The Jain community, known for its business legacy, has clinched discounts worth a whopping Rs 21 crore while driving home 186 high-end luxury cars like BMW, Audi, and Mercedes, while showcasing the community’s formidable purchasing power. The deals were facilitated under an initiative by the Jain International Trade Organisation (JITO), which has 65,000 members from across India.
JITO vice president Himanshu Shah described it as a “one-of-its-kind deal” with the luxury brands. The organisation collaborated with 15 dealers of top brands like BMW and Mercedes and negotiated better prices for their members.
JITO acted only as a facilitator and did not profit from the deal, Shah told news agency PTI.
According to Shah, most of the luxury cars were bought by Gujarat-based Jains. These cars ranged between Rs 60 lakh and Rs 1.3 crore, he said, adding that the vehicles were handed over to their buyers between January and June. “It helped our members save Rs 21 crore in discounts,” said Shah.
The initiative was driven by Nitin Jain, a community member, after some JITO members came up with the idea that they could negotiate discounts from car dealers by leveraging their purchasing power. Since no marketing cost was involved, even carmakers saw this as a win-win situation, said Jain.
The initiative began with a few members of the community, and soon more people got interested after hearing about the hefty discounts.
“Soon, other JITO members also started buying cars. In all, 186 cars were bought and Rs 21 crore was saved. On average, each member saved between Rs 8 lakh and Rs 17 lakh, enough to buy another car for a family member,” said Jain.
Meanwhile, JITO is now expanding such deals to the jewellery and electronics sectors by launching a new initiative called ‘Utsav’.