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In the United States and Canada, a franchised new-car and -truck dealership is a retailer that sells new and also possibly used cars, including certified preowned vehicles, employs trained automotive technicians, and offers financing. In the United States, direct manufacturer auto sales are prohibited in almost every state by franchise laws requiring that new cars be sold only by dealers.〔(link ), http://www.justice.gov/atr/public/eag/246374.htm〕 Used car dealerships carry cars from many different manufacturers, while new car dealerships are generally franchises associated with only one manufacturer. Some new car dealerships may carry multiple brands from the same manufacturer. In some locales, dealerships have been consolidated and a single owner may control a chain of dealerships representing several different manufacturers. New car dealerships also sell used cars, and take in trade-ins and/or purchase used vehicles at auction. Most dealerships also provide a series of additional services for car buyers and owners, which are sometimes more profitable than the core business of selling cars. ==Selling cars== Most car dealerships display their inventory in a showroom and on a car lot. Under U.S. federal law, all new cars must carry a sticker showing the offering price and summarizing the vehicle's features. Typically, salespersons, working on commission only, negotiate with buyers to determine a final sales price. In many cases, this includes negotiating the price of a trade-in—the dealer's purchase of the buyer's current automobile. Negotiation from the dealership's perspective is the actual to-and-fro that occurs when a salesperson works out a deal to a point where the customer is seriously considering the vehicle and makes an offer on the new vehicle, often including the customer's current vehicle as part of the deal. The salesperson then brings the offer, plus a sign of good faith from the customer, which can be a check with a deposit or a credit card to the sales manager where the monthly payment options and various pricing options that result are returned after the sales manager enters the information received from the salesperson into a CRM (customer relations management) computer program. The result is referred to as "desking" the deal. This is the final step of negotiation process. Some refer to this as all part of the negotiation process, but it is not. It is only the final or decision part of the process. The information generated during the desking phase includes payment and pricing options and it usually requires the customer and sales manager to sign off on the option chosen. The next step is a purchase and sales agreement or a sales agreement and the actual monetary downpayment is generated. The manager and customer sign this paperwork and then the customer is handed off to the "box" or the finance and insurance office where various add-ons are often sold that include special waxing, wheel protection, or often, extended warranty services. The final paperwork is also printed out at this phase. While some may believe that desking is part of the negotiation process, it only occurs once the salesperson has a legitimate offer on the vehicle from the customer and is able to hand the sales manage a token of good faith, as noted. A car dealer orders vehicles from the manufacturer for inventory and pays interest (called flooring or floorplanning). Dealer holdbacks are a system of payments made by the manufacturers to their dealers. The holdback payments assist the dealer's ability to stock their inventory of vehicles and improves the profitability of dealers. Typically the holdback amount is around 1% to 3% of the vehicles' manufactures suggested retail price (MSRP). Hold-back is usually not a negotiable part of the price a consumer would pay for the vehicle, but dealers will "give up" the dealer holdback to get rid of a car that has been sitting in its inventory for a long time or if the additional sale will bring them up to the manufacturer's additional incentive payments for reaching unit bonus targets. The holdback was originally designed to help offset the cost the new car dealer has for paying interest on the money that is borrowed to keep the car in inventory, but is in effect lowering the dealer's gross profit, and thus the sales commissions paid to employees. The holdback allows dealerships to promote at or near invoice-price sales and still achieve comfortable profits on such transactions.〔 With the advent of the Internet, the process of selling cars has undergone a considerable change. More than 70% of car purchases in the United States start with research on the Internet. This empowers the buyers with the knowledge of features of comparable cars and the prices and discounts offered by different dealers within the same geographic area. This helps the buyers during price negotiations and puts further pressure on the profit margin of the dealer.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Confessions of a Car Salesman )〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Car dealerships in North America」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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