Whatever. Dealers will screw anyone they can without a second thought, why should a customer not try and save every penny they can. A car purchase is 90% of the time over $30,000, and haggling can save THOUSANDS!Originally posted by redbaron303
Just my 2 cents - having worked in the industry for many years, like a realtor or any other commissioned based sales person gross profit is how the dealer and sales people make their living.
It's amazing and frankly offensive how many people EXPECT that a dealer should sell for below their cost, bend over and take it with sandpaper.
Do you go to Walmart, Holt Renfrew, Safeway, IGA, whatever and demand they sell you product X below their cost or at dead cost? There's a cost to doing business... pay the price! It's no different than when someone comes to do business with you and your firm... if you're a marginalized employee you probably don't give two shits, but if you own the firm or have any stake in it you will understand what I mean.
That said, as a consumer I expect a fair deal. With vehicles being the highest depreciating asset we will purchase I almost feel preowned is the best way to go to alleviate some of our initial loss.
I feel that this tactic originally discussed, is pushy, arrogant, and below the consumer - "if you buy I'll tell you the price" - EFF that.
I find it equally offensive for the salesperson to try and back the consumer into a corner and "force" them to buy "now" or the deal vanishes. Unfortunately we all know as sales people if we give you our best deal without commitment, you will take the numbers and go shopping to see if it can be beat ... Additional to this the advent of the internet and consumers doing their due diligence has allowed them to know more than they should - now expecting to pay less.
There's two sides to a coin - be fair to your sales person, if they've done a good job and have met your expectations remember this is how they make their living and feed their families - don't fuck them (besides screw the sales people and it translates into word of mouth about their experience with you as a customer and that word goes through all departments pretty quick). This is no different than the sales person being fair to their client and how if they're not (or hopefully if they are = referrals) word of mouth will carry about their experience.
Sorry - long rant, and a bit of info. Take it for what it's worth... but we the consumer always have an option as does the dealer - there's always another customer just like there's always another product for us.
PS - average dealer margin is 6% on most import vehicles over their cost so giving cost plus 3% is them splitting the profit with you and is more than a fair deal ------- IF they are selling off actual invoice and not MSRP window sticker. With my fleet account for Dodge and BMW I've seen a lot of invoices and the margins in a lot of cases aren't great.
** Just on a side for those car shopping at dealers - my suggestion is to go the manufacturer website and build/price your vehicle with the options you want, it's pretty accurate for MSRP. However, most cases this doesn't include freight/pdi/dealer fees/amvic fees/additional options/etc. But a dealer that has the original window sticker in the window isn't likely to FUCK you terribly. A dealer that hides or takes away the OEM window sticker (which is illegal according to AMVIC) is likely going to do so and try to get way more out of you than you should pay! I've seen it done so many time especially on the "East Side" .... I've also seen modified window stickers that look like manufacturer ones with "regional adjustments" or other things on them where a dealer will add $5,000 to msrp and when it comes time to evaluate trades or give you a deal they have more room to work with - for the uneducated client.
Dealers get incentives and rebates from the factory for selling X number of vehicles a week, a month, a cycle, whatever, so don't try and peddle that they are only going to get paid by the customer.
At Walmart, etc, if you manage to haggle, you are going to save a couple bucks, maybe $50 on a bigger ticket item, where if you can at a dealer, the savings can be insane.
And remember, the dealer isn't going to sell it if they are not going to make money, so don't try peddling the "taking food from my kids mouth" bit. If they were not making a living selling cars, they would switch jobs pretty quick.
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Originally Posted by killramos
