The inventory is all I care about on the dealer's website.
That describes me, as well.
But I can understand (from the dealer's perspective, not the customer's) why they might want to avoid this. If their goal is to sell cars on their lot, then making it obvious that they don't have what you are looking isn't going to help them.
I could see how the inventory-on-website strategy would be appealing for a high-volume dealer, because they have a lot of inventory, so showing that off will actually encourage customers, not keep them away. I can also see how brands such as Honda and Acura might benefit from this, because their tendency to avoid complex option packages increases the likelihood that the cars on the lot will match the expectations of the customer. If a dealer's goal is to use the inventory list to increase interest in the dealership, you'd want to make sure that displaying it doesn't have the opposite effect.
"I've seen your website and that chick keeps popping up scaring the kadoodles out of me *snicker* "
You and me both. I ditch it in a NY minute if I had the choice to.
We used to post our selling prices on-line. I could get an additional 6-8 deals per month, just from people walking in a handing the printout and doing an immediate purchase.
Honda put a halt to that with their compliance dept.
I was thinking about this, the salesman want to beat up on the buyer just because he is willing to drive down the street or 100 miles just because he can save $100.
I used to think this was foolish myself, I mean I am not going to drive out of my way for $100, I am lucky in life to be able to diminish the value of $100. Make it $500 and now my interest is peaked.
But in all honesty the dealerships are doing this to themselves. Even, Isell, you have stated you will generally not give out a "quote" but tell your prospects bring it in and ill beat it.
The GSM obviously feels it is best to cut out the soles of another dealership for $100 to sell the car. Which goes back to my theory the sale of a car is always more important than the saleman's commission.
So, tell me how can you fault the buyer for taking advantage of the dealership mentality? I think it would almost be better for dealerships to abide by an unwritten rule of unless I am willing to beat a quote by $500 or X amount just tell the buyer all i can do is match.
I know, prolly more fiction than anything.
Also, just a question for the sales guy, is there a minimum comission or can you actually do a deal and make zero?
But how do we know the customer is telling the truth? How do we know that the quotes are for equal cars? How do we know the other dealership isn't using some funny math?
Just for example on the funny math thing I had a customer trying to lease an LR3. This was at the end of the year when there was 5000 dollars back on 2005 LR3's. You could either take the rebate and use a standard lease program or use the special lease program and no rebate. You could NOT do both. I had a guy just beating me up that a LR dealer down out of state of where this guy has a vacation home was giving him a 150 dollar less per month lease payment.
I tried to explain to him that it was impossible what they were doing. No way they could get that by following the rules on the car he wanted. I had him send me all the lease worksheets they had done up and sure enough they were using funny math. They were taknig the rebate and using the special lease program. Yeah that would give you a fantastic deal but Land Rover would not honor it. After I showed the guy what was going on he was pissed cause he knew when he got to the dealership in person they would have played the oops we made a mistake routine. Sorry we screwed up you really have to pay 200 bucks more a month.
We honestly did something similar to that last month that was a true mistake. We took the rebate month plus the special finance rate on our Last 2005 Service loaner. On the service loaner we thought you could do both but we missed the fine print where that program ended a few days previously. Our mistake but we stood by our original monthly payment quote. We used the profit from the deal to buy down the guys interest rate so that his payment stayed the same. It turned an ok deal into a nothing deal but we stood by our word.
I think it would almost be better for dealerships to abide by an unwritten rule of unless I am willing to beat a quote by $500 or X amount just tell the buyer all i can do is match.
That couldn't work, as the dealers compete with one another. If it was done formally, it would be an illegal price fixing scheme; if done informally, it would be illegal, plus there would always be dealers who would ignore the "rule" when it suited them, and take the sale for themselves.
I suspect that dealers are not finding too many customers who fit this mold of the firm, savvy, bottom-dollar negotiator. The typical buyer is relatively uninformed and not familiar with negotiation, and those buyers can be bid up accordingly, or taken in other ways (trade-in, pack, etc.)
I can see how they'd like to avoid a situation in which buyers simply expect the lowest price without a fight. An ordertaking model might be OK for the high volume dealership, but not for the niche retailer or for most of the sales force.
Look at Scion. They are doing GREAT with a one price model. This eliminates a lot of the headache for the customer and feeling like they have been had. The price is easily figured and doesn't change from dealer to dealer.
On new Toyotas, we show the actual manufacturers invoice on our site. We don't always sell at this price but it lets the customer know exactly what the invoice is and not a guesstimate from a 3rd party website or consumer reports that is not always accurate.
LOL, let's be grateful for the uninformed payment buyers, because if it were not people like them it wouldn't allow some of us to go in to a dealer and beat them down for a mini *hauntinglaugh*
Sure, now you are gonna bring the "law" into this. I am not so sure what I described would be illegal. If dealers would agree they will not undercut each other. After all the "price" is already set at MSRP.
After all, how would that be any different from a no haggle Saturn or Carmax *headtilt* but i digress...
After all, how would that be any different from a no haggle Saturn or Carmax *headtilt* but i digress...
One thing GM did with Saturn was to make an effort to give dealers control of specific sales territories, so that there would be limited incentive to negotiate because Saturn dealers would not generally be competing with other Saturn dealers (or at least not very many of them). If one dealer owns all the dealerships in a given metro area, then he theoretically has no reason to undercut himself.
The only problem with that is that Saturn dealers aren't just competing with other Saturn dealers, but with any dealer selling cars, both new and used, that compete with his inventory.
From what I hear, Saturn dealers actually do negotiate, although some of the kickers they offer are allegedly in the form of non-cash benefits. (I'm assuming that service and free accessories would be two ways for them to get around the no-negotiation rule.)
Look at Scion. They are doing GREAT with a one price model. This eliminates a lot of the headache for the customer and feeling like they have been had. The price is easily figured and doesn't change from dealer to dealer.
Toyota has clearly hit a homerun with Scion. After struggling with trying to capture the youth market, they've really hit paydirt. The folks at GM and Ford should be paying attention and taking notes.
