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Alex, I really respect you and I think that you've been one of the pioneers for the Internet movement in the auto industry. However, you are wrong. There are too many things to consider when determining whether or not to price your new car inventory. What if a dealer has 500-1000 new cars in stock? That would make it very difficult and time consuming to price and keep up with all of those vehicles. Also, ArtMorris has a point when he says putting a price on a vehicle "would violate our manufacturer's rules". Honda, for example, does not let you advertise a price below invoice. Therefore, if you advertise a Honda vehicle at invoice on your website and your potential customer sees this and then contacts your competitor for their "ePrice", you are screwed. Plain and simple. I also disagree with the fact that dealers should "aggressively" price each and every new car. The gap between showroom customers and "Internet" customers needs to be bridged. Essentially everybody does "research" on new vehicles before they buy these days, including the customers that show up on your lot. Sometimes, these customers will show up on your lot regardless of whether or not your website gave them the information that they were looking for. Profit is not a bad word. When you aggressively price every new vehicle online, you risk the chance of "short-selling" a vehicle that might have brought close to MSRP. I think that negotiation is a part of the business that will never die. After having said all of this, there are times when a dealership should price all of their new inventory and times when they should not.You bring up a subject that needs to be talked about more often when you write: There is a huge power struggle going on right now between "car guys" and "Internet guys". "Car guys" want to make money. They want to maximize gross on every car deal. Most of the time they are thinking about profit. A lot of times, this "car guy" mentality is not too sympathetic to the average Joe. The Internet poses a huge threat because it gets harder and harder to succeed in the area that they were taught was most important. Gross. "Internet guys" may still be profit minded, but they go about it in an entirely different way. In my opinion, they often sacrifice gross to be accommodating. I think that they tend to be unit minded instead of gross minded. Typically, the "car guy" lives for the negotiation and wants the objection from the customer and the "Internet guy" wants to avoid any confrontation and for the transaction to go as smoothly as possible. The Internet guy needs the car guy and vice versa. Over time, these two personalities/philosophies will do more than coexist. There is a lot that they can learn from one another.
Alex, I really respect you and I think that you've been one of the pioneers for the Internet movement in the auto industry. However, you are wrong. There are too many things to consider when determining whether or not to price your new car inventory. What if a dealer has 500-1000 new cars in stock? That would make it very difficult and time consuming to price and keep up with all of those vehicles. Also, ArtMorris has a point when he says putting a price on a vehicle "would violate our manufacturer's rules". Honda, for example, does not let you advertise a price below invoice. Therefore, if you advertise a Honda vehicle at invoice on your website and your potential customer sees this and then contacts your competitor for their "ePrice", you are screwed. Plain and simple. I also disagree with the fact that dealers should "aggressively" price each and every new car. The gap between showroom customers and "Internet" customers needs to be bridged. Essentially everybody does "research" on new vehicles before they buy these days, including the customers that show up on your lot. Sometimes, these customers will show up on your lot regardless of whether or not your website gave them the information that they were looking for. Profit is not a bad word. When you aggressively price every new vehicle online, you risk the chance of "short-selling" a vehicle that might have brought close to MSRP. I think that negotiation is a part of the business that will never die. After having said all of this, there are times when a dealership should price all of their new inventory and times when they should not.
You bring up a subject that needs to be talked about more often when you write: There is a huge power struggle going on right now between "car guys" and "Internet guys". "Car guys" want to make money. They want to maximize gross on every car deal. Most of the time they are thinking about profit. A lot of times, this "car guy" mentality is not too sympathetic to the average Joe. The Internet poses a huge threat because it gets harder and harder to succeed in the area that they were taught was most important. Gross. "Internet guys" may still be profit minded, but they go about it in an entirely different way. In my opinion, they often sacrifice gross to be accommodating. I think that they tend to be unit minded instead of gross minded. Typically, the "car guy" lives for the negotiation and wants the objection from the customer and the "Internet guy" wants to avoid any confrontation and for the transaction to go as smoothly as possible. The Internet guy needs the car guy and vice versa. Over time, these two personalities/philosophies will do more than coexist. There is a lot that they can learn from one another.