But in general, doesn't it make sense to just sell cars where the customer is vs. lassoing them into the store? I can't think of a single major purchase I've made in the last 10 years that wasn't remote. And WHY make it so difficult, honestly? We have a sales price, TTL, Doc Fee, Rebates. Maybe a trade, maybe not. I can't think of a single good reason to bring someone into the store. I'm 50/50 on the test drive. A salesman will be tied up with a customer for 4 hours and in that time they can roundtrip a test drive to save themselves 2.5 hours.
Some will use the trade as an excuse (yes, it's just an excuse), has anybody honestly ever been happy with the trade number whether or not they're in person? How does every other industry do it that takes trades? The same way. It really is time to evolve; it was time to evolve 5 years ago. We have the tech, we need to not be reluctant to use it and anyone that is we need to train. It's only a doing issue because first it's a knowing issue.
I hope I'm wrong but I don't think I am. A friend just bought a car with a 1 year old Civic trade. Straight up deal. Great credit, great income, etc. In a major metropolitan market he sent out 4 requests on 4 different dealers websites. 3 of the 4 tried some of the most ridiculous games I'd ever seen. Things I've only heard of in folklore. He ended up getting a solid autopro and made his purchase at that store after a week of bs.
I'm debating whether or not to spend the time to blur the identifying info out on the others and post them so everyone can see what actually went on. The real disheartening part about one of the stores is he called and was mistransfered to the GM by mistake as he had the same first name as the salesman. The GM had a deal on the phone and was now involved and still resorted to giving him a $7,500 range on a 1 year old 7,000 mile Honda Civic with a perfect carfax.... Really?
Anyway, much like the post-2007/2008 environment once the dust settled, only the strong survived and there are a lot of really amazing, brilliant and cutting edge stores out there. In my sample above, in this particular market, it wasn't a statistically relevant size to be meaningful.... But it's still telling.