On new Toyotas, we show the actual manufacturers invoice on our site. We don't always sell at this price but it lets the customer know exactly what the invoice is and not a guesstimate from a 3rd party website or consumer reports that is not always accurate.
Well, I find KBB and Edmunds to be highly accurate. I would assume that you are using this online invoice to pass on the advertising fees and other pack that don't make it into the price guides, and to present them as being non-negotiable.
See, there is a loophole for everything. I really want to pick up that Herb Cohen book you recommended.
It's a great book, really one of the best on the subject. (The guy has a good sense of humor, too.)
After first mentioning it here, I was pleasantly surprised to see that Edmund's author of "Negotiating 101" also recommends this same book. (The Edmunds article is also worth reading, although I largely disagree with his belief that a car purchase should be structured as a "win-win". "Win-wins" are only useful for ongoing relationships, while for the most part, car purchases are one-off transactions.)
To build a car, I go to the manufacturer's website. To check inventory, I then go to the dealer's web-site.
What I've found interesting, in checking out the Solara recently, is that most dealers seems to want to keep the price in a certain band in the low-30's. So they'll have one option, but not another, in order to keep the price down. There aren't all that many options anyway, but so far I have yet to see a truly loaded car. Looks they don't want the price to get too high.
So that makes me realize I have to prioritize exactly which options are most important to me, and realize that I might not be able to get everything without a special order. The dealers' on-line inventories are very valuable as a real-world reality check on what might be available.
It's my impression that usually they want to sell you something they have in stock, especially if it's been hanging around for a while, and thus you can get a better deal that way. Don't know how long Solaras usually hang around, though.
It's my impression that usually they want to sell you something they have in stock, especially if it's been hanging around for a while, and thus you can get a better deal that way.
That's correct. They're already incurring floorplan costs on cars in their existing inventory, so they'd like to pay off the existing floorplan as soon as possible by selling stock on hand. Sure, the ordered car's holdback is pure profit, but meanwhile, another car on the lot is still sitting on the lot generating that interest expense.
Yes but, lets say Biancar wants a red X with options A, B, C and D. And all dealer has on lot is x with options A and B.
Assuming C and D are very important to Biancar, should she look at every dealer in the state to find a red X with ABCD or can she get the best deal by saying listen you order me X with ABCD and ill give you a deposit.
Assuming of course she is in no hurry to get the vehicle.
Assuming C and D are very important to Biancar, should she look at every dealer in the state to find a red X with ABCD or can she get the best deal by saying listen you order me X with ABCD and ill give you a deposit.
All things being equal, she should get a better deal from the guy who already has the car in his inventory. If I was the customer, and it was convenient enough to go to the lot where the car was in stock, I'd go there.
But in practice, a motivated dealer who sees that the customer is going to walk unless s/he gets the desired option packages might prefer to do a dealer trade to losing the customer altogether. (Of course, I would then expect the dealer to try to pass on a delivery fee, and to get a deposit in order to mitigate his risk and secure the customer.)
"Yes but, lets say Biancar wants a red X with options A, B, C and D. And all dealer has on lot is x with options A and B."
My response to this is simply this...it's your money. Get the car you want...get the color you want, or package or whatever. What usually happens with deals like that is, the customer will forget about the "great deal" he/she got a year down the road and start dwelling about the color or equipment etc. They will then get a case of the "stupids"...and try to dump the offending vehicle.
We get people every week that come in and try to trade in a car that they recently took delivery of. I'd rather not sell someone a car that won't work for them..I don't know, maybe that's just me showing my age :-)
Lets say that you go to a dealers site and do not see the color/package/etc on the vehicle you are interested in. Do you send them a note asking about it...or just move on?
Or you can have the dealer do a nationwide search and if you dont believe them, go to another dealership and see if they can find one. Most dealers will be honest and tell you if its out there. Mind you sometimes features that the Automakers have listed as options are only ordered on certain cars. Rear airbags are an option on audis, yet very rare to find one. Some packages are only shipped regionally unless requested. Its hard for me to sell coldweather packages in Febuary here when its still 81 degrees out. If you approach the dealer in a way that shows that you are interested and you know the car is rare they will help out.
A few things strike me about that site. Firstly, what exactly are they trying to do? Tell them the 3 cars you want to drive and where you live and if they get enough requests from other people they'll set up the event. I'm not convinced. Also, the domain name for that site was registered only 2 weeks ago so it's a brand new operation. Also, take a look at the FAQ page and count the spelling mistakes and typos. Doesn't look very professional to me. If I were a cynic (as if!) I would say it's an attempt to gather leads to sell onto dealers.
Looks like rsb2 registered here only yesterday in order to post this...and seems to have similar english language skills to whoever created that website :surprise: .
Most dealers will be honest and tell you if its out there.
Well, maybe yes, maybe no. A lot of dealers don't like to be bothered with trades and want you to buy something they have right there. I live in the same area as Bobst, and I've also had better luck just going to another dealer. Only once in my car-buying history has a dealer ever done a trade to get me exactly the car I wanted, and that was after several attempts on his part to get me to take something else. He finally went down to Richmond (from No. Va.) to get me the exact one. It helped that I was in no rush to buy.
Another time a dealer stated there were no cars of the color I wanted anywhere on the East coast. I went to another dealer 10 miles away the next day, and found exactly what I wanted (this was in pre-Internet days, so the actual visit was necessary.)
Personally, I would never take a dealer's word for it that the car I wanted is not available anywhere. It might take some driving around and some patience to find exactly what you want; if you're willing to do that then I wouldn't just blindly trust the dealer to be telling the whole truth about availability.
Well, I find KBB and Edmunds to be highly accurate. I would assume that you are using this online invoice to pass on the advertising fees and other pack that don't make it into the price guides, and to present them as being non-negotiable.
All the data that Edmunds and KBB have on pricing and invoice costs, including codes etc, are provided to them from Toyota directly right from the beginning.
In 'Yota's longterm view of the world of buying, we the consumers would have all the details ( we do now ) and will buy vehicles like shirts from the LLBean online catalogue.
