An Alternative Buying
Strategy

They Deal with Fleet Managers
Many dealerships have fleet managers whose job it is to sell multiple numbers of cars at one time to people like taxi companies or police departments or corporations that have a fleet of company cars. While the new-car sales manager is measured on the number of units sold, he is also responsible for the amount of total overall profit, margin that those units bring the dealership. The fleet manager, on the other hand, is responsible only for the number of units he sells, not the profit margin. For that reason he is always looking to move another unit and is therefore more than happy to deal with a car-buying service, which might represent a multiple of units over the course of a year.

While the fleet manager does in fact earn a small profit for the dealership on each unit sold, generally the factory provides an additional financial incentive to the dealer for these sales. In their heart of hearts factories are primarily interested in moving inventory.

Of course, they want their dealers to remain profitable enough to keep their doors open, but keep in mind that most dealership profits come from their service operation, used cars, and the back end of new-car from the factory in terms of bonus payments. Again, the factory needs to keep the flow of cars moving off the production line, through the dealerships, and into buyers' garages.

One car-buying service reports that, it's not uncommon to find a dealer who will part with a car for a price well below invoice because he needs the unit to help him qualify for a bonus and incentive trip. Think about it: If moving just one more car meant a $5,000 bonus and a trip to some Caribbean destination, you, were you a dealer, might be more than happy to sell the unit at cost.