Why can you buy a car at dealer Invoice but audio


Equipment you have to pay retail and if the dealers in a decent mood he might give you 10-15% off.
taters
My audio dealer gave me a very nice markdown from retail on my monoblocs. Of course, his highly recommended undercoating treatment made up for it!
Taters,

Just keep in mind for Hi-End equipment the dealer paid 60% of MSRP plus shipping cost.

10% to 15% off on a single item ain't bad.

If the dealer is lucky he might make 5% to 10% after paying himself, or an employee, a wage plus other overhead costs.

If he gives you 20% off MSRP what does that leave him?

Now if you are buying a system then the dealer has more wiggle room.
.
There is no such thing as a dealer's invoice, if they sell every other car at below dealer's invoice, the auto dealership would be considered non-profit organizations.

When a car sales guy sells you a car, after all the overheads, the dealership owner takes a cut, several levels of managers get their cuts, then the sales guy gets his. Even at the "below invoice price"', they all still get their cuts. Sometimes, the manufacturer would cut their take, allowing the dealerships to either have promotions, or unannounced price cuts.

If you look at the price/cost ratio of a car, it is probably similarly structured as an audio component. It is just that there are less middlemen to get that component from the manufacturer to you than it does a car, and a dealer sells less volume of audio components as cars.

My cousin used to work as a salesman at an Acura dealership. He told me that he's pretty much set for the month financially for selling 4-5 cars.

FrankC
Jea48,

It's amazing the dealers only make 40%. That means the manufacturers are making most of the money. As an example a piece that retails for 1000.00 cost the dealer 600. It probably cost the manufacturer 200.00. That's a 300% markup. It looks like if you want to be in the high end audio business today manufacturing is the way to go.