Costa Mesa Dealership to Close on Sundays : Labor: Staff at sales lot get a day off. It’s hoped competitors will follow and not make it an off day.
Although some people are more likely to curse at them than pray with them, car salespeople--like the clergy--expect to work on weekends.
An unpleasant reality of the commissioned sales agent’s life is the need to work when the competition is working--or lose money.
But starting this Sunday, the rules will change for the sales staff at Orange Coast Jeep Eagle.
The lot, on Costa Mesa’s new-car row along Harbor Boulevard, will remain open to customers. But the only employee on duty will be a security guard as the dealership, one of the largest Jeep and Eagle franchises in the nation, becomes the first major new-car dealer in California and the only one in Orange County to close on Sundays.
Owner Gary C. Gray said the policy, which he has tested informally on the first two Sundays of 1993, was not prompted by a need to pare operating costs but by a desire to give his employees one day a week to spend with family and friends without worrying about losing income.
Gray thinks that other dealers will monitor his experience in hopes of being able to adopt the same policy.
A survey of the state’s 1,700 new-car dealers by the California Motor Car Dealers Assn. in 1991 found that 75% supported Sunday closings but wanted a state law mandating the practice so that they would be assured that their competitors were closed as well. While 23 states have so-called blue laws that prohibit certain retailers, including car dealers, from operating on Sundays, California has no such restrictions.
Gray hopes that his voluntary policy will improve sales, regardless of what the competition does. Fewer than 200 new-car dealers in the state now close one day a week, and most are low-volume franchises, industry specialists say.
Kevin Allen, executive director of the Motor Car Dealers Assn. of Orange County, said that most dealers he speaks with support a six-day week as a means of attracting and keeping high-quality employees, but say they are afraid to close on Sundays if the competition stays open.
“Dealers that are aware of what (Gray) is doing applaud him for it--even if secretly they think he’s crazy for trying,” Allen said.
To help compensate for his Sunday closing, Gray plans to advertise the day as an “invisible salesman” opportunity for customers who don’t like dickering. All new and used cars on the lot will be posted with discount price stickers after the 9 p.m. closing each Saturday night, he said, and those prices will be honored on Mondays for customers who browsed the lot Sunday and want to buy a particular vehicle.
“It provides a day for customers who are intimidated by salespeople to come in and look without being hassled by anyone,” Gray said.
“We have done it the last two Sundays without promoting it,” Gray said Wednesday, “and last Monday we sold 14 new cars--our biggest Monday ever.”
Gray said he expects some small savings in maintenance and operating costs because of the Sunday closings, but “not enough to make a real difference.” The lights will remain on, and an answering service will take phone calls, he said. “The real advantage is that the people who work here will be happier and more productive.”
All 12 of the dealership’s sales personnel are on straight commission, he said, meaning that they receive no salary. Commissions for sales made to customers who picked out a car on a Sunday and opt to use the Sunday discount price will go to whomever writes up the sale on Monday, Gray said.
In 1992, he said, the dealership sold 834 new cars and 300 used cars. Its gross revenue from sales of cars, parts, repairs, and service and finance contracts was $25 million.
