The Art of the Haggle
He sat in a cubicle off the showroom floor. He was a stocky man in his mid-50s, and his crew cut, square jaw, white dress shirt and rock-solid manner all suggested Lou Grant. His domain, however, was not a newsroom. It was a car dealership, one of several clustered on Brand Boulevard--Glendale’s “Boulevard of Cars,” as colorful banners flapping above the street proclaim.
His job was sales manager. Anybody who ever danced the strange fandango of American car-buying knows what a sales manager does--or, at least, they imagine they know. Sales managers are God of the deal. They hole up somewhere, unseen, waiting to accept or reject offer sheets timidly presented by members of the sales force.
Customers are made to believe that the sales manager is a harsh master who would rather guzzle gasoline than sell a car for anything less than full value. Conversely, the salesmen--and, rarely, saleswomen--play the role of the consumer’s pal. Why, they’d give the car away, if only that ogre of a sales manager would let them.
“One of the other guys who sits in this chair,” this sales manager was saying, “is from the old school. He will take the buyer’s first offer sheet and without even looking at it first, crumple it into a ball and toss it over the wall. The customer literally sees his rejected offer come flying back. We call that, giving it ‘the full Playhouse 90.’ You know, theater. Believe it or not, theater is what many buyers expect. And if they don’t get the whole show, they’re not happy.”
*
It was Monday afternoon, and the midsummer air was hot, thick with smog, and the stock market was tumbling, and the eagle hadn’t flown, and nobody was coming to the Boulevard of Cars to buy, or even look. Sales crews huddled inside air-conditioned showrooms, adjusting their ties, jiggling pocket change. This lull in the combat between car buyer and seller gave the sales manager a moment to discuss the fine art of the haggle.
The topic was fixed prices. A few years back, with the introduction of the Saturn line, a new day in car buying was heralded. Future sticker prices would be fair and firm--no haggling. Many dealers were convinced, at first, that this was what consumers wanted. Many consumers thought so, too. Subsequent industry polls and anecdotal experience have demonstrated the opposite. Car buyers, many of them anyway, missed haggling, missed bragging about their “deal.” And now many no-haggle dealerships have begun returning to older methods.
“If buyers don’t get the dealership to give a little, they feel they have been taken,” explained the sales manager, who did not want his name or dealership disclosed. (The brethren might not appreciate his candor.) If their initial offer is accepted, a different fear gnaws: Did they come in too high? He told of an older woman whose husband had died and not left her much. She needed a car for work. She knew what she wanted. She knew her price, to the dollar.
“This poor lady,” the salesperson pleaded, offer sheet in hand, “really needs this car and this is all she can afford . . . “
“No,” the sales manager replied, “her offer plus eight hundred dollars more.” He wasn’t being cold, he insisted. He wanted her to feel like she had negotiated. Informed of the counter, the woman shot back happily: “Make it four hundred, and I’ll do it!” Sold.
*
He had many such stories, tales of customers so burdened by attitude that they let good deals slip by, of suckers who succumb to the “romance” of new iron and pay thousands more than necessary. “Larry Laid-Outs” is the trade term for these unfortunates. “We prefer,” the sales manager said, “not to talk that way around here.”
No, he was of a more civilized breed. He reached into the desk for a fistful of colored markers. He has studied art and likes to put the psychology of color to work as the offer sheet is passed back and forth. With the red pen, he said, he’ll slash through the buyer’s first offer: Rejected! The black pen is for the counteroffer, around which he draws a green box--”green is a positive color.” Blue--”soothing”--is reserved for the final offer.
“And, oh yeah,” he added, “toward the end, when things are really going good, that’s when I start putting happy faces all over the offer sheet.”
Here the sales manager flashed a wry smile, and it said, this quick smile, all there was to say about the baffling way Americans buy and sell cars: Some things never change. The nonsensical dance of the auto lot swirls on, same steps as ever. Strange, how that seems somehow reassuring.
