Showroom bargaining

[telephoneman]

Okay, just curious then, what does everybody think is a fair profit on a new car??

That's like saying "what's a fair profit on a mobile phone sale" - it could be minus £200 but you hope to make the money later on calls and rental. Similarly, A car dealership has to factor in the margin that they're going to make on accessories, servicing and warranty work during the life of the car.

[Bigfeet]

That's like saying "what's a fair profit on a mobile phone sale" - it could be minus £200 but you hope to make the money later on calls and rental. Similarly, A car dealership has to factor in the margin that they're going to make on accessories, servicing and warranty work during the life of the car.

True, you could say that but in every dealership I have worked in Sales and Workshop are two separate departments with their own costs and profits.

Besides if you sold a mobile at no profit as you said how do you pay the staff?

[telephoneman]

Besides if you sold a mobile at no profit as you said how do you pay the staff?

The industry has done it for years on contract phones. Despite a connection bonus from the network it's normal for a service provider to be in "negative equity" with a customer for quite a long time. It all comes down to a combination of average spend and churn rate. If you can keep them long enough you make money.

[Bigfeet]

The industry has done it for years on contract phones. Despite a connection bonus from the network it's normal for a service provider to be in "negative equity" with a customer for quite a long time. It all comes down to a combination of average spend and churn rate. If you can keep them long enough you make money.

Interesting, I worked for t-mobile when it was called one2one as a customer car line manager so knew a little about the retention rate. But we never heard about front line stuff.

[ZACK]

I worked for t-mobile when it was called one2one

Ah The Good Old Days !

[alexmj1]

Would it be reasonable to ask for some form of discount on the DS3R or even free 3 years servicing!

[pauljack]

having worked as a salesman and been fleeced by car salesman i would never pay anywhere near full list price. A set of mats is a p*ss take! Tell them to do one! they are talking pap! No citroen will ever hold its money like an audi/ vw for example so you should never pay near list cos you will lose sh*t loads when you come to sell. Use the net and save a grand at least. I love my car like everyone else on here but i didnt get carried away with the dealer experience etc, me personally, well i would rather save money. A coffee and chat to me is not worth £1400 which is what i saved!- sorry Biggie you know this one keeps rearing its head........ lol

[Riggs55]

Discount

Got £1240 off the list price of a new DS3 D sport THP pretty much fully loaded. Spec the car on the internet then phone the dealer and ask if they will match, mine did immediately. It is a sale on their books and they still made a profit. We were initially hit with no discount, well maybe a croissant thrown in! Do your research and you should save around 8%

[jaspabt]

All of the above are valid points. I would say every dealer has some scope for applying a discount as their "mark up" will always be above their standard costs etc, if they were not then it would be a stupid business. The mobile analogy doesn't really apply to a car dealer so much now, especially as servicing can be done now at any VAT registered garage so the additional revenue from servicing no longer exists, compared to mobile phone calls etc etc.
How far into that profit they are willing to dip is another matter, I guess it also depends how much interest they get in the model of car, if it sits in the showroom for weeks without customer interest then they are more likely to cut their losses and accept a smaller profit. Based on Biggies comments their is a benefit to delaying or pushing through sales in order to achieve 100% targets. Not getting the sale 1 month by not offering the discount, but getting the sale in month 2 by offering a bigger discount could mean the dealer hits 100% in both months so achieving their full bonus.
As with car insurance and everything else nowadays, ring round and see what you can get. If a dealer flat out refuses to discount to the price you want then walk away, simples. Also if you dont get the discount you want, then you probably cant afford the car in the first place, so get a C3 as I know they discount those.

[Bigfeet]

No citroen will ever hold its money like an audi/ vw for example so you should never pay near list cos you will lose sh*t loads when you come to sell.

Thats alright, I know we both like to play!

In regards to your comment, any idea why thats the case?

[pauljack]

Thats alright, I know we both like to play!

In regards to your comment, any idea why thats the case?

Yes as you and I know heavy discounting kills residuals, but brand image, supply and demand, and most important i guess previous history of holding on to its value (or not in the case of Citroen) helps! Audi doesnt discount the A1 at the moment but its predicted to be worth more than the DS3 come resale. So it depends were you want to put your money.

[DS3Admirer]

So excited - boyfriend and I put a deposit down on a car yesterday! Found another (far superior) dealer in the end, who was more than happy to negotiate with us... after about a month and a half of waiting to get a decent offer from the first place, we finally got fed up after we told them unless they gave us something more than just floor mats, we'd go with someone else - at that stage they upped their offer to floor mats... AND a boot mat!

At that point we rang another dealership and explained our situation said we know exactly what we want and if they could give us a good deal we'd come in on sunday and sign... They rang us back immediately with a seriously decent offer and so now the deed is done! Think we just had really bad luck with the first people we dealt with.

We got a 1.6 petrol dstyle, sport red/white roof with spoiler, silver alloys strips and mirrors! On a side note, the dealer we bought from said he'd never sold a ds3 with so much spec.... think that may have been my influence! Oops

6-8 weeks......argh!

[Jimbob]

Okay, just curious then, what does everybody think is a fair profit on a new car??

O.K I'll pitch in..........10%

Bear in mind the huge profits made on service so it's not just a one off hit.

Jimbob

[Bigfeet]

Would it surprise people if I told you that dealer only get 2% on new cars. The rest the Citroen issues as bonus which can, according to targets, be up to 10%. This is where your local small dealer struggles compared to the online brokers who deal through the larger dealers who are better suited to volume sales. It's a shame that the industry is moving in this direction and I must admit I see this happening across the board, Easyjet is a good example. At the end of the day I guess people need to decide what 'value' they place on their deals and where they deal to get it.

On a foot note in a dealer the Sales and Service departments are two very separate parts and either profit wise have anything to do with each other. I sense that the next big debate is to do with main dealer servicing!

By the way Audi A1 are already being discounted by dealers as Audi UK have no power to stop Audi dealers from doing so. A few years ago Renault got into a lot of trouble when they tried to control the selling price of their cars.

[ZACK]

But Am I Right In Quoting That Citroen Make A Loss On DS3's ?...