Main Dealer dynamic pricing

[KungFuPanda]

I’ve been looking at a car being sold through a main dealer. Using Total Car Check, I’ve been able to track the price it’s been advertised at over the past few weeks. It proves for interesting reading. The current price is £24574.

So what affects the price that the car is marketed at? A trader I spoke to said they try and price it as the cheapest car on the market and if the next cheapest sells, the price may go up.

[macron]

Extensive discussion about this on the "how far can prices fall" thread, which I think has died a death.

I tracked a late ST3 Fiesta, it's basically a bullst thing AT has offered where it aggregates prices from all trade sellers, not privateers, and you can permit your price to float within a range, typically tied to being either the lowest (although you can set a floor) or next lowest. The challenge being what is yours being compared to? Take a cooking model Fiesta 1.0 Zetec, there are loads, the options were like, 3 or 5 door, auto or not, and which colour. Any other significant options basically made it a different model. So it can work on volume cars. But, take a 330i. One may have been an ex lease billy basic model, the next may have been privately owned with 20k of options. They're still a 330i. So what are you comparing it to?

Salesfolk I've spoken to about it are largely non-plussed as they can't do anything about it, and even they need to beep the QR code on the windscreen to know what the price is. Which then can feed in to what the monthlies are, plus or minus anything else.

I hate it.