I thought the comments of the saleswoman were pretty funny, and illuminating.<ul><li><a href="http://www.edmunds.com/advice/specialreports/articles/48642/article.html?id=lin9127">from edmunds.com</a></li></ul>

 

as easy. However, the customer is prepared to fight, and won't accept a no hassles approach. They feel they are leaving money on the table if they don't haggle and that they are being ripped off in some way. I've lost count of the times of when I offered to make it easy, and went that route, the client still felt they needed to "win" something.

I liked selling TTs and S4s. No haggle. Nobody really expected to haggle on those cars. It was quick, painless, and non-confrontational. Everyone was happy. The point wasn't so much that I made more money, but that I didn't have to become "the enemy" at some point of the sale.

As I've said before, if you do the homework to get a professional salesperson, your sales process can be enjoyable. It's amazing how much time people take to research the car and pricing, but not take care to find a good salesperson. It's like buying a house with some broker you just picked out of a line-up without getting to know them enough to know if they understand your priorities.

If you are buying Kleenex, you know the product. It's much harder to do an online test drive and have a good idea about the car. It might work on the Nissan or a Toyota, but not a car higher in the market based on intangibles.

It's not fair to take up sales time and expertise only to go to some order taker to fill the order. That expertise came at a price, and using it but not paying for it, is cheating the salesperson the same as a shady dealer trying to steal from you.

 

buy somewhere else. UNLESS ... that somewhere else is markedly less money, and your friendly local salesdroid can't or won't try to beat or match it.

After all, if one store has Kleenex for 30 cents a box but a store across town has it for 28 cents, it ain't worth the time or money. When buying a bigtime auto, it definitely IS worth shopping around.

As an aside, this seems to happen in camera stores a lot. People come in, spend a lot of time and salesperson energy trying all the different makes and having them explained, and then they go home and buy from the big ads in a camera mag or over the internet because it's a few bucks cheaper. That's not nice.

 

True, there needs to be a value point. Dealers that don't provide service, don't deserve business.