Just like Scion, 'pick your color and pick up your vehicle next week'. All Toyota stores would be order takers to offer a level of insulation between the retail and manufacturer
Wouldn't a special order be the best way to cut a deal? Since no floorplan cost, dealer gets holdback etc etc or are these cars treated differently?
Definitely not. You will always get your best deal discussing a current vehicle in inventory that can be RDR'd now! Vehicles in inventory don't become more valuable with age.. here's a tip.... look at the inspection sticker in the window if it has a date or month. All things being equal to you, you should try to buy the oldest in stock in order to get the best deal.
Those are the ones btw which are often the loss leaders in the newspaper ads. Every business wants to move it's oldest inventory first.
We're in the same region and from SoVa we trade up to the DC area about 15-30 times a week. It does depend on the store though. Some refuse to trade.
Rather than drive around.. that really increases your costs.. ask to see them do the computer search. Watch them enter your specs and if they do it right then Toyota's intranet will bring up all the matching vehicles. It takes 30-45 seconds. It's a lot less effort.
In theory, I agree with you. I'm just still turned off by the dealer who told me there were none to be had as I wanted, and in fact I found it 10 miles away.
I wouldn't literally drive around aimlessly. I'd use my own computer to check other dealer websites if dealer A said there were none to be had as required.
This is perhaps one application where the Internet really comes in handy. Can keep dealers honest when they tell you about availability of cars configured as you want.
(By the way, does your shop rent out Solara convertibles for longish-rentals, say a month or so? If not, do you know of anyone around Norfolk, Va. Beach, or that area who does?)
In theory, I agree with you. I'm just still turned off by the dealer who told me there were none to be had as I wanted, and in fact I found it 10 miles away.
I can see that. Some will help you, while others don't want to bother, while others still will lie about the inventory elsewhere in an effort to keep you from shopping elsewhere. I've experienced all of these.
"I'm just still turned off by the dealer who told me there were none to be had as I wanted, and in fact I found it 10 miles away."
It may be that they weren't able to get it traded. The Infiniti store I worked at would pretty much trade anything with anyone but there were 4 or 5 out of 20 or so Infiniti dealers in the area that refused to trade anything, even an I35! Then again, if we happened to have a black Coupe 6MT fully loaded sitting on the lot we were suddenly their best friends in the whole wide world.
"In theory, I agree with you. I'm just still turned off by the dealer who told me there were none to be had as I wanted, and in fact I found it 10 miles away"
What the dealer wa telling you is that there were none that HE could get. If a dealership has a reputation for bad trades or being market whores, other dealers wont trade with them. It doesn't take much for a dealership to kill the trust that has to take place between another dealership for a dealer trade.
... **What the dealer wa telling you is that there were none that HE could get. If a dealership has a reputation for bad trades or being market whores, other dealers wont trade with them. It doesn't take much for a dealership to kill the trust that has to take place between another dealership for a dealer trade.** ===========================
Good point .. but there is many reasons ...
Some dealers won't trade because of bad management decisions, some dealers won't trade because they feel they got burned on the last 5 trades and got nothin' back when the other dealer had 3 on their lot, some dealers allotments are still in inventory because of the time of the year and they don't want their floorplan busted up -- or maybe, just maybe, it's just that "particular market" they're in and that can make *all* the difference in the world ... there's a whole potpourri of reasons ...
But it's just like any other business .... try dealer trading that 30ft Sea Ray with the boat dealer 95 miles away when you have only 21ft ski boats, and that's your market .. try trading that Sasquatch Nike driver with the 8.5 degree stiff flex shaft with the golf dealer 12 miles away, when his market is mainly retired players .... it's just like any other business ..
See, you guys are all proving my point about not trusting a dealer's say-so about availability. I could care less what his business reasons are for not being able to do a trade. The point is that he told me, with such a long, sad face, that there were NO Camrys all up and down the East coast in the color and with the equipment I wanted. So I might as well buy from him in my second-choice color.
He embellished the story a little, told me that he had calls from as far away as Ohio looking for the very car I wanted, and there just weren't any.
So when I found the exact car I wanted the very next day, with essentially no effort other than driving to the other dealer (this was pre-Internet days), what am I to think? Dealer A is either incompetent or a liar or both. Given your comments above about why some dealers won't trade, maybe other dealers in the area thought the same about his shop.
Whatever, bottom line is he told me I wouldn't be able to find my car as I wanted, and truth was I did, immediately.
So I have no reason to trust a dealer telling me that he just can't find the car I want. I'll believe it after I've done my own research.
By any chance did you swing by that dealer with your new camry? I would have at least called him to let him know that next time customer from Ohio calls give them dealer down the streets number so they can get that color as well.
I have forever learned as good practice never to ask anyone selling me somthing two questions: 1. What is best for me. 2. What is available in the market place or about alternative options.
No, I didn't swing by, but he called a couple days later, asked if I wanted to reconsider his car. I said "hmm, still no blue ones anywhere on the East coast, is that right?"
Him: "Sorry to say that's still true."
Me: "Well, guess I bought the very last one then, from Fairfax."
..... Nobody is disagreeing with you .. because it's a business, just like any other business out there .. and on any given day you will hear that from a boat dealer, a furniture store, golf store, Dillards and the jeweler at the mall ... that's why you have to be pro-active with *any* of your purchases ...
When I wanted a certain couch, 2 furniture stores told me they don't make em' and you can't find em' .. and if I "special" ordered", it would be $3,900 and the other store told me $3,500 delivered ... so they gave me the catalog books to look it up, so instead I took the #'s off and copied the manufacturers name in High Point NC and called the president of the company and dealt with him and had it 6 weeks later for $1,750 - plus the $75 delivery fee ........
Same goes with mortgages ... one of best friends is a mortgage broker, he's had his 3 best years in his history because most folks shop rates, not closing costs .. some pay $6,500, others pay $8,500 and some pay $10 grand+ for the same $400,000 house ... proactive is the word here ...
