Spoil Sport

Once again, another dealership ruins it for the rest of us. Recently, a customer in Anchorage Alaska was the winner of a 2009 Nissan GT-R on eBay Motors with a bid of $55,100. Now, the dealer (Honda of San Marcos) is refusing to sell the vehicle to them. The bugaboo: It was a No-Reserve Auction.

This is another shining example of how a dealership participates in a platform without knowledge, training, or guidance, and gives our industry a black-eye. The dealership is claiming that they didn’t know about the Reserve feature and our demanding the winning bidder purchase the vehicle for $4,000 more. To me, I think the dealer should have to eat the difference and THAT is the price to pay for not knowing.

I urge dealers to not get involved in platforms (eBay, Craigslist, Social Media) if they DON’T know what they are doing? Read a blog, seek guidance, ask someone from your 20 group, go onto DealerElite and hunt for someone that works for eBay to ask them a question… anything. But don’t try to do it yourself without any preparation as it will always come back to bite you. There are endless discussions and experts that can point you in the right direction. Don’t involve yourself in a new marketing channel without guidance.

Now that the dealership is standing their ground, the winning bidder has been taking his disappointment to the blogs and getting a heck of a backing. (Read the article here - Autoblog article about Honda of San Marcos vs. eBay Motors .

What do you think? Do you think the customer should pay more money for the vehicle after following all of the rules, paying a pretty penny, and STILL winning the vehicle? Or do you believe the dealership should have to suck it up and learn and lesson?

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Comment by Dawn Wynne on August 11, 2011 at 2:37pm: "Dealers participate in too many auctions and enter into too many contracts to claim ignorance of either the nature of the auction or the binding nature of the contract"

Well said!

When we make mistakes, we have to pay up. Do we like it? NO - but it is the cost of doing business, no matter what industry you are in. Time for the dealer to pay up and honor the "contract" of offering the car publically at a certain price.

There are many venues for selling cars through the internet and TONS of online tools for training and best practices. This store needs to suck up the mistake and take the measures to ensure that they can be profitable in the future using the internet tools available by setting in place some training processes.

Comment by Richard Stone on August 11, 2011 at 1:30pm: $4000.00 for some 'free' training would have been worth it if they just stepped up and admited they did not understand the rules. We all make mistakes. The key is to be accountable for that mistake a not to duplicate it.

Comment by Erik Vallejo on August 11, 2011 at 1:17pm: I think they need to bite the bullet on this one and sell it to him for the winning bid price. I agree with some of the other comments, if you don't know what your getting into, get help, or don't do it.

Comment by Ben Hannah on August 11, 2011 at 1:02pm: They definitely screwed up, but it seems like we are quick to turn on our own. Maybe some of the finger pointers could help educate them. It's easy to judge!! What about extending a helping hand? Piling on doesn't help our industry rep. I'm not condoning their actions at all, but we all make mistakes and have all learned expensive lessons. Hopefully they will learn from their mistake and be better moving forward.

Comment by Cory Mosley on August 11, 2011 at 11:56am: I guess they don't know what that BMW dealer (who shall remain nameless) in NE went through when they screwed up the auction on an M3. It went viral, lawyers were involved, and angry bloggers were calling the dealership with threats of violence. This is about EGO- the right thing to do is obvious....somebody send that dealership a copy of the "Nordstrom Way" please LOL

Comment by Adam Thrasher on August 11, 2011 at 11:50am: Has anyone checked out their ratings on Google Places, Yelp! or Yahoo? You should! How long will it take them to make those reviews go away?

Comment by Jae Chang on August 11, 2011 at 11:44am: I had a similar experience to this ironically involving a GTR back in 2009. I tried to convince our "Dealer" to sell at the agreed price, he'll be back for service (the agreed price was over MSRP - when these were HOTTT). Maintenance on a GTR can be profitable for the dealer. He chose to pass, the neighboring dealer gladly accepted and the owner of the GTR and I have remained friendly. He spends thousands a year to maintain and enjoy his supercar. Stepping over dollars to pick up pennies!!

Comment by Thomas A. Kelly on August 11, 2011 at 11:17am: In spite of due diligence, including seeking guidance from peers, vendors, etc., will still make mistakes. When we do, we take responsibility and suffer the consequences ourselves....or.....be a light-weight like Honda of San Marcos and suffer immeasurable long term damage that is now under way as we speak. The real shame is as you point out Joe, "Once again, another dealership ruins it for the rest of us". Unfortunately the actions of a few continue to make it difficult for the rest to outrun our reputations from our past.Your making light of it and open condemnation it is a good first step. I join you in your disappointment of Honda of San Marcos.

Comment by Steve Ganz on August 11, 2011 at 10:40am: And they ended up selling it to him at the original winning bid!

All that drama and attention on this dealership, article has over 33,000 views.......

ebay price honored

Comment by Henry J. Doig on August 11, 2011 at 10:39am: "Stupid is, as Stupid does!!!