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Pickups Ford F-Series Full-size pickup sales - F-150 best selling truck, but for how much longer??
550 messages, Last post on Nov 15, 2009 at 7:37 PM
You are in the Ford F-Series Forum. Your Host is kcram
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Replying to: kdhspyder (Oct 19, 2007 9:54 pm) Thanks. I'd love to have you though address my two major points. 1) How does the extra "step" in their distribution system add any value to the consumer? Seems to me that it doesn't take a Harvard MBA to realize that this extra layer of overhead simply adds cost. Monopolies never benefit anyone except the monopolists. Isn't the France family of NASCAR fame the Southeast "distributor"? 2) Rather than having quasi-monopolistic "distributors" configure the vehicles for their areas, I'd feel a lot better if individual consumers, real live consumers, could pick and choose what they options they wanted to buy. I realize that this is bottoms-up approach is alien to the Japanese cultural system but it seems to work well here. You might find for example that a lot of NYC customers have second homes up in the Adirondacks or Catskills. Or maybe out on the Islands (Fishers, Block Island, Nantucket, etc.) and would rather order, buy and have their 4X4 Tundra serviced at their home dealer in NYC than at a dealer in upstate NY or in RI. How Toyota decides to do business is, of course, their business. But for American truck buyers who are used to an open spec book (I think you can even get leather as an option on the Chevy 1500 Work Truck!) and direct factory to dealer pricing, this may not be the best approach.
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Replying to: anythingbuttoy (Oct 21, 2007 6:56 am) |
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Replying to: blckislandguy (Oct 21, 2007 4:49 pm) Point #1 As to efficiency well here the numbers speak for themselves. Jim Press set up this system and ran it for 30 yrs and Toyota's sales and marketing exploded across N America. Now that's a model that works. There is no monolithic HQ in Dearborn or Renaissance or Auburn Hills that decides everything...each local region does the deciding. Point #2 Well this point has been debated on evey product thread here and elsewhere. Toyota and Honda both limit the configurations in order to improve production efficiency. Note that Toyota here is only interested this year in selling to the retail buyer in a relatively few configurations. By doing this they keep the costs down and the profits up. More volume in smaller segments. In the end this is just business..maximize sales revenue and minimize costs. This is what Toyota does better than any of the rest. All the rest ( like the discussions here ) are fanboi hoohaa.
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Replying to: kdhspyder (Oct 21, 2007 6:15 pm) |
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Replying to: kdhspyder (Oct 21, 2007 6:15 pm) Need I mention that Toyota marketing guru who made Scion a household name for the young that's moving over to Ford. I'm sure Toyota errr Toyoda is real happy about that.
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Replying to: obyone (Oct 21, 2007 9:20 pm) In the end it's only business, nothing more. Farley, $20 Million? See previous statement. Toyota execs are notoriously underpaid by industry standards. Ditto the dealerships, sales force, staff, you name it. How well off can a sales person be when selling Scions bring a total markup of $800, at full sticker, or when the two highest volume vehicles ( Corolla and Camry ) bring ZERO to $500 on average. Toyota's whole marketing scheme is based on volume, volume, volume while keeping the cost components low. Their perfect model of efficiency in selling are the internet groups in CA. There are mega-stores there that are the largest retailers on the planet with sales people that average 60+ units monthly ( that's 3 sales per working day on average )...everyone of them a giveaway. The industry average for monthly sales per person is eight!!.
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told me that they were in the top 5% in the nation moving over 500 vehicles a month. And they don't do live music or hotdogs on the weekends  Only business? I'd be concerned if a guy that built your USA operations from the ground up left and went to a competitor. |
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Replying to: kdhspyder (Oct 22, 2007 5:08 am) Sure, maybe the Toyota business model is "volume, volume, volume,.." but even at zero GPM on a retail sale this doesn't mean that no one is making any money on the sale. The F & I Department is probably good for $2000-$3000 per unit, the used car department loves the trade-ins, the sales guy pumping our 60 units a month has to be making a 100K+ a year or else the local BMW store would send a cab over for him, etc. Here in the Northeast, the domestic brands are reduced to quoting everything at dealer invoice. Literally. This doesn't mean though that the dealer-principal is losing any money. Au contraire, he is quite willing to have the public thinks that he is giving the vehicle away at "cost" when he has multiple shots at the consumer before they finally drive off in his new car. (The automobile industry reminds me of the airline industry: everyone makes money, bundles of money, except the airlines.) Finally, with regard to "volume, volume, volume" , as Toyota pushes the volume envelope their dealership CSI's are approximating that of the big, bad GM and Ford stores. (Source? Cover article in Baron's in August of 06). This will in the end come back to bite them. Just as the decreassing reliability ratings will.
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