Set foot in a car dealership, and you know how your afternoon is going to go: You and the salesperson will engage in an hours-long ritualistic showdown over the price. Maybe you’ll theatrically stage a walkout; maybe the salesperson says he’ll check with a manager to see if they can get the price just a little bit lower.
Haggling seems as much a part of car shopping as the test drive. But now, a giant of the auto industry is piloting a sales model that would get rid of it.
Lexus said this week that it will be testing a no-negotiation price program in a dozen of its dealerships in 2016. The move is a bid to appeal to millennials and Generation Xers who Lexus says simply aren’t willing to haggle like their parents did.