Nobody is disagreeing with you .. because it's a business, just like any other business out there .. and on any given day you will hear that from a boat dealer, a furniture store, golf store, Dillards and the jeweler at the mall ... that's why you have to be pro-active with any of your purchases ...
Fair enough, but now you know why some of us warn prospective buyers that this "quality salesperson/ consultant" story touted by some of the dealers here is really a distraction from the real issue, i.e. getting the best price, and that an attempt to create a genuine relationship is actually a negative, not a positive, for the buyer.
With the abundance of information available about vehicles and the sales process, the salesperson really adds no value to the transaction for the informed consumer, and actually makes an effort to create deception meant to dupe the uninformed consumer. (Witness the prospective Altima buyer above, who clearly didn't know about the availability of a $1,500 rebate -- it would appear that the salesperson who congratulated her on her negotiation skills probably never saw fit to mention this.)
There are typically two basic negotiation approaches -- (a) the collaborative approach ("win-win"), which is used for ongoing relationships, and (b) the adversial approach ("win-lose"), which is used for one-off transactions. The former often results in a higher price for the buyer, who makes some concessions to keep the relationship, but can be useful for an ongoing relationship because the overall value of the relationship is built on something other than price, and can create benefits to both parties if it continues over the long run.
In buying a car, unless you live in a village with one dealer within 100 miles of your house, or you are a fleet buyer making frequent purchases, the win-win is entirely unnecessary, and actually costly for the buyer to create. A customer can buy a car from anyone, and for the buyer, an effort to get a win-win creates no value -- all it does is raise the price.
Win-win relationships can't be formed without establishing trust. For win-win to work, each side has to be forthcoming with information that establishes their true needs, so that each party can attempt to help the other satisfy his objectives.
But the car sales model is designed around the win-lose, adverserial model. It is so deeply rooted in the dealer using deception, information withholding and half-truths, all while pulling information from the buyer about his position that is used to play on hot buttons and gain price increases, financing fees, etc., that a win-win is simply impossible.
The dealer will almost never give you honest information that would help the buyer to craft a true win-win. For example, do you think a salesperson is going to tell you honestly, "I'd really love to sell you the beige Chevy Ozoneblower instead of the red one that you prefer, because the beige one has been on the lot for four months and there's a $500 commission kicker to move it. So let me sell the beige one to you, and we'll split the commission between us."? Or do you think he'll tell you, "If you buy this today, I'll hit a monthly target that will kick me a $5,000 bonus, so let's talk about how much of this bonue you need so we can get this deal done."? No, they won't.
Some thoughts after having gone through a purchase and having sent out email to a number of dealers in the Boston area.
A couple of things to start: I don't really enjoy buying cars, and unlike many people here I am not going to drive across town to another dealer because they were willing to beat the price by $10 and toss in an oil change. My time is valuable and I don't want to invest a whole lot of time. I also think the dealers deserve to make some money selling cars - but that in figuring out what I'm willing to pay no dealer deserves to make a lot more than another on the sale.
First, and no surprise here, some internet sales reps are clearly better than others. But I'm not sure it's all the reps doing. From a buyers perspective, some dealers seem "get it" more than others when it comes to getting some extra sales through internet leads and some don't. But don't discount the fact that it's not necessarilly in a dealer's best interest to be aggressive with every query they get - they can get some sense of who might be serious and who isn't and there is no need for them to offer to sell a car at a very low price to someone who has only contacted them by email if they think they can do better with their local clients.
I also found that dismissing a bad dealer reply is useful in saving time. On the car I was looking at, a serious internet quote had to be $500 over invoice or less. When I got one that was way higher than that I sent a nice reply saying "thank you but you aren't competitive" One of two things happened: either they never wrote back, which is fine, or I got an email from them or their boss saying "maybe we can do better." At that point, if we weren't geting close, I again politely said no thanks. This saved me time.
The better dealers started off with some sort of offer, and encouraged a dialog, keeping me informed of inventory and pricing changes as we approached the end of the month. At the end of February prices on in-stock cars fell, and the internet managers kept the good sales leads posted via email.
The worst, in my opinion, used the internet quotes to get you in the dealership and then transferred you to a floor saleman to essentially start the process over, or make you go through what you wanted to avoid all along.">
... **But the car sales model is designed around the win-lose, adverserial model.** ===============================
There isn't any "model" that is designed .. and there isn't any "model" that dealers use to make it adverserial -- and what would even be the point.? ..l.o.l.. that's just some crazy theory you like to use ... if you alienate yourself from other people, then that's a personal thing, not a business thing.
Like every other business in the world, they have to make a profit - and profit isn't a 4 letter word - you don't work for free and either should they .....
Knowing what the cost is a great benefit, but that doesn't mean dealers can afford to sell his bulk inventory for $200 over .. especially when the average dealer spends $45,000++ a month to keep the air/heat on, pay the employee's, workmans comp, pay the mortgage, pay the parts and service department, pay the state and city taxes and pay the monthly floorplan on a $40 million dollar inventory ............... we really need to get you out more.
Doing research and knowing what the market can "and will do" is a very smart buying process ... boxing yourself into a corner is what 3rd graders do at school.
There isn't any "model" that is designed and there isn't any "model" that dealers use to make it adverserial and what would even be the point.? ..l.o.l.. that's just some crazy theory you like to use ...
You might want to tell that to the Edmund's writer who wrote "Confessions of a Car Salesman".
You're not fooling anyone who has experience in this process. Reading these boards, the type of tactics used is obvious and pretty consistent -- the only ones who seem not to see them are the ones who (foolishly) believe that they should not negotiate. (Of course, they pay more for the privilege.)
There is a pretty basic playbook that gets a lot of use in the car sales business, and it's wise for consumers to be aware of it. They don't have to believe me -- a trip to the bookstore and a review of literature elsewhere will confirm what I've told people here.
... **You might want to tell that to the Edmund's writer who wrote "Confessions of a Car Salesman" ...** ===================
Oh my goodness, you really are that naive.! ..... next you'll be telling us James Frey's book is all fact and Oprah made it up ..l.o.l... ..
