A Letter to Car Company Bosses: Car Salespeople Should Disappear — The Absurdity of the Traditional Dealer System and the Case for Online Direct Sales

Let me state up front: I have bought a new car, and from start to finish I walked into the showroom alone, handled the negotiation, took the test drive, haggled, and took delivery myself. So anyone who wants to dismiss me as an internet keyboard warrior can save the effort.

Why write such a pointed article? Because a good friend of mine recently bought a car and once again ran into a terrible salesperson who was full of talk, broke promises, and vanished the moment the car was delivered.

Of course, this is not to say that the people I dealt with were nobler. It is because from the very first day of buying a car, I have held zero expectations of the so-called car salesperson.

Look carefully at how the car market actually works, and you will see that the traditional car sales system is thoroughly behind the times. If car company bosses genuinely want to improve profits and rebuild brand trust, the first thing they should think about is how to make this group of stale sales intermediaries gradually disappear.

The Absurd Core of the Traditional Dealer: Spending Big to Hire People Who “Cut Your Own Profit on the Customer’s Behalf”?

In today’s world of extremely transparent online information, the only hard rule for a consumer walking into a showroom is fair pricing and transparent equipment.

Back in reality, what is actually left of the traditional car salesperson’s function in the sales chain? Strip it down and there are only two things:

1. Taking the customer for a lap in a test-drive car.
2. Sitting at the negotiation table and engaging in a long, futile game of haggling and one-upmanship.

This is the most absurd link in the entire business system. The bosses of major car brands pay expensive rent for showrooms in prime locations every month, pay salespeople’s base salaries, and set aside sales bonuses that can run to tens of thousands. Yet after hiring all these salespeople, their core output in the showroom turns out to be going back to the branch manager and the sales manager to fight for discounts, cutting the car company’s gross margin on the customer’s behalf.

Customers rush from one dealership to another across the country, asking everywhere “who can knock off a hundred thousand,” “whose window tint is more premium,” and “who gives back more commission on insurance.” Salespeople, meanwhile, quietly swap in aftermarket parts and pocket the difference.

If the price of a car company maintaining a whole army of people is that consumers buy in fear and the company’s profit is diluted layer by layer, why not simply save all that huge dealership payroll and channel commission, build an open and transparent factory online sales platform, and return the profit honestly to car owners?

Breaking the Biggest Myth: “Find a Good Salesperson and After-Sales Service Is More Secure?”

The deepest and most unrealistic myth about car salespeople is the belief that buying from a good salesperson means you will have someone to rely on for future use and repairs.

Wrong! Completely wrong!

The future after-sales service of your beloved car has only one real window in the entire factory: the service advisor at the repair center and the technicians on site. In the professional field of car repair and maintenance, the salesperson has not the slightest say.

Someone might smugly object:

“But I get along great with my salesperson! I live not far from the showroom, and normally I just make one phone call and the salesperson personally comes to my home to take the car in for service, and even washes it and brings it back. Isn’t that an advantage?”

Wrong! You are wrong again!

First, since you already live so close to the factory, you would be better off driving the car over yourself once or twice for service. Walk into the service center, say hello at the reception desk, and chat with the technician who looks after your car. Once basic familiarity is established, the next time you need scheduled maintenance or hear an odd noise, you can call the service center reception directly. They already have a standard process for arranging pickup and delivery, and may even provide a loaner car.

In fact, even if you have never dealt with the service center and have no personal relationship there, a normal factory service center is usually very happy to provide this service as long as capacity allows. Picking up and servicing cars is the service center’s core business. There is no need for a salesperson to act as an ineffective middleman, and no need to bear the potential risk of a salesperson quietly outsourcing to a cheap shop to pocket the difference.

Truly successful top salespeople often win customers over through exceptional personal charm and then sustain their performance through referrals and repeat purchases. But for the vast majority of ordinary salespeople in the car industry, the moment of delivery is often the starting point of “service over.”

Tesla’s Lesson: Direct Online Sales and Lightweight Experience Showrooms Are the Future

Rather than spending endless resources training, managing, and supervising a group of salespeople of uneven quality, car company bosses should open their eyes to the paradigm shift happening in the world.

The new business model led by electric vehicle pioneer Tesla has long proven that the position of car salesperson simply does not need to exist:

• Fully transparent online ordering (D2C direct sales): Consumers click through model, wheels, interior color, and driver assistance on the official website. Prices are fixed and uniform nationwide, with no “under-the-table price,” no “pre-registration discount,” and no hidden rule forcing an expensive comprehensive insurance policy. Everyone pays a fair, public price.
• Sales-pressure-free “product specialists”: Physical stores are no longer negotiating arenas full of sales pressure, but have become simple “technology experience centers.” Staff in the showroom receive a fixed salary and carry no sales commission quota. Their only task is…