Originally Posted by JHZR2
Originally Posted by rooflessVW
Originally Posted by buster
Why should one have to negotiate to buy a car? Just asking.
You don't have to negotiate. Sticker's quicker.
If you think consumers win when dealers have "no-haggle" pricing, you're wrong.
+1 on all accounts.
The reality is that we as a population have been detuned and trained to accept what a vendor tells us.
It's how CarMax and AutoLenders capitalize on ripping people off.
No business would be a business without a spread between what they pay for an item and what they sell it for. That's the same regardless of if it's cars, widgets, food, etc.
The two biggest purchases most folks make are a home and a car. Home pricing in a secondary market is arbitrary based upon comps; totally negotiable.
Cars are a finished good with a set retail price. Because theres a list price there's also a dealer cost.
I know none or that is earth shattering.
Anything in theory could be negotiated. People want to negotiate cars because they're so expensive. But anything can be. The issue is that we're trained, by the retail industry to accept a manufacturers price. And some (many) businesses will not negotiate on price.
That is part of the reason why eBay is such a strong market for new stuff. It's a great piece of the power of the internet.
Before the net, book sellers had pricing books where you could option out the msrp and invoice price of a car. Now there's more opportunity to have info.
You always need someone to set prices, discounts, and approve sales. How you wouldn't have that, in any industry, is beyond me. The "build my ____" tool that all automakers offer is a step away from salesmen, but it is a step towards the uninformed consumer accepting a price they are told is the answer.
I don't see how Carmax rips anyone off, they fix their prices and you either pay the price and buy the vehicle or you don't. Saturn employed this same strategy years ago and they are out of business. I worked in the Indianapolis market selling cars for two years (2016-2018) and there was a Carmax a few blocks away from my dealership and they sold an average of 400 vehicles per month while having the highest average prices in our market. My store tried to sell a total of 200 new and used vehicles every month, considering our new brand and store size in the market that is very good.
I don't think it may be as much that we have been conditioned to be good little consumers but rather, at least for many, they just want to acquire something and move on in life. Many people value their time above money and frankly I am of the mindset that this is a good way to think. My mentor taught me that it is good to have enough money so that you don't have to worry about what you spend. Spending money should not be stressful, it should not be something we should spend a lot of time thinking about or in some cases obsessing over.
In my experience the happiest customers I have had are the ones that just buy a car, even at full price, and just enjoy their purchase. The miserable one are ALWAYS the people that just have to grind out every last penny out of a deal, often times they are the people who can most easily afford to buy a car. I remember people who made $300,000 to $400,000 per year coming in to buy a $30,000 to $40,000 car and wanting to pick a fight with me for an hour over one or two hundred dollars in a car deal we've bent over backwards to get done.
When is the price of the car the price of the car and you commit to purchase? The games that people play to avoid damaging their ego, most times it's not about money as much as pride.