"confessions" was written by a guy who worked a very short time at a dealership and couldn't keep a job, so most of it is made up ..l.o.l.... he only sold 50,000 copies of that smut paper over 3 years, it's certainly no reflection of the auto industry as a whole, not even close .. if it wasn't for Edmunds he'd be pumping gas by now (maybe he is) .. James Frey had Oprah ... this guy has Edmunds.
Your posts are always the same ... you blast Isell and the others that come to this board to help folks and they're in the car business, they've been doing this for quite some time now ...
Like myself, they don't get paid, they don't derive any income from it, we haven't even got a free t-shirt and certainly not any free tickets to Disney World or the Doral Open ...
There is almost 30,000 posts (*as in thirty thousand*) over at "Real World trade-in Values" and I answer them when I can (when I'm not being side tracked by folks like you) - one of the most read on Edmunds .... these are folks that come from all over the country to find out what their vehicles are worth -- I don't need to do it, but I do ...... so much for "confessions" ..... it's not the readers problem that "you" have issues and you feel the world has a plot waiting around every corner of life -- so sad.!
OK, here's what I don't get. Terry, Isell, you've both been very helpful to many people. But, man, when your feathers get ruffled, it's off to the races with the "that's what 3rd graders do" and "we need to get you out more" type insults.
Socal has made some very good points from the buyer's point of view. His writing is articulate and well-reasoned. You don't have to agree with him, but why the personal slams?
Also, want to say thanks to notjafo. Good post, and 100% agree with your last paragraph.
.... **it's off to the races with the "that's what 3rd graders do" and "we need to get you out more" type insults**
There's nothing insulting about it - and he does need to get out more ..
He bases all his info on a few sentences that were written by folks that are not even in the business, then he sprinkles a little of this over here and a little of that over there, kinda like a bad cook .... plus he's personally slammed and insulted many of the folks here, it ain't know secret .. he constantly posts about things like being "adversial", he doesn't needs friends because it corrupts the deal, and there is these great dealer plots to kidnap buyers - does that sound stable to you.? .... give me a break, that "is" something I would expect from a 3rd grader .l.o.l...
"His writing is articulate and well-reasoned. " .... so was Dan Rathers - and you can see what that did to the public trust for writers and reporters for the next 10 years ..l.o.l....
Oh my goodness, you really are that naive.! ..... next you'll be telling us James Frey's book is all fact and Oprah made it up ..l.o.l... ..
Do you find at all ironic that you post on this site, all while claiming that invoice and holdback info isn't important to buyers (the very reason that Edmunds got its start), and as you criticize its advisory articles for being "naive"?
Personally, I find this site to be an invaluable resource for consumers, with rather accurate advice, much of which I agree with. Sorry to see that you'd like to claim otherwise.
Comments
That describes me, as well.
But I can understand (from the dealer's perspective, not the customer's) why they might want to avoid this. If their goal is to sell cars on their lot, then making it obvious that they don't have what you are looking isn't going to help them.
I could see how the inventory-on-website strategy would be appealing for a high-volume dealer, because they have a lot of inventory, so showing that off will actually encourage customers, not keep them away. I can also see how brands such as Honda and Acura might benefit from this, because their tendency to avoid complex option packages increases the likelihood that the cars on the lot will match the expectations of the customer. If a dealer's goal is to use the inventory list to increase interest in the dealership, you'd want to make sure that displaying it doesn't have the opposite effect.
You and me both. I ditch it in a NY minute if I had the choice to.
We used to post our selling prices on-line. I could get an additional 6-8 deals per month, just from people walking in a handing the printout and doing an immediate purchase.
Honda put a halt to that with their compliance dept.
I used to think this was foolish myself, I mean I am not going to drive out of my way for $100, I am lucky in life to be able to diminish the value of $100. Make it $500 and now my interest is peaked.
But in all honesty the dealerships are doing this to themselves. Even, Isell, you have stated you will generally not give out a "quote" but tell your prospects bring it in and ill beat it.
The GSM obviously feels it is best to cut out the soles of another dealership for $100 to sell the car. Which goes back to my theory the sale of a car is always more important than the saleman's commission.
So, tell me how can you fault the buyer for taking advantage of the dealership mentality? I think it would almost be better for dealerships to abide by an unwritten rule of unless I am willing to beat a quote by $500 or X amount just tell the buyer all i can do is match.
I know, prolly more fiction than anything.
Also, just a question for the sales guy, is there a minimum comission or can you actually do a deal and make zero?
Just for example on the funny math thing I had a customer trying to lease an LR3. This was at the end of the year when there was 5000 dollars back on 2005 LR3's. You could either take the rebate and use a standard lease program or use the special lease program and no rebate. You could NOT do both. I had a guy just beating me up that a LR dealer down out of state of where this guy has a vacation home was giving him a 150 dollar less per month lease payment.
I tried to explain to him that it was impossible what they were doing. No way they could get that by following the rules on the car he wanted. I had him send me all the lease worksheets they had done up and sure enough they were using funny math. They were taknig the rebate and using the special lease program. Yeah that would give you a fantastic deal but Land Rover would not honor it. After I showed the guy what was going on he was pissed cause he knew when he got to the dealership in person they would have played the oops we made a mistake routine. Sorry we screwed up you really have to pay 200 bucks more a month.
We honestly did something similar to that last month that was a true mistake. We took the rebate month plus the special finance rate on our Last 2005 Service loaner. On the service loaner we thought you could do both but we missed the fine print where that program ended a few days previously. Our mistake but we stood by our original monthly payment quote. We used the profit from the deal to buy down the guys interest rate so that his payment stayed the same. It turned an ok deal into a nothing deal but we stood by our word.
That couldn't work, as the dealers compete with one another. If it was done formally, it would be an illegal price fixing scheme; if done informally, it would be illegal, plus there would always be dealers who would ignore the "rule" when it suited them, and take the sale for themselves.
