Pure Luck?

[sbernali]

As I read through the message here I seen that there are a lot of people who have been waiting for a long time for a SMART CAR. In February I decided that I wanted a SMART. I had followed them for years now seeing that I am a micro car freak (smaller the better) I did my $99 waiting list on February 14 08. Now I don't like waiting so I drove to West Covina and test drove one which only made me want one even more! They put me on there orphan list and to this day I still have not heard anything from them. One day after I went to West Covina Smart I drove out to SMART OF UNIVERSAL CITY. I got on there $2000 waiting list and 4 weeks and 5 days later I was parking my brand new 2008 SMART PURE in my drive way! It has air, power steering, cd, and alarm white and silver. It seem that if you did not get on an orphan list in January or February there just getting longer and longer. I'm still on the $99 list so when I get my email from smart I mite sell my pure and get a PASSION. I truly love my little PURE it has everything I need. The people at UNIVERSAL CITY SMART are GREAT!!! Oh by the way my $99 reservation # was 1506. So was this just PURE LUCK : )??

[jwight]

The more stories like this we see, the more I think PAG knew this had to happen and one of the reasons for a $99 refundable deposit was/is to ensure there are enough dropped reservations for the dealers to sell the cars as orphans. Most of the dealers will tell you they're "just getting by" at the 9% markup; hard to believe, but this unofficial dealer subsidy (dealers loading orphan cars with $2 - 4K worth of "extras") placates the dealers who have to sell reserved cars at MSRP. Nothing against those who have fronted the money and have their cars now; win/win for them and the dealers, but I have to believe this was not unforeseen when this whole marketing strategy was set up.

[4-2NV]

Originally Posted by jwight

The more stories like this we see, the more I think PAG knew this had to happen and one of the reasons for a $99 refundable deposit was/is to ensure there are enough dropped reservations for the dealers to sell the cars as orphans. Most of the dealers will tell you they're "just getting by" at the 9% markup; hard to believe, but this unofficial dealer subsidy (dealers loading orphan cars with $2 - 4K worth of "extras") placates the dealers who have to sell reserved cars at MSRP. Nothing against those who have fronted the money and have their cars now; win/win for them and the dealers, but I have to believe this was not unforeseen when this whole marketing strategy was set up.

I absolutely believe this was thought about and that the potential customers would have a better idea of what the most popular color/option/model combos would be than the dealers or PAG. Thus, through "natural selection" the dealers would end up with sellable cars instead of improperly optioned models allocated by PAG on a best guess basis.