Profile

Personal Profile

My name is Andy Raja. I grew up in Burnaby; B.C. attended Moscrop and Burnaby Central School and then did my business education at Douglas College in New Westminster.  During my school years, I held various jobs; I delivered newspaper both before school and after school. During my college days, I held a job at a gas station.  I needed to have these jobs not only to support myself but to also support my addiction! Like most teenage boys, I realized that I had a passion for fast cars!!  At the age of 15 I had already bought my 1st project car and on my 16th birthday, I passed my driving test and got my driver’s licence.

During the next few years, I held jobs in the Automotive industry, and gained experience in the Parts, service and sales area of the automotive business, while constantly working on my project hot rod in my spare time, I realized that after completing a car to my satisfaction, I soon got bored of it and sold it, only to get into another car customizing project. I had to figure out a way to feed my passion for cars and still make a living at it.

That’s how I got into the car business.

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Auto-Rama Enterprises Limited Profile

In 1985, Auto-Rama was already in business as a car dealership. Mr. Jay Raja (my father) who financed the business and his partner, Mr. David Minor, managed and operated the day to day business; both held shares in the company. A few months later, the dealership ran into some difficulties and Mr. Minor resigned from the company. In an attempt to salvage the business, my wife, Mamta Raja and I joined the company.  The three of us worked very hard over the years and have made it into a successful family run business.

There were many reasons that attributed to the success of our business but I think the key reason that keeps any business solid is the management of running the day to day business. I believe that being very “hands on” in the business is very important in keeping costs down whilst getting a good quality vehicle to my customer. As an astute business man I have refined this skill very well over the years.

However the changing economic conditions have been challenging. This is not the industry of 20 years ago when a dealer could buy a car at auction and sell it a few weeks later for a handsome profit. Increased costs are cutting into the used car dealer’s profit margin and will continue to do so. The only way to thrive in the used car sales industry today is to cut costs. A new business model was needed to meet the new challenges.

·         We have done this by moving to a smaller location in South Surrey.

·         We have no commission salespeople. You get to deal directly with the owner. Less overhead means more saving onto you, the customer!

·         Virtual inventory: The timing is right for a service that allows a dealer to expose customers to the largest single source of used vehicles in Canada today. There are hundreds of vehicles available to dealers at auctions every week. If we can expose these vehicles to customers through the web, we don’t have to have a large and expensive lot and we don’t have to have a large inventory of vehicles.

·          I also believe that today’s consumer is much smarter and more information oriented especially in purchasing big ticket items like vehicles and use the web to get most of the information.

·         The customer gets more choices and the dealer has less overhead expenses,  the savings are passed on to the consumer.

VIRTUAL INVENTORY COMING SOON.

Address:

Unit #1 – 3033 King George Highway, Surrey, BC, V4P 1B8

Phone: (604) 435-0972
Fax: (604) 595-4401