I suspect that dealers are not finding too many customers who fit this mold of the firm, savvy, bottom-dollar negotiator. The typical buyer is relatively uninformed and not familiar with negotiation, and those buyers can be bid up accordingly, or taken in other ways (trade-in, pack, etc.)
I can see how they'd like to avoid a situation in which buyers simply expect the lowest price without a fight. An ordertaking model might be OK for the high volume dealership, but not for the niche retailer or for most of the sales force.
On new Toyotas, we show the actual manufacturers invoice on our site. We don't always sell at this price but it lets the customer know exactly what the invoice is and not a guesstimate from a 3rd party website or consumer reports that is not always accurate.
Sure, now you are gonna bring the "law" into this. I am not so sure what I described would be illegal. If dealers would agree they will not undercut each other. After all the "price" is already set at MSRP.
After all, how would that be any different from a no haggle Saturn or Carmax *headtilt* but i digress...
One thing GM did with Saturn was to make an effort to give dealers control of specific sales territories, so that there would be limited incentive to negotiate because Saturn dealers would not generally be competing with other Saturn dealers (or at least not very many of them). If one dealer owns all the dealerships in a given metro area, then he theoretically has no reason to undercut himself.
The only problem with that is that Saturn dealers aren't just competing with other Saturn dealers, but with any dealer selling cars, both new and used, that compete with his inventory.
From what I hear, Saturn dealers actually do negotiate, although some of the kickers they offer are allegedly in the form of non-cash benefits. (I'm assuming that service and free accessories would be two ways for them to get around the no-negotiation rule.)
Toyota has clearly hit a homerun with Scion. After struggling with trying to capture the youth market, they've really hit paydirt. The folks at GM and Ford should be paying attention and taking notes.
On new Toyotas, we show the actual manufacturers invoice on our site. We don't always sell at this price but it lets the customer know exactly what the invoice is and not a guesstimate from a 3rd party website or consumer reports that is not always accurate.
Well, I find KBB and Edmunds to be highly accurate. I would assume that you are using this online invoice to pass on the advertising fees and other pack that don't make it into the price guides, and to present them as being non-negotiable.
It's a great book, really one of the best on the subject. (The guy has a good sense of humor, too.)
After first mentioning it here, I was pleasantly surprised to see that Edmund's author of "Negotiating 101" also recommends this same book. (The Edmunds article is also worth reading, although I largely disagree with his belief that a car purchase should be structured as a "win-win". "Win-wins" are only useful for ongoing relationships, while for the most part, car purchases are one-off transactions.)
What I've found interesting, in checking out the Solara recently, is that most dealers seems to want to keep the price in a certain band in the low-30's. So they'll have one option, but not another, in order to keep the price down. There aren't all that many options anyway, but so far I have yet to see a truly loaded car. Looks they don't want the price to get too high.
So that makes me realize I have to prioritize exactly which options are most important to me, and realize that I might not be able to get everything without a special order. The dealers' on-line inventories are very valuable as a real-world reality check on what might be available.
That's correct. They're already incurring floorplan costs on cars in their existing inventory, so they'd like to pay off the existing floorplan as soon as possible by selling stock on hand. Sure, the ordered car's holdback is pure profit, but meanwhile, another car on the lot is still sitting on the lot generating that interest expense.
Assuming C and D are very important to Biancar, should she look at every dealer in the state to find a red X with ABCD or can she get the best deal by saying listen you order me X with ABCD and ill give you a deposit.
Assuming of course she is in no hurry to get the vehicle.
All things being equal, she should get a better deal from the guy who already has the car in his inventory. If I was the customer, and it was convenient enough to go to the lot where the car was in stock, I'd go there.
But in practice, a motivated dealer who sees that the customer is going to walk unless s/he gets the desired option packages might prefer to do a dealer trade to losing the customer altogether. (Of course, I would then expect the dealer to try to pass on a delivery fee, and to get a deposit in order to mitigate his risk and secure the customer.)
My response to this is simply this...it's your money. Get the car you want...get the color you want, or package or whatever. What usually happens with deals like that is, the customer will forget about the "great deal" he/she got a year down the road and start dwelling about the color or equipment etc. They will then get a case of the "stupids"...and try to dump the offending vehicle.
We get people every week that come in and try to trade in a car that they recently took delivery of. I'd rather not sell someone a car that won't work for them..I don't know, maybe that's just me showing my age :-)
In other areas of life I'm sure you're constantly overthinking things with little to no results.
Be a man. Buy a car.
Also, the domain name for that site was registered only 2 weeks ago so it's a brand new operation. Also, take a look at the FAQ page and count the spelling mistakes and typos. Doesn't look very professional to me. If I were a cynic (as if!) I would say it's an attempt to gather leads to sell onto dealers.
Well, maybe yes, maybe no. A lot of dealers don't like to be bothered with trades and want you to buy something they have right there. I live in the same area as Bobst, and I've also had better luck just going to another dealer. Only once in my car-buying history has a dealer ever done a trade to get me exactly the car I wanted, and that was after several attempts on his part to get me to take something else. He finally went down to Richmond (from No. Va.) to get me the exact one. It helped that I was in no rush to buy.
Another time a dealer stated there were no cars of the color I wanted anywhere on the East coast. I went to another dealer 10 miles away the next day, and found exactly what I wanted (this was in pre-Internet days, so the actual visit was necessary.)
Personally, I would never take a dealer's word for it that the car I wanted is not available anywhere. It might take some driving around and some patience to find exactly what you want; if you're willing to do that then I wouldn't just blindly trust the dealer to be telling the whole truth about availability.
All the data that Edmunds and KBB have on pricing and invoice costs, including codes etc, are provided to them from Toyota directly right from the beginning.
In 'Yota's longterm view of the world of buying, we the consumers would have all the details ( we do now ) and will buy vehicles like shirts from the LLBean online catalogue.
Just like Scion, 'pick your color and pick up your vehicle next week'. All Toyota stores would be order takers to offer a level of insulation between the retail and manufacturer
Definitely not. You will always get your best deal discussing a current vehicle in inventory that can be RDR'd now! Vehicles in inventory don't become more valuable with age.. here's a tip.... look at the inspection sticker in the window if it has a date or month. All things being equal to you, you should try to buy the oldest in stock in order to get the best deal.
