Carsales have no new Ranger listings.

[Franco Cozzo]

Why do dealerships even exist anymore? Why can't I option up the car I want through manufacturers website, buy it with EFT/credit card and they pre deliver it at their holding yards and ship it to my house on the back of a truck?

I look forward to when manufacturers move to a model of having service centers with a few cars for test drives and online buying.

The person who bought my F100 I didn't even speak to them, I just took the photos, put the ad up and paid my business partner $500 to do all the wheeling and dealing then collected the cash.

I sold my 7 Series BMW in 2 texts.

The majority of my customers at work don't speak to me, they put an email order in and their orders arrive in the afternoon or next day and thats the end of it.

The last time I went to the shops to buy something was my GPS on the Thursday before Good Friday because I needed a GPS before driving to Adelaide, otherwise I would have bought it online and it came to my house.

Ford seems to be more interested in trying to force their potential customers hands rather than evolving with the times, if a rural dealership can't compete with the city ones then its time to evolve or die.

Instead of having a few hundred car sales staff nationwide you could have 10 who process online orders and connect customers with their cars - spend less money on overheads, more money on advertising and you could probably sell the product at a lower price rather than trying to make money with massive overheads.

The first new car I bought new I had done all the research myself and then went to the dealership and bought the one they had on the lot, what did I need to deal with their sales staff for I did all the work before I arrived at the dealership?

I don't want to talk to someone to buy a car, nor do I want to speak to your finance people or your rip-off merchant upselling lady, I want to pay for it and get my ****ing car and drive it.

[GO FURTHER]

Originally Posted by Franco Cozzo

Why do dealerships even exist anymore? Why can't I option up the car I want through manufacturers website, buy it with EFT/credit card and they pre deliver it at their holding yards and ship it to my house on the back of a truck?

I look forward to when manufacturers move to a model of having service centers with a few cars for test drives and online buying.

I don't want to talk to someone to buy a car, nor do I want to speak to your finance people or your rip-off merchant upselling lady, I want to pay for it and get my ****ing car and drive it.

The person who bought my F100 I didn't even speak to them, I just took the photos, put the ad up and paid my business partner $500 to do all the wheeling and dealing then collected the cash.

I sold my 7 Series BMW in 2 texts.

The majority of my customers at work don't speak to me, they put an email order in and their orders arrive in the afternoon or next day and thats the end of it.

The last time I went to the shops to buy something was my GPS on the Thursday before Good Friday because I needed a GPS before driving to Adelaide, otherwise I would have bought it online and it came to my house.

Ford seems to be more interested in trying to force their potential customers hands rather than evolving with the times, if a rural dealership can't compete with the city ones then its time to evolve or die.

Instead of having a few hundred car sales staff nationwide you could have 10 who process online orders and connect customers with their cars.

I think there are 2 main reasons;

1. Brand new cars are a 'big-ticket' item and need to be sold properly, and for many people, a new car is still the second largest single purchase they will make next to their house.

And probably more importantly...

2. Most people are procrastinators, they are ditherers and go through life thinking "shall we, or shall we not?", "what if I lose my job?", "can we really afford it?", etc.

They need someone to lead them through the sales process, handle their objections, sell the sizzle and then crunch and close them.

[naddis01]

Originally Posted by Smoke Pursuit

Yes it does. Carsales pushes the market down. People go on there and search the cheapest price, print it out and walk into their dealer and demand that they better it. Now people will have to go back to negotiating.

People do the same thing on Facebook. There are posts every day on the Ranger groups asking what people have paid.

[stig_3754]

You can't really negotiate a price online like you can at a dealer (or speaking to someone at least). You also can't negotiate a trade-in price for your current car online. If I went the online model there's no way I would've been able to squeeze an extra $2K on my trade-in to get the deal over the line. Unless you want to deal via email I guess but that seems tedious to me.

I agree that there should be an option to buy online if you're that way inclined, but personally I'm happy I got to finalise my recent purchase face to face.

[Smoke Pursuit]

Originally Posted by naddis01

People do the same thing on Facebook. There are posts every day on the Ranger groups asking what people have paid.

Yeh but you can take alot of those posts with a grain of salt. People not including GST, on roads, Leased vehicles etc. Dealers just laugh with that. With carsales you print it out and as long as its drive away its there in black and white.

[naddis01]

Does anyone else find this a real pain in the rectum? I like to browse Carsales to see who has what in stock as I don't like to wait when buying. This has made it very hard. I also buy on the spur of the moment based on price. I don't see that happening now.

[Craig@AUDI]

Originally Posted by naddis01

Does anyone else find this a real pain in the rectum? I like to browse Carsales to see who has what in stock as I don't like to wait when buying. This has made it very hard. I also buy on the spur of the moment based on price. I don't see that happening now.

Check your PM's then!