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129 Cars
21–30 of 66 posts
Re: 129 Cars
#22This is me at a used car dealership Wednesday, the 1st.
HIM: $13,999
ME: $9,500
HIM: Oh no no no no.(click click click - on his computer). Ok ok, this is what I can do for you $13,499. I take blah blah
.... 5 minutes later ...
HIM: Ok $10,000 and that is my final.
ME: $9,500.
In the end I didn't buy it. It's just amazing how we shaved $4000 off in less than 5 minutes. This industry needs to be regulated.
Re: 129 Cars
#23I listened to this podcast the other day and it was one of the more compelling This American Life episodes I've listened to recently. I say that as a pretty big fan of TAL. They spend the episode interviewing car salespeople and managers at one particular dealership over the course of a week (IIRC), where the salespeople are trying to rack up a certain number of sales to qualify for a bonus payout that means the diff…
"The way the salespeople negotiate between two different parties – on one side with the customer, on the other side with their manager"
This is what really struck at me. I was really surprise at how isolated a car sales guy is, even within the same dealership. It truly is every guy for themselves.
Is this situation ripe for a disruption?
Re: 129 Cars
#24This is me at a used car dealership Wednesday, the 1st. HIM: $13,999 ME: $9,500 HIM: Oh no no no no.(click click click - on his computer). Ok ok, this is what I can do for you $13,499. I take blah blah .... 5 minutes later ... HIM: Ok $10,000 and that is my final. ME: $9,500. In the end I didn't buy it. It's just amazing how we shaved $4000 off in less than 5 minutes. This industry needs to be regulated.
That doesn't sound like a negotiation.... if you had started at $9,000 and come up $500 at the end you might have gotten it.
Re: 129 Cars
#25A quite enjoyable and interesting piece by TAL. One aspect that I found interesting is that Manny, the guy inspired by Sun Tzu and without much inherent interest in the cars themselves, actually fared poorly in sales [1]. This sort of salesman is exactly the sort of person I always want to avoid when I am looking at purchasing something, so I am glad to see his techniques were not all that effective. Overall, the pie…
> Basically, I find the current dealership model's incentives to be largely mismatched to the actual needs of consumers.
Agreed... the current negotiation model seems guaranteed to ensure that the customer walks away feeling screwed. If you buy, there's always that lingering worry that there was money left on the table.
Re: 129 Cars
#26This is me at a used car dealership Wednesday, the 1st. HIM: $13,999 ME: $9,500 HIM: Oh no no no no.(click click click - on his computer). Ok ok, this is what I can do for you $13,499. I take blah blah .... 5 minutes later ... HIM: Ok $10,000 and that is my final. ME: $9,500. In the end I didn't buy it. It's just amazing how we shaved $4000 off in less than 5 minutes. This industry needs to be regulated.
That doesn't sound like a negotiation.... if you had started at $9,000 and come up $500 at the end you might have gotten it.
But why? It's the same number in the end. Is my willingness to play this type of game worth $500 to the sales person?
Re: 129 Cars
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
That doesn't sound like a negotiation.... if you had started at $9,000 and come up $500 at the end you might have gotten it.
But why? It's the same number in the end. Is my willingness to play this type of game worth $500 to the sales person?
I completely agree with your type of thinking. I've always thought the negotiation game ($9500 + $0 != $9000 + $500), while sensible from a psychological perspective, is downright silly. I'd probably act the same as rokhayakebe. Sure, it isn't a negotiation, but perhaps I don't need to negotiate. If I've got a price and I'm settled on it, we may as well get down to business. After all, my time is worth something as well, and six-hour battles at car dealerships sound like a waste of it to me.
Re: 129 Cars
#28I listened to this podcast the other day and it was one of the more compelling This American Life episodes I've listened to recently. I say that as a pretty big fan of TAL. They spend the episode interviewing car salespeople and managers at one particular dealership over the course of a week (IIRC), where the salespeople are trying to rack up a certain number of sales to qualify for a bonus payout that means the diff…
"The way the salespeople negotiate between two different parties – on one side with the customer, on the other side with their manager" This is what really struck at me. I was really surprise at how isolated a car sales guy is, even within the same dealership. It truly is every guy for themselves. Is this situation ripe for a disruption?
Yes, but it's protected by law. Look at how difficult it is for Tesla to sell via a more direct method, without using dealerships.
Re: 129 Cars
#29This sounds awesome, but I cannot for the life of me understand why the Podcast feed for This American Life only contains one goddamn entry. Who uses this shit? What is the point of a podcast if I can't download it in my podcast software of choice on my home Wi-Fi network and listen to it at my leisure?
Am I missing something with a typical podcast workflow? Because this makes zero sense.
Re: 129 Cars
#30This sounds awesome, but I cannot for the life of me understand why the Podcast feed for This American Life only contains one goddamn entry. Who uses this shit? What is the point of a podcast if I can't download it in my podcast software of choice on my home Wi-Fi network and listen to it at my leisure? Am I missing something with a typical podcast workflow? Because this makes zero sense.
They used to be downloadable, now you can pay to listen at your leisure... or pirate it..