Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
Cars. In the UK, at least, new cars are sold through dealerships who are agents for the manufacturer, and are not permitted to discount them without the manufacturer's permission.
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In the US, car pricing (except a few premium or high-demand models) is aspirational. Dealers aspire to sell at list price-plus and consumers aspire to a 50% discount. 12 visits and 6 draining hours worth of haggling later, both are equally frustrated and have grudgingly converged at a price within a few hundred dollars of the publicly published "dealer costs". (which of course doesn't factor in manufacturer and financing kickbacks and other under the table "incentives").
Manufacturers have no say in consumer pricing and on the rare occassion they introduce a car with high demand, dealers can brazenly tack on dealer markup surcharges to sell above list.
US car retailing is a specially "protected" business at the state level that makes it pretty much invulnerable to manufacturer pressure. In fact, the recent bankrupcies and liquidation of Chrysler and Government Motors was the only way they could rid themselves of undesirable dealers.