Mercedes Benz UK bans dealer haggling!

[Sheepshanks]

Mark V GTD said:

So, a few weeks I’m now and how is this going for Mercedes and their former ‘dealers’ I wonder?

They were 20% down in Jan (vs Jan 22) when other marques in the same space where there or thereabouts same as their Jan 22 numbers.

I did see a couple of posts on Merc forums of customers being called and told they couldn't have the car for the agreed price, so I imagine many who got that call will have cancelled.

[samoht]

See https://cardealermagazine.co.uk/publish/mercedes-d...

[Mark V GTD]

Sorry about the typo chaps - reading glasses steamed up in the bath! Corrected now :-)

[Chris Stott]

Mercedes had a huge stock pile of cars to launch their new model… they’d been holding back cars from dealers for the last quarter of 2022.

[nobrakes]

DodgyGeezer said:

On the one hand - good! I hate this whole "I'll just speak with the manager" (or similar) B/S. The idea of 'the price is the price' is appealing - the devil, as always, is in the detail. The flip is I honestly can't see it meaning anything other than more expensive cars for us....

Correct.

They’ve been trying to work it the timing of how to bring this in and it’s now.

The whole world is walking into blandville automation. This is just another part of it.

Salesmen’s patter will be watered down and basically lost - which some will say is a good thing.

You could always walk in a pay list anywhere already.

[nobrakes]

stinkyspanner said:

Here's my experience so far of the new business model. I ordered a new Merc this morning at 09.03 right as the system became live, price £66670. Order accepted and sent to the dealer, miraculously in the last 2 hours the price is now £70105.
I'm not overly impressed

So they advertised it for 66k, you said ok here’s 66k then were told it will actually cost you £70k? Brilliant!

[Mark V GTD]

Probably needs a bit more detail to understand this one. What changed and why?

[shopper150]

Mercedes Benz of Winchester are no longer selling new cars due to them being a "smaller dealership"