You left out the most important difference between Retail and Private Sale - PROFIT! Dealers aren't buying your bike for their enjoyment; this is their business.
Actually, The KBB list Trade-In Value as well as wholesale. If you are going to trade a quick check on the number KBB states for your ride will help lesson the shock of the number the salesperson at your local H-D dealership tosses out at you. The thing that all of us, even the most experienced have a hard time with on a trade is that nothing we've added to our rides adds much to that trade-in figure. You might get more if the dealer had done a 103 upgrade or similar work and they know you and the bike. Used to be for me, the sales manager at San Diego H-D would put my trade on the floor on commission. I never had an occasion where I didn't get what I wanted for the bikes they sold that way for me. They took 10% and I felt that to be fair. Then the owner put is son in law in charge and all of a sudden - -"we don't sell on consignment, we've got enough used bikes of our own to sell " Trade or sell it yourself. OK, well since I'm a long time and loyal customer how much on a trade. $2,500 below the KBB figure. Sorry I can't do that. There's a lot that is standard practice and a lot that is the amount of overhead the dealership carries. Interestingly, from the dealerships around San Diego, SD H-D seems to want the most with the least overhead. They've made no capital improvements to their facility in 12 years, they fired all their managers and hired replacements at $20k/yr below the former salaries, they cut hours on everyone so as to have no full time employees and their sales practices changed as noted above. The also went from being customer advocates on warranty work to "this is not covered under warranty because the $10,000 you paid us to modify your drive train voids your warranty" Well when I had all that work done, I was told I was covered "Sorry, that was the way the former managers ran the shop, we are under different management " Yeah, the owner is still the owner but his kids are running the business and they are greedy - - - - - - pick your own adjective. Anyway, We could go on and on and on about this. Big Moose H-D in Maine in my opinion tries to be a good shop. The thing is a number of years back when they bought out the existing H-D dealership in their market segment H-D Inc insisted they create a dealership according to A, B, C, D - - - - Z and that cost them $2mm. They paid the old dealer $1mm for his franchise and then spent another $2mm on inventory. So they were down $5mm when they opened their doors.They have a per unit cost they have to meet to break even after all of the above, salaries, benefits, insurances, utilities, floor planning etc. They then add $1,000 per unit for profit. Understanding their pricing structure enabled me to see why the deal they offered me on a 2009 SERG was what it was, but it still didn't make it work for me. C'est la vie as we say up north.
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Topic: Kelly Blue Book Values (Read 17757 times)