Jain Community Saves Rs 21.5 Crore By Buying 186 Luxury Cars Together
The Jain community across India, especially from Gujarat, is known for its business acumen. Recently, once again proving this, the folks from the Jain community across the country were able to save a whopping Rs 21.5 crore on luxury car purchases. Recently, Jain International Trade Organisation (JITO) members managed to buy 186 luxury cars for Rs 149.54 crore, getting a discount of Rs 21.54 crore.
As per reports, the Jain International Trade Organisation (JITO) and its members purchased around 186–190 luxury cars. These included models from brands like Audi, BMW, and Mercedes-Benz, along with many others. They ranged anywhere between Rs 50 lakh to Rs 1.5 crore. These purchases were made between January and June of this year.
As a result of this bulk purchase, each buyer was able to avail of a discount in the range of Rs 8–17 lakh, which is a substantial amount. In total, JITO members spent Rs 149.54 crore on these luxury cars. However, they were also able to save Rs 21.5 crore as well. A majority of the purchases were made in Gujarat, especially Ahmedabad. However, it was a nationwide drive.
Nitin Jain, the chairman of J Point, said, "In the past few months, our members bought 190 BMW, Audi, and Mercedes cars, ranging from Rs 50 lakh to Rs 1.5 crore, in bulk deals. We received a staggering discount of Rs 21.5 crore as those were bought in bulk deals."
As per Nitin Jain, 15 authorised luxury car dealers across the country collaborated with JITO to offer these discounts. Since the deals came directly through community orders with no marketing or advertising costs, carmakers also benefitted from the assured sales, and as a result, they offered heavy discounts. JITO, in these deals, solely acted as a facilitator and not a profit-making intermediary.
JITO was established back in 2007 to promote economic empowerment among Jain entrepreneurs and professionals. It has over 65,000 members across the country, with 30,000 active members and 5,000 members from Gujarat alone. The lifetime membership fees range between Rs 2 lakh and Rs 20 lakh, giving access to special community trade benefits.
As interesting and unique as it may seem to save such big amounts on luxury cars, the same has been done a few times before as well. Back in October 2010, a group of about 150 businessmen in Aurangabad placed a bulk order with Mercedes-Benz India to buy 150 vehicles at a price of around Rs 65 crore.
This particular bulk order included 17 S-Class, 74 E-Class, 39 C-Class, 6 GL, and 18 ML-Class vehicles from the German luxury carmaker. It initially started as a joke where a group of small entrepreneurs expressed their thoughts about buying Mercedes-Benz cars in bulk. However, slowly, with word of mouth and local networking, the group grew to 150 people who bought these vehicles together.
Following this, in December 2010, a group of other businessmen from Kolhapur, Sangli, and Belgaum booked 180 Mercedes-Benz cars. They were also able to secure discounts of up to 10 percent of the price of the vehicles, ranging from Rs 4 lakh to Rs 10 lakh.