It seems absurd, counterintuitive, too good to be true and somewhat akin to asking a real estate agent what they think a house will sell for and them giving you a genuine price. But it’s really happening. Mercedes-Benz has decided to do away with the entire process of haggling when you buy a car at a dealership, and indeed dismantle the way dealerships currently work, as it moves to an ‘agency model’ instead.
The Australian arm of the German giant will set a national price for each of its cars, and that is the price you will pay, even if you go into a dealership and let some oleaginous gent in a shiny suit try his schmooze moves on you.
A Mercedes-Benz ‘dealer’ will no longer be able to offer you a deal at all; they can only answer your questions, smile obsequiously and arrange your test drive. If you’re picturing a Gordon Gekko-style salesman – who lives for the hard sell and craves his commission – weeping quietly, you’re not the only one.
And you’re not wrong, according to Mercedes-Benz Australia’s CEO Horst von Sanden. As the company continues to negotiate with its dealers over this huge shift, scheduled to begin in 2022, there has been some resistance.
“There are three camps: those who love it, who are looking forward to it; there are the undecideds, who think, ‘This is pretty new, I’m not sure’; and there are also some who don’t like it for various reasons, one being the magnitude of the change, and the fact that they’re good in the current retail game, which hasn’t changed for 70 years,” von Sanden says, treading carefully.
This story is from the November/December 2020 edition of The CEO Magazine - ANZ.
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This story is from the November/December 2020 edition of The CEO Magazine - ANZ.
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