To be fair, at the end of the day, it's not a charity and they are there to make money. I get it. I'm OK with them making money to pay the bills. I just don't want to pay all of their bills from my sale alone.
I hear ya. I never really poll customers to know what they think might be fair. Does anyone have any thoughts on what a fair profit would be on a $40k vehicle?
wtf is fair profit? This is not a life safety device or something that will save humanity, its a truck. You should make as much profit as someone if willing to give you.
I only care about one thing when I shop for a car. The price I am willing to pay for it. I never exceed it. I may also not buy a car if I can't get someone to agree to the price I am willing to pay. If the number I am willing to pay works out to a good or bad profit number on your side isn't something I worry about. No one is in the business of selling things to go broke. I guess the better answer would be I would need to know what the operating cost of the dealership is and how much profit I want to make on top of that. Then decide whether I want to sell 3000 cars a month or 300 to make that number. That's pretty much the objective isn't it?
Are you the buyer or the seller with that question? Is the $40K Price or Cost? If you are the seller, what is the projected services revenue (and margins on that) during the first 1,2,3,5 years on top of sale price?
Operating costs won't be in the same hemisphere selling 3000 compared to 300, so that's a null point.
MSRP? Arent the profit margins built in from the get go? I would be comfortable with maybe 10-15% as a selling dealer. I bet the gross sales numbers on new vehicles are high but the net isnt much to brag about. I bet there is juicier margins in service, warranties, and used vehicles.
Was going to write a long post about how dealers operate. Decided against it because I knew no one would read it haha.
Since I've been running dealerships for over a decade now, these threads are always entertaining . There's the people claiming dealers make too much money ( we make a decent amount so I do understand that ) , but what normally seems to be missing is the understanding that every car on the lot does have a real cost . This cost doesn't have anything to do with what you pulled our of thin air ( most times) that you WANT to pay for it . No , we cannot just " make it up on the next sale" , try getting a $8.99 box of Tide detergent at Walmart for $2.99 and tell Walmart to just sale the next one for $14.99. The operating costs of a franchise dealership are astronomical , Net profit vs. Gross profit would floor some of you if you knew how much one of these monsters actually gets out of every dollar "made" . Do your research with the various sites , look at the cost on the vehicle you are actually buying ( ie. don't bring us a build sheet on the base model and think we're going to sell you a loaded one for that just because you printed it out) , add what you think is a fair profit and come make an offer to us. We'll respect that . Acting like a hard ass for hours on the showroom because you can't get a price that you completely made up , will not .