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Exactly. This is a point the article misses. I do believe they mark up the sale price similarly, but probably make even more margin on underpaying for their inv

Exactly. This is a point the article misses. I do believe they mark up the sale price similarly, but probably make even more margin on underpaying for their inventory. Separately, I find it ironic that the term "no haggle" has been now socialized to mean "buyer friendly". Certain segments of the population have fallen for it, hook, line and sinker. In reality the notion that they refuse to haggle (i.e. refuse to lower our prices) should be viewed as anti-consumer. At least that's how I take it. I'd never, in a million years, buy something that high in price where the price couldn't be negotiated. Lastly, the article [1] that's linked to in OP's article is actually more fascinating in my opinion. It describes a California court ruling against CarMax's inspection policy and how it violates 2006 California Consumer Protection statutes. Pretty interesting. [1] https://jalopnik.com/california-court-says-carmax-certification-violates-con-1788101655 https://jalopnik.com/california-court-says-carmax-certificat...

mgkimsal 8y ago
> In reality the notion that they refuse to haggle (i.e. refuse to lower our prices) should be viewed as anti-consumer Lowering prices isn't the same as haggling. Haggling is going to see some salespeople lowering the price more or less for some people vs others, and open them up for a massive discrimination class action lawsuit.
- matt-attack 8y ago
  > salespeople lowering the price more or less for some people vs others Agreed. Why must that naturally lead to the idea of discrimination? If I'm selling a car privately, and a buyers arrives and agrees to pay my full asking price, have I discriminated against him, even though I know secretly I would have taking $1k less than asking, had he merely asked?
  - mgkimsal 8y ago
    if you're a larger company, defending yourself against charges of allowing discriminatory behavior would just be too costly. why allow it?
Obi_Juan_Kenobi 8y ago
No haggle, if genuine, means that there's less information asymmetry between buyer and seller. A buyer can look at a variety of places and see real prices, and thus have a gauge of the market. If everything is a negotiation, you'd have to invest considerable time negotiating the 'true' values, or else estimating based on general market knowledge. In either case, the buyer has to work much harder to gather information about the market. A reduction in information asymmetry should work strongly in the buyer's favor relative to the old system.
- hunter2_ 8y ago
  It's true: with haggling, the buyer is at a disadvantage if they don't have the time to gather information. But isn't that like with supermarkets, where the buyer is at a disadvantage if they don't have the time to clip coupons? In both cases, the point is to let people who have more money but less time subsidize people who have more time but less money, so that everyone can obtain the goods even if they don't quite pay the average price required to keep the business afloat. I should think that if you're against one of these tactics (haggling), you should also be against the other (clipping coupons). Curious if that's the case.
  - closeparen 8y ago
    Dealers really don't like to give you give you an offer good for more than a few minutes, let alone in writing. Coupon prices are published in a separate venue, but still published.
    - hunter2_ 8y ago
      Couponing for groceries is a pain in the ass, so enough people don't bother to do it, and that makes for a stable balance of people paying too much and people paying too little. With something as high value and infrequently purchased as a vehicle, finding a coupon in a separate venue is something almost everyone would do if they knew about it, and so it wouldn't achieve the necessary balance. Whatever the tactic is (haggling, couponing, who knows what they'll think of next) it has to be a sufficient pain in the ass for this concept (letting people with extra money and no extra time subsidize the opposite) to work. Not everyone agrees with this concept (stealing from the rich to give to the poor, welfare, however you want to think of it) but at the end of the day it makes for more people being able to purchase.
vvanders 8y ago
You see it as people being suckers, I see it as not having time to fuck around with shady dealer tactics, Craiglist joyriders and tire kickers. Sometimes you don't have 20h+ to dedicate to those shenanigans. In that case if CarMax comes within some Delta of KBB/etc I fail to see how that's "anti-consumer". I've sold cars pretty much all different ways and found CarMax's proposition to be pretty reasonable.

mgkimsal 8y ago

> In reality the notion that they refuse to haggle (i.e. refuse to lower our prices) should be viewed as anti-consumer Lowering prices isn't the same as haggling. Haggling is going to see some salespeople lowering the price more or less for some people vs others, and open them up for a massive discrimination class action lawsuit.

matt-attack 8y ago
> salespeople lowering the price more or less for some people vs others Agreed. Why must that naturally lead to the idea of discrimination? If I'm selling a car privately, and a buyers arrives and agrees to pay my full asking price, have I discriminated against him, even though I know secretly I would have taking $1k less than asking, had he merely asked?
- mgkimsal 8y ago
  if you're a larger company, defending yourself against charges of allowing discriminatory behavior would just be too costly. why allow it?

Obi_Juan_Kenobi 8y ago

No haggle, if genuine, means that there's less information asymmetry between buyer and seller. A buyer can look at a variety of places and see real prices, and thus have a gauge of the market. If everything is a negotiation, you'd have to invest considerable time negotiating the 'true' values, or else estimating based on general market knowledge. In either case, the buyer has to work much harder to gather information about the market. A reduction in information asymmetry should work strongly in the buyer's favor relative to the old system.

hunter2_ 8y ago
It's true: with haggling, the buyer is at a disadvantage if they don't have the time to gather information. But isn't that like with supermarkets, where the buyer is at a disadvantage if they don't have the time to clip coupons? In both cases, the point is to let people who have more money but less time subsidize people who have more time but less money, so that everyone can obtain the goods even if they don't quite pay the average price required to keep the business afloat. I should think that if you're against one of these tactics (haggling), you should also be against the other (clipping coupons). Curious if that's the case.
- closeparen 8y ago
  Dealers really don't like to give you give you an offer good for more than a few minutes, let alone in writing. Coupon prices are published in a separate venue, but still published.
  - hunter2_ 8y ago
    Couponing for groceries is a pain in the ass, so enough people don't bother to do it, and that makes for a stable balance of people paying too much and people paying too little. With something as high value and infrequently purchased as a vehicle, finding a coupon in a separate venue is something almost everyone would do if they knew about it, and so it wouldn't achieve the necessary balance. Whatever the tactic is (haggling, couponing, who knows what they'll think of next) it has to be a sufficient pain in the ass for this concept (letting people with extra money and no extra time subsidize the opposite) to work. Not everyone agrees with this concept (stealing from the rich to give to the poor, welfare, however you want to think of it) but at the end of the day it makes for more people being able to purchase.

vvanders 8y ago

You see it as people being suckers, I see it as not having time to fuck around with shady dealer tactics, Craiglist joyriders and tire kickers. Sometimes you don't have 20h+ to dedicate to those shenanigans. In that case if CarMax comes within some Delta of KBB/etc I fail to see how that's "anti-consumer". I've sold cars pretty much all different ways and found CarMax's proposition to be pretty reasonable.