It is not the salesman who makes the decision on the price. All the salesman is, a go between the customer and management. The name of the game is to take care of the customer and at the best price possible which means more profit for the dealership and commission for the salesman. The salesman helps the customer and management to hopefully agree on the price. When I was a salesman all, I wanted to do is sell a car, any amount of commission was better than zero. My heart would drop when the sales manager would not agree on an offer and the customer walked. We were also required to become a Certified Product Specialist on all of the Pontiac Autos and maintain customer satisfaction. We were not required to be honest, however, I was.

 

first off if your buying a new car i can guarantee the dealership didn't make thousands off of you. the diff b/t invoice and sticker on most cars is 1500 trucks 3000. thats the dealers room to make money and discount the car. the manufacturers rebates of 1000's that is taken off the price of cars is not dealership profit margin. used cars there are more markup but most dealers will not sell a used car for less than 2000 gross profit. a good used car sale is 3gs.

second your not buying a blender here. think about how much it costs to run a dealership (insurance, rent, salaries, legal, electric, ect 30% of the profit the dealer makes goes in my pocket ) and keep in mind that a dealership sells about 80 cars a month depending on the size. they cant survive making 100 bucks a car. used cars wont sell for less than 2g's profit and a new car i've let them go making no profit plenty of times but aim for cars 700 and trucks 1000 dollars profit. the one larger dealership i worked for had a million dollar a year insurance policy and only sold maybe 225 cars a month. i'm sure u see car dealers dieing everyday around your area. they're not hoarding thousands of shiesty unethically earned dollars here.

 

I'm sure they don't make huge amounts of money from a car sale where they make their money is in the service department, which is why most of us do our own oil changes because they want $130 for that oil change and we can do it for $60-$70, but they get a better price on the oil and gilters than we do so other than labor their cost is more than likely $50. They also make money from the financing of the cars

 

You are forgetting the money made on extended warranties, financing finders fees, undercoating, prep charges, clerical fees, manufacturers bonuses etc these all add up and easily exceed the profit you mention.

 

great point on all of these charges, or what about those navigation systems that cost $2000

 

I think that this is the original point of the OP. Your profession, rightly and/or wrongly, seems to have become the poster child for, well, not being honest, and making up all sorts of facts just to sell a car. I used to work in a Buick dealership when I was in HS in order to save enough to buy a car for college (I couldn't afford the cars at the dealership, and ended up with a Ford Pinto...hey, it got me to school and back), and I was able to watch the salesmen (I tried to get into their training program, but the sales manager was barely evolved and insisted that no one would buy a car from a woman). Some of their tactics were borderline harrassment, calling customers who weren't sure about a car, trying to convince them to go to another bank for a loan, or get a co-signer for a car that was above their limit, and (my favorite) getting the AfterSales people to sell/add on other unnecessaray costs to a car. Perhaps it was just the dealership I worked in, but the predatory nature of those salespeople seemed par for the course. Selling cars is not easy, and I can only assume the turnover rate must be astronomical. I've done other types of selling, and I know first hand how important it is to have a good rapport with a customer.

Like I mentioned in an earlier post, if only most salespersons were at least open to actually listening to the potential buyer, most buyers wouldn't get royally pissed and walk out or ended up with severe buyers remorse after ending up with a car that they could not ultimately afford or want. At least in today's market, most customers are very knowledgable about the exact type of car they want, what they can afford, and the pros and cons of the make and model. Granted, in some communities (where I live comes to mind; a lot of decent, hardworking, poor and uneducated), customers can be unwilling to question salespeople; after all, these people are Car Pros, right? But not all buyers are like that. And it's these buyers, including me, that end up with a sour experience.

I returned to the same dealership I had mentioned earlier a few months before I ended up with my XF. I had been following Autotrader for a while, and when a black XF convertible with automatic showed up as a trade-in at that same dealership, I really had my heart set on a 6-speed coupe, but I thought that I might change my mind by testing out the car, though the convertible would still be a problem for me (even smaller trunk space issues). I printed out the page and went to the dealership in order to test drive the car. Even with the picture of the car in front of the dealership logos, the salespeople there had no clue about the car - they could not tell me the price of the car, if it had a carfax, if it had been sold, or even where it was located in the dealership, though the Autotrader ad had been online for at least 2 weeks. They pretty walked me around and around the dealership, trying to find out how much I was willing to spend after I insisted that NO, I do not need a loan application, then when I mentioned exactly what I wanted ('hey, if it's in red, that'll be perfect'), the two salesmen (one young, the other older than me) tried to convince me that I did not want a small little black car, but one of those huge red Nissan SUV, brand new, all nice and shiny (translation: expensive, very not what I wanted). All these guys saw and heard was a woman who said RED and DID NOT NEED A LOAN.

It takes a lot for me to lose my composure. I'm not a b**ch by nature, but sometimes I just HATE being patronized and I really hate being convinced that what I wanted was really not what I wanted. That, to me, is a major issue with any dealership. Not listening to a potential customer who could either turn into a repeat customer and/or refer other people to the dealership is, IMHO, an issue which surpasses anything else in a dealership. Having a great warranty, an on-the-ball service department, to me that is secondary to the simple fact that when your salary depends greatly on a commission, you want your customers to be happy. If you tick off a buyer, you lose a future customer, or end up with an unhappy one who feels 'stuck' every time they end up in the service department for even basic maintenance.

Being a salesperson, especially in today's market, must be even more difficult than ever before. And when you need to show sales completed at the end of the month so you can be sure you have a job next month must be stressful, and there is no way that I envy the profession, since I know I lack the intestinal fortitude to deal with that.

JMHO