Those are the ones btw which are often the loss leaders in the newspaper ads. Every business wants to move it's oldest inventory first.
Rather than drive around.. that really increases your costs.. ask to see them do the computer search. Watch them enter your specs and if they do it right then Toyota's intranet will bring up all the matching vehicles. It takes 30-45 seconds. It's a lot less effort.
I wouldn't literally drive around aimlessly. I'd use my own computer to check other dealer websites if dealer A said there were none to be had as required.
This is perhaps one application where the Internet really comes in handy. Can keep dealers honest when they tell you about availability of cars configured as you want.
(By the way, does your shop rent out Solara convertibles for longish-rentals, say a month or so? If not, do you know of anyone around Norfolk, Va. Beach, or that area who does?)
I can see that. Some will help you, while others don't want to bother, while others still will lie about the inventory elsewhere in an effort to keep you from shopping elsewhere. I've experienced all of these.
It may be that they weren't able to get it traded. The Infiniti store I worked at would pretty much trade anything with anyone but there were 4 or 5 out of 20 or so Infiniti dealers in the area that refused to trade anything, even an I35! Then again, if we happened to have a black Coupe 6MT fully loaded sitting on the lot we were suddenly their best friends in the whole wide world.
What the dealer wa telling you is that there were none that HE could get. If a dealership has a reputation for bad trades or being market whores, other dealers wont trade with them. It doesn't take much for a dealership to kill the trust that has to take place between another dealership for a dealer trade.
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Good point .. but there is many reasons ...
Some dealers won't trade because of bad management decisions, some dealers won't trade because they feel they got burned on the last 5 trades and got nothin' back when the other dealer had 3 on their lot, some dealers allotments are still in inventory because of the time of the year and they don't want their floorplan busted up -- or maybe, just maybe, it's just that "particular market" they're in and that can make *all* the difference in the world ... there's a whole potpourri of reasons ...
But it's just like any other business .... try dealer trading that 30ft Sea Ray with the boat dealer 95 miles away when you have only 21ft ski boats, and that's your market .. try trading that Sasquatch Nike driver with the 8.5 degree stiff flex shaft with the golf dealer 12 miles away, when his market is mainly retired players .... it's just like any other business ..
Terry.
He embellished the story a little, told me that he had calls from as far away as Ohio looking for the very car I wanted, and there just weren't any.
So when I found the exact car I wanted the very next day, with essentially no effort other than driving to the other dealer (this was pre-Internet days), what am I to think? Dealer A is either incompetent or a liar or both. Given your comments above about why some dealers won't trade, maybe other dealers in the area thought the same about his shop.
Whatever, bottom line is he told me I wouldn't be able to find my car as I wanted, and truth was I did, immediately.
So I have no reason to trust a dealer telling me that he just can't find the car I want. I'll believe it after I've done my own research.
I have forever learned as good practice never to ask anyone selling me somthing two questions:
1. What is best for me.
2. What is available in the market place or about alternative options.
No, I didn't swing by, but he called a couple days later, asked if I wanted to reconsider his car. I said "hmm, still no blue ones anywhere on the East coast, is that right?"
Him: "Sorry to say that's still true."
Me: "Well, guess I bought the very last one then, from Fairfax."
Him: "oh...."
End of conversation.
"So I have no reason to trust a dealer telling me that ..."
Yep, that's right.
When I wanted a certain couch, 2 furniture stores told me they don't make em' and you can't find em' .. and if I "special" ordered", it would be $3,900 and the other store told me $3,500 delivered ... so they gave me the catalog books to look it up, so instead I took the #'s off and copied the manufacturers name in High Point NC and called the president of the company and dealt with him and had it 6 weeks later for $1,750 - plus the $75 delivery fee ........
Same goes with mortgages ... one of best friends is a mortgage broker, he's had his 3 best years in his history because most folks shop rates, not closing costs .. some pay $6,500, others pay $8,500 and some pay $10 grand+ for the same $400,000 house ... proactive is the word here ...
Terry.
Fair enough, but now you know why some of us warn prospective buyers that this "quality salesperson/ consultant" story touted by some of the dealers here is really a distraction from the real issue, i.e. getting the best price, and that an attempt to create a genuine relationship is actually a negative, not a positive, for the buyer.
With the abundance of information available about vehicles and the sales process, the salesperson really adds no value to the transaction for the informed consumer, and actually makes an effort to create deception meant to dupe the uninformed consumer. (Witness the prospective Altima buyer above, who clearly didn't know about the availability of a $1,500 rebate -- it would appear that the salesperson who congratulated her on her negotiation skills probably never saw fit to mention this.)
There are typically two basic negotiation approaches -- (a) the collaborative approach ("win-win"), which is used for ongoing relationships, and (b) the adversial approach ("win-lose"), which is used for one-off transactions. The former often results in a higher price for the buyer, who makes some concessions to keep the relationship, but can be useful for an ongoing relationship because the overall value of the relationship is built on something other than price, and can create benefits to both parties if it continues over the long run.
In buying a car, unless you live in a village with one dealer within 100 miles of your house, or you are a fleet buyer making frequent purchases, the win-win is entirely unnecessary, and actually costly for the buyer to create. A customer can buy a car from anyone, and for the buyer, an effort to get a win-win creates no value -- all it does is raise the price.
Win-win relationships can't be formed without establishing trust. For win-win to work, each side has to be forthcoming with information that establishes their true needs, so that each party can attempt to help the other satisfy his objectives.
But the car sales model is designed around the win-lose, adverserial model. It is so deeply rooted in the dealer using deception, information withholding and half-truths, all while pulling information from the buyer about his position that is used to play on hot buttons and gain price increases, financing fees, etc., that a win-win is simply impossible.
