Big wheels

In a tete-a-tete, with Jatin Ahuja of Big Boy Toyz delves into how the high-end car trade works

How did Big Boy Toyz come about? How was it conceptualised? Was it passion driven or just an economically viable prospect?

i have been interested in cars since childhood. You can call it a passion that over time became a profession. i studied to be a mechanical engineer. i was only 17 when i started dealing with cars. five or six years later we launched big boy toyz. but i have been in the automotive trade for 11 years.

What was your first car?

My first car, that was gifted to me by my dad, was the Mercedes 300D, in 2004. after that, all the cars that i have owned, i have bought myself. i have owned 20 cars over all this time.

What sets Big Boy Toyz apart from the competition? What do you do differently?

We are a very customer-centric company. We believe in making our clients happy, no matter what it takes. We do not want to just satisfy our customers, we believe in delighting our customers. Satisfaction is a dated concept. customer delight is the focus for us now, and we try and deliver this to our customers, no matter what it takes. an important aspect of the bbt business is that everybody who has had dealings with us has become a repeat customer. our customers do not go to another dealer after dealing with us, because we believe in providing quality service. We take our time with our cars to make sure we deliver customer delight. Whatever we do, we ensure quality. this takes time and energy, and does not come cheap. We don’t sell cheap cars. Quality is paramount. our customers may not remember the price they paid us for a car, but they do remember that it was a good car.

What do you do to ensure value and quality?

We don’t sell cars to one particular region. We do business all across the country. We go to the remotest places. I go to orissa, Kolkata, Jammu and Kashmir. i go anywhere i need to go to procure a car and make sure that it is a high quality product. We focus on a variety of aspects when we buy a car, including its service history. We check if there were any accidents, what has gone wrong with the car, what has been repaired, the insurance history, where it was bought, every little thing. We do an RTO check. We check the profile of the person we are dealing with. We do not buy a car from any Tom, Dick and Harry. We do not buy a car from a company which is under liquidation or anything like that. We have 151 check points listed on our website. We don’t buy cars that have been involved in an accident, we do not buy refurbished cars.

Do your cars come with a warranty?

Yes, every car we sell comes with a sixmonth warranty. every car we sell has a 25 per cent buyback; so if you buy a car from us, we will take it back with a 25 per cent

depreciation within a year. Thirty per cent of our clients don’t even come to our store to buy cars. They just go online, check the car, make the payment and we deliver the car. They don’t even come to see the car. We give them an assurance; you make the payment and the car reaches your doorstep. If you don’t like the quality, we will refund the entire amount. Not one customer has sent back a car.

What is the pre-owned exotic car market in India like?

There are more buyers than sellers. And there is a huge gap between the buyer and seller. There are no organised players in the middle to facilitate the transaction and that is the biggest issue the car trade in India is struggling with. There are about 50006000 car dealers in the country but most of them tamper with the odometer, sell cars involved in accidents, as that is how they can make the maximum profit.

We do not sell any car with more than 25,000km on the odo, nor any car manufactured before 2011. We sell about 80-90 cars a year with less than 2000km on the odo. Sports cars change hands a lot so they remain within the fold. Once these cars reach the 25,000km mark, they go off our radar. We sell off these cars because they do not fall into the Big Boy Toyz criteria.

At the end of the day, quality is the only thing that makes us stand out in the crowd.

What was the market like when you started and how has it evolved?

The Indian market is exactly the way it is in Europe. It follows the trend but it is ten years behind, but it is catching up. Everything that is there in the West is coming to India and the waiting periods are also getting shorter. Now the trend in

We do not believe in satisfying a customer, we believe in delighting the customer

the west is the used car market is 4.5 times bigger than the new car market. In India the used car market is 1.1 times bigger than the new car market. By 2018-19 this ratio will increase from 1.1 to 2.5. We are catching up. In fact as a company, we are clocking a 60 per cent growth every year, for the last five years.

What cars do you drive.

I drive a BMW GT, I have a Lexus and a Volkswagen Beetle. I like to keep a low profile.

What would be your dream garage?

My dream garage would include a Ferrari 458 Italia and a 5.0-litre supercharged pre-2012 Range Rover Autobiography.