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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.