The dealer will almost never give you honest information that would help the buyer to craft a true win-win. For example, do you think a salesperson is going to tell you honestly, "I'd really love to sell you the beige Chevy Ozoneblower instead of the red one that you prefer, because the beige one has been on the lot for four months and there's a $500 commission kicker to move it. So let me sell the beige one to you, and we'll split the commission between us."? Or do you think he'll tell you, "If you buy this today, I'll hit a monthly target that will kick me a $5,000 bonus, so let's talk about how much of this bonue you need so we can get this deal done."? No, they won't.
A couple of things to start: I don't really enjoy buying cars, and unlike many people here I am not going to drive across town to another dealer because they were willing to beat the price by $10 and toss in an oil change. My time is valuable and I don't want to invest a whole lot of time. I also think the dealers deserve to make some money selling cars - but that in figuring out what I'm willing to pay no dealer deserves to make a lot more than another on the sale.
First, and no surprise here, some internet sales reps are clearly better than others. But I'm not sure it's all the reps doing. From a buyers perspective, some dealers seem "get it" more than others when it comes to getting some extra sales through internet leads and some don't. But don't discount the fact that it's not necessarilly in a dealer's best interest to be aggressive with every query they get - they can get some sense of who might be serious and who isn't and there is no need for them to offer to sell a car at a very low price to someone who has only contacted them by email if they think they can do better with their local clients.
I also found that dismissing a bad dealer reply is useful in saving time. On the car I was looking at, a serious internet quote had to be $500 over invoice or less. When I got one that was way higher than that I sent a nice reply saying "thank you but you aren't competitive" One of two things happened: either they never wrote back, which is fine, or I got an email from them or their boss saying "maybe we can do better." At that point, if we weren't geting close, I again politely said no thanks. This saved me time.
The better dealers started off with some sort of offer, and encouraged a dialog, keeping me informed of inventory and pricing changes as we approached the end of the month. At the end of February prices on in-stock cars fell, and the internet managers kept the good sales leads posted via email.
The worst, in my opinion, used the internet quotes to get you in the dealership and then transferred you to a floor saleman to essentially start the process over, or make you go through what you wanted to avoid all along.">
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There isn't any "model" that is designed .. and there isn't any "model" that dealers use to make it adverserial -- and what would even be the point.? ..l.o.l.. that's just some crazy theory you like to use ... if you alienate yourself from other people, then that's a personal thing, not a business thing.
Like every other business in the world, they have to make a profit - and profit isn't a 4 letter word - you don't work for free and either should they .....
Knowing what the cost is a great benefit, but that doesn't mean dealers can afford to sell his bulk inventory for $200 over .. especially when the average dealer spends $45,000++ a month to keep the air/heat on, pay the employee's, workmans comp, pay the mortgage, pay the parts and service department, pay the state and city taxes and pay the monthly floorplan on a $40 million dollar inventory ............... we really need to get you out more.
Doing research and knowing what the market can "and will do" is a very smart buying process ... boxing yourself into a corner is what 3rd graders do at school.
Terry.
You might want to tell that to the Edmund's writer who wrote "Confessions of a Car Salesman".
You're not fooling anyone who has experience in this process. Reading these boards, the type of tactics used is obvious and pretty consistent -- the only ones who seem not to see them are the ones who (foolishly) believe that they should not negotiate. (Of course, they pay more for the privilege.)
There is a pretty basic playbook that gets a lot of use in the car sales business, and it's wise for consumers to be aware of it. They don't have to believe me -- a trip to the bookstore and a review of literature elsewhere will confirm what I've told people here.
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Oh my goodness, you really are that naive.! ..... next you'll be telling us James Frey's book is all fact and Oprah made it up ..l.o.l... ..
"confessions" was written by a guy who worked a very short time at a dealership and couldn't keep a job, so most of it is made up ..l.o.l.... he only sold 50,000 copies of that smut paper over 3 years, it's certainly no reflection of the auto industry as a whole, not even close .. if it wasn't for Edmunds he'd be pumping gas by now (maybe he is) .. James Frey had Oprah ... this guy has Edmunds.
Your posts are always the same ... you blast Isell and the others that come to this board to help folks and they're in the car business, they've been doing this for quite some time now ...
Like myself, they don't get paid, they don't derive any income from it, we haven't even got a free t-shirt and certainly not any free tickets to Disney World or the Doral Open ...
There is almost 30,000 posts (*as in thirty thousand*) over at "Real World trade-in Values" and I answer them when I can (when I'm not being side tracked by folks like you) - one of the most read on Edmunds .... these are folks that come from all over the country to find out what their vehicles are worth -- I don't need to do it, but I do ...... so much for "confessions" ..... it's not the readers problem that "you" have issues and you feel the world has a plot waiting around every corner of life -- so sad.!
Terry.
Well said!
Socal has made some very good points from the buyer's point of view. His writing is articulate and well-reasoned. You don't have to agree with him, but why the personal slams?
Also, want to say thanks to notjafo. Good post, and 100% agree with your last paragraph.
There's nothing insulting about it - and he does need to get out more ..
He bases all his info on a few sentences that were written by folks that are not even in the business, then he sprinkles a little of this over here and a little of that over there, kinda like a bad cook .... plus he's personally slammed and insulted many of the folks here, it ain't know secret .. he constantly posts about things like being "adversial", he doesn't needs friends because it corrupts the deal, and there is these great dealer plots to kidnap buyers - does that sound stable to you.? .... give me a break, that "is" something I would expect from a 3rd grader .l.o.l...
"His writing is articulate and well-reasoned. " .... so was Dan Rathers - and you can see what that did to the public trust for writers and reporters for the next 10 years ..l.o.l....
Terry. :surprise:
His posts are what to expect from someone who also has a background in business.
Just different points of view. It all makes the world go 'round.
Do you find at all ironic that you post on this site, all while claiming that invoice and holdback info isn't important to buyers (the very reason that Edmunds got its start), and as you criticize its advisory articles for being "naive"?
Personally, I find this site to be an invaluable resource for consumers, with rather accurate advice, much of which I agree with. Sorry to see that you'd like to claim otherwise.