RV Salesman

kcmoedoe wrote:
If you are not there, dealers are going to do one of two things.

1. They are going to leave themselves a cushion on the trade and a cushion on the new rig because they do not know what other conditions you are going to introduce when you actually bring the trade in to the dealership and attempt to finalize any deal. You wouldn't be the first person to say the trade was pristine, and the only thing pristine in it was the duct tape you just used to repair a few broken items. You also wouldn't be the first person to bluff and say "that price sure was great, but the guy two states over beat your price by a thousand, so if you can match it, I will buy here".

2. Or, they may put you on a lowball. Give you a price they know they cannot meet, but it is also a price no one else can meet. When you come in they will nickel and dime you on the new rig, saying things like you didn't specify the 32 inch television, we priced it with the standard 20 incher. This rig has white wall tires, price didn't include freight etc. Then they will also destroy the value of your trade. EVERY trade has something that a dealer can point out that is not perfect. They will point out every nick, dent, scratch, stain, mis-aligned cabinet door and eventually arrive at a value that will allow them to complete the deal.

Dealers have years of experience with thousands of customers and tens of thousands of "shoppers" and you aren't going to come up with some magic technique to suddenly puts them at your mercy. If you are not getting any call backs, the odds are great that the dealer has decided you and your negotiating tactics are the south end of a north bound mule and they would much rather just move on to a real customer. Remember, to you it is a multi-thousand dollar decision. To them, the only value is the profit on the sale. Whittle that down to a few hundred dollars and they are very likely going to decide it just isn't worth the hassle.
Think about it from the salesperson's perspective. If the dealer makes a $500.00 profit, the salesman's cut is probably around $150.00, pre tax. So they take home $100.00. To earn that $100.00 they have spent time with you on the phone, they will spend time showing you the actual rig when you finally come in. There will be something wrong with the rig, so they will have to supervise getting that taken care of. Then they will have to handle your trade in. Then they have to wait while you actually pay for the rig, which seldom is as easy as it sounds. "Cash buyers" often are really credit buyers who just thought that saying they were cash buyers would make the deal better. Then they will have to spend a hour or more going over the operation of the new rig. All through the process, even that small commission was unsure because a million things could derail the process at any time. Do it a few times and at the very end find out that the buyer either squirreled out at the last minute or took your price and used to negotiate with his local dealer and you will find that salespeople very quickly tire of making "deals on the phone". Such deals have a very low success rate.