ALT-1 Used Car Ethics how much Blame Lies with the Buyer
Have you ever wanted a deal? Nothing crazy. Maybe a $50 or $100 discount. You didn't want the world, just a good deal. Was it at the grocery store or the electronics department at the big supercenter? Well, more than likely you have. You cut the weekly coupons out of the newspaper for your favorite foods and you loaded up the groceries into the car and felt good about the $50 you saved on your $300 purchase. Or, you looked through the ads before going to that elctronics store and saved $150 on that $1500 flat panel wall TV you've had your eye on for the last 2 months.So, would you want a good deal on a new or used car, truck or SUV? Of course you would. And when you showed up at the used car dealership and they had a vehicle priced at $9995, what kind of a discount would you expect? Two hundred dollars? Two thousand dollars? Say that it was a nice vehicle, with low miles and it was competitively priced to all others with the same equipment that you have seen listed in the paper. Now how much of a discount would you like?So now let's put you at the dealership. You have been "upped" by a scumbag salesperson who smells of last night's party and you've put up your "wall" for fear of being taken to the cleaners. But, you've found the vehicle we've just talked about, the one that's worth taking home without a discount. The salesdude asks those closing words, "if I could, would you?" and now your starting to think about it. But you don't like this guy. So now with your chest pushed out and your arms folded acrossed it, here is where you say,"knock three grand off and I'll take it".Now let's put you in the same situation but with a different sales,woman. She greets you on the lot, gets to know you a little, knows her inventory like the back of her hand and treats you with some respect. So now she's found you the "perfect" vehicle that we've talked about earlier. The one that is listed "On Sale" in the paper for $9995. She asks that same closing sentence, the one memorised by all salespeople, "if I could, would you?". But now, the answer is very different, "well, is there any way that you could discount it a couple of hundred"? "I'm sorry", she replies, "but it's an advertised unit, there just isn't any room for discounting". "Well, okay, I'll take it".
Now wasn't that easy? And what kind of ethics were involved in those two transactions? I can tell you that a lot of how the dealer/salesperson is percieved by the customer will dictate as to how the deal will eventually evolve into either a sale or even possibly the death of a salesman.
