Their TV ad offers to pay you the Kelly Blue Book price for your used car plus $1000. In other words, you don’t have to take their word for what your car is worth. This was always a problem in the past, when you knew they were trying to buy it from you as inexpensively as possible. Now you know exactly what they will pay based on the Kelly Blue Book website price. The TV ad actually requests that you print out your web research page and bring it in with you when you want to talk about
The very fact that they reference the online Kelly Blue Book service shows that they understand that their customers are a lot smarter than they used to be. Our collective ability to research pricing on everything from cars to condos on the Internet has forced a significant change in the way sellers market their goods. As we all know, most car dealers today have pretty good websites which enable you to do lots of pre-purchase work.
For example, Saturn of Fort Myers has a website which offers Internet specials, a complete inventory of their new and used cars, and the ability to configure your car exactly the way you want it. The site also makes good use of audio content to guide you toward intended behaviors. Interestingly, even their website URL nudges you toward a purchase: “purchasesaturn.com.”
Happily for those of us who love cars but hate the process of buying them, we learn everything we need to know about buying a car before we show up at the dealer. And, in the case of Saturn of Fort Myers, we even know what they will pay for a trade in. All that makes the car buying process pretty close to painless.
Of course, this doesn’t mean that this particular car dealer has lost its sales creativity. In fact, I researched my car on the Kelly Blue Book site and on the Edmunds.com site, you will find that the Edmunds’ “true market value” trade-in price is actually $1000 higher than the Kelly price. So, even though you’re getting a fair price from Saturn of Fort Myers, it may not be quite the bargain you thought it was.
The very fact that they reference the online Kelly Blue Book service shows that they understand that their customers are a lot smarter than they used to be. Our collective ability to research pricing on everything from cars to condos on the Internet has forced a significant change in the way sellers market their goods. As we all know, most car dealers today have pretty good websites which enable you to do lots of pre-purchase work.
For example, Saturn of Fort Myers has a website which offers Internet specials, a complete inventory of their new and used cars, and the ability to configure your car exactly the way you want it. The site also makes good use of audio content to guide you toward intended behaviors. Interestingly, even their website URL nudges you toward a purchase: “purchasesaturn.com.”
Happily for those of us who love cars but hate the process of buying them, we learn everything we need to know about buying a car before we show up at the dealer. And, in the case of Saturn of Fort Myers, we even know what they will pay for a trade in. All that makes the car buying process pretty close to painless.
Of course, this doesn’t mean that this particular car dealer has lost its sales creativity. In fact, I researched my car on the Kelly Blue Book site and on the Edmunds.com site, you will find that the Edmunds’ “true market value” trade-in price is actually $1000 higher than the Kelly price. So, even though you’re getting a fair price from Saturn of Fort Myers, it may not be quite the bargain you thought it was.
