Roadster to new-car buyers: Skip the dealer, we’ll haggle for you
sfgate.com
sfgate.com
I'd prefer a payment model based on either a flat fee paid by the customer, or perhaps something based on the amount saved from the list value of the car.
I guess there is always the question of trust. ie Would you trust him to you the car you want if she is being paid by the dealership?
Also, while they're paid by the dealers, the dealers are still competing with one another for the chance to pay this commission.
Hopefully this is just a small step towards buying cars directly from the manufacturer.
Yes, of course, that's what I do now. but then what value does this broker service provide?
That's the problem with most brokers. Negotiation is unpleasant. I am fundamentally willing to pay money to get the benefits of negotiation without dealing with this unpleasantness.
The problem is that in most areas where negotiation really matters, all the middlemen who have the information required to negotiate well for me all have more important relationships with my counterparties than with me. A big example is body shops;
I mean, I spend probably about half my time contracted out through a body shop of one sort or another, The thing is, at the same job, negotiation quite often can mean a 30% difference in pay for me. And I'm bad at negotiation, so it would maybe make sense to outsource that.
The problem is that the companies that normally handle that, the body shops, have strong relationships that matter with the companies that actually foot the bill. Their relationships with contractors like me matter a lot less, so they are my counterparty in the negotiation.
Writers and actors have agents to handle that sort of thing; but the important bit there is that agents are paid by the person they are representing, and paid more the more the person they are representing gets.
First, we work directly with the GM or fleet managers at dealers who are focused on volume sales, instead of a commissioned salesperson at the dealer. The 1.25% fee we charge dealers is actually cost neutral (or better) for the dealer as they otherwise pay their own sales people 25% - 30% of the profit on any deal in commissions. By the time we engage the dealer, we have a customer ready to buy and it’s a super efficient transaction.
Second, we negotiate to get our customers the best outcome across the whole deal, not just the upfront price. If you don’t focus on the other parts (trade-in, finance/lease terms, rebates/incentives, avoiding extra options you don’t want, etc.), you will likely have a less-than-ideal outcome. We work with customers every day where people thought they had a great price from a dealer, but we end up saving a bunch on their monthly payment.
Finally, we offer our customers transparency (we share every aspect of the deal before you make any commitment) and time savings (how much is your weekend worth?).
Happy to answer any questions about our service.
You're never going to do better with car-buying services than just communicating with the dealers, especially their fleet or online managers. That said, one should figure out what they value their time at, and realize that they can easily spend hours/days trying to haggle that last $500 when it doesn't make sense from a time investment standpoint.
0) Wait until the model years are flipping on the car you want, they need to get last model year inventory off the lot
1) Used Costco to get a prenegotiated price. There's some other things attached with it, but walking in with a price below MSRP opens up the negotiations.
2) Used a couple other sites (e.g. [1]) to get price quotes on the make/model/trim/configuration I wanted. A deluge of emails and phone calls occur within a day or two after this.
3) Simply tell each responding dealership that you are soliciting offers from all the local dealerships and to email you with their best price.
4) Pick a dealer, not the one with the lowest price, but it doesn't matter which one really (but some will try to differentiate with special warranties or other things), open with the Costco price, then follow with the lowest quote you received. Say "beat this and I'll buy my car here, otherwise I'm going to these guys". And don't budge.
5) They'll always come back with a lower price, maybe not by much, but it'll be lower. Be willing to leave if they don't. Congratulations you've just negotiated a low price for your new car. Watch the price buildup for unnecessary fees and fight them on those (or have them throw in overpriced things like floor mats or cargo nets or whatever in exchange).
6) Once you get to finance, don't necessarily accept their rates, the dealership finance people can solicit financing on your behalf from other banks. Simply have evidence that somebody can offer you a loan cheaper than the dealership can offer (Credit Unions are great for this), and haggle a little with them, they'll eventually use their network to do all the legwork for you and it can save you quite a bit of money.
Bonus round:
1) Take your old car to Carmax and get a quote from them to buy your car.
2) During trade-in talks at the dealership see if they'll meet or exceed Carmax's quote.
3) If they don't, you have a guaranteed buyer (Carmax) at a good price. If they do, you get to unload your car hassle free.
4) Take car to Carmax and sell it, or try to get more on the private market. Carmax takes about 30 minutes and the people are pleasant.
It took about a day in each case to buy (and sell) each car, but I managed to save between $3-5k below the retail price in each case, then made above the KBB estimates on my old cars. There wasn't any emotion involved, nothing got heated and the negotiation portion of the process took about 20 minutes at the dealer, most of it was the salesperson waiting for their manager to approve a price reduction. I'd describe the experience both times at two different dealerships as "pleasant", and because we had the negotiations locked up, spent most of the time making polite conversation with the salesperson.
1 - http://usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/cars-trucks/best-price-...