If you've ever walked into a new car showroom, you will know that buying a car is quite different from shopping in a normal retail store. In pretty much any other retail environment – even those selling very expensive wares, you can wander around the showroom in peace, look at dozens of different items and casually browse their offerings. You can check price tags, you can ask straight questions and get straight answers in return, you can explore at your own pace and you don't always feel like you have to justify your presence to the sales staff. In a car showroom, however Gebrauchtwagen-Ankauf, that doesn't happen.
The usual practice when you set foot in a car showroom is that you are immediately accosted by a sales executive or even a ‘professional greeter'. They want to know why you're there, what you're looking for, how much you have to spend, and they always want to obtain as many of your personal and contact details as they can get. Even if all you want is a brochure.
The new car dealership has one of the most aggressive sales environments of any retail venue. Step inside the showroom and you will be approached by a sales consultant. Wave that one off and another one will appear. Keep rebuffing them and eventually a manager will march up to you, effectively demanding to know why you're wasting everyone's time and not buying a car already.
If you do actually want to speak to a sales consultant, or finally yield to their persistent questioning, then a very structured interrogation swings into place. This is designed to get as much information out of you as possible, covering every aspect of your personal information and circumstances, all to be used against you in trying to sell you the car they want you to buy, which is not necessarily the one you actually want. The information you provide is logged in detail, and is accessible by not only the sales consultant, but also the business manager (to sell you finance and insurance products), the sales manager, and even the manufacturer. In fact, it is usually the manufacturers who demand the information be captured, so they can analyse your responses and blitz you with marketing paraphernalia until the end of time. Your data is compared with other customers and scrutinised long after you have left the showroom.
Most car buyers find the relentless pestering and questioning to be invasive and annoying, and feel it makes the whole experience of buying a car to be extremely unfriendly and uncomfortable. Some manufacturers are particularly insistent on this very harsh interrogation process, and one gets the feeling that those manufacturers think the customers should feel privileged to be able to buy their cars.
