The history of a success story.
The European pre-owned bus and coach brand BusStore is celebrating its 10th anniversary.
Impressive track record: since being founded in 2013, the pre-owned bus and coach brand BusStore has developed into the industry's European market leader.
The bus and coach trade is just as diverse as the people who work in it. No two businesses are the same. And the same is true of the 26 international European branches of the pre-owned bus and coach brand BusStore. Like when Pepe Martinez Bueno, Sales Manager at the BusStore Center Madrid, sells twelve buses over the pond to Equatorial Guinea or when BusStore Prague fixes up two Tourismo high-deckers for transporting Ukraine refugees.
These are only two examples from a decade of BusStore history. But even just these two cases illustrate the wide-ranging diversity of products and services offered by the Daimler Buses brand. From scheduled service buses to four-star touring coaches, from shuttle buses to fire service staff buses: used vehicles from BusStore are successfully deployed by scores of different operators.
The pre-owned bus and coach business is based on long-term customer relationships and trust. "Many of the bus and coach companies are regular customers", says Alexander Dockenwadel happily. The manager of the BusStore Center in Neu-Ulm, Germany has supported the development of the pre-owned bus and coach brand since it was founded. "We know and can rely on each other now."
Launched at Busworld 2013.
BusStore was presented to the public at Busworld in Kortrijk, Belgium in October 2013. From the very beginning, BusStore was intended to be a pan-European network. And this network has grown steadily over the past ten years. In addition to the original 14 branches, 12 more have now been added, almost doubling BusStore’s presence in Europe since its inception.
Growing range of services.
Like the number of branches, the range of services has also grown steadily and is unparalleled in the industry. For example, BusStore have offered a drivetrain warranty for buses and coaches of the Mercedes-Benz and Setra brands since 2015. The range of services has included service contracts for lightly used vehicles since 2019 and Sideguard Assist as a retrofit solution since 2020. During the pandemic, BusStore responded quickly with practical COVID-19 retrofit packages.
Seek and you will find.
The close network of European branches is a boon for the available selection of pre-owned buses and coaches: if the desired vehicle is not currently on hand at a certain branch, you can search the entire stock of nearby BusStores. "All BusStore locations in Europe generally work closely together", reports Thies Wedershoven, Manager of BusStore Netherlands and BusStore Belgium. "The separate stores communicate frequently and the BusStore network is a tightly knit one."
The central point of contact for BusStore customers is the website. All vehicles available from all branches can be found there. The selection includes all common brands and models. The handy search function helps to narrow down the search results. Important equipment details, technical information and, of course, photos can be called up for each vehicle.
More than "just" buses and coaches.
In addition to buying and selling pre-owned buses and coaches, the BusStore network offers its customers many other services. For example, BusStore arranges the cross-border transfer of vehicles on request, including the completion of all necessary formalities. "This also covers the provision of transit plates, a very important point for many BusStore customers" explains Trifon Spatov, manager of the BusStore in Vienna.
A major advantage: the Daimler Buses service brand OMNIplus is also represented at many BusStore locations. "This lets us offer our customers professional repairs using genuine spare parts", says Krasimir Zahariev from the Bulgarian BusStore site in Sofia. And Alessandro Bollini from the BusStore Centre Modena in Italy adds: "Customers can have us retrofit their used vehicles according to their individual wishes”.
The BusStore service package is rounded off by attractive leasing and financing solutions from Daimler Truck Financial Services. For example, the BusStore Flexible Leasing concept was introduced in 2022 and offers flexible financing at attractive rates.
Vehicle classification is an important milestone.
Trust is created through reliability and quality. And this is precisely where BusStore shines thanks to strict quality inspections carried out at every location in Europe according to uniform criteria since 2014. Whether in Sweden, Switzerland, Spain or Belgium, BusStore customers can rely on the fact that every vehicle offered for sale has been inspected by experts.
Events in the pre-owned bus industry.
In 2014, the brand set new standards with the first BusStore Show. In the years that followed, this used bus and coach trade fair established itself as a popular industry forum. Customers from all over Europe congregated in Neu-Ulm to buy vehicles and exchange ideas.
Impressive figures for the anniversary.
More than 3,500 customers from 54 countries have made use of BusStore’s services in the ten years since the company was founded. Used vehicles from over 40 vehicle brands have found their new homes – from young classics built in 1976 to pre-owned vehicles just one year old. If you add up the mileage of all the used buses and coaches sold by BusStore, you get an impressive total of six billion kilometres – that’s 40 times the distance from the Earth to the sun. A track record to be proud of.