchase new 2015 or 2016 Carryall with no payments for six months or to lease 2015 and 2016 Carryall 500 or 700 models with special financing rates. With this initiative Club Car is hoping customers waiting for the next fiscal year’s budgets will be enticed to purchase now and pay later. One of the difficulties in selling to commercial customers is that they tend to purchase on a particular fiscal/budgetary cycle and within budgetary constraints, so there can be a limited time in which purchases or leases are made. It helps to have both purchase and leasing options available since funding can be drawn from either capital budgets or operating budgets depending on the customer, and the type of funding budget can determine whether a vehicle needs to be purchased or leased to “make the numbers work”. Learn more:  Pressreleaserocket.com

Comment:  The Corporate Solution Program is a clever way of leveraging one of the advantages that Club Car has, namely the range of vehicle types they offer. They can provide LSVs, people movers like trams as well as a range of utility vehicles. They also have extensive experience in both electric and gas powered vehicles. Target segments like universities, resorts and government agencies, or any customer that has diverse vehicle needs is well-suited for this program. Compared to say a Toro or John Deere, who only offer UTVs, this program could provide Club Car with an advantage. The one potential hurdle might be where a customer is looking for a more heavy duty UTV and may look more towards a John Deere or Polaris for that type of vehicle.