they need to consolidate and they know it. any way to make it happen is probably a good thing

I give you the mega-store. Come right in to the land of 50 salespeople bumrushing you on the lot, 0 customer service and being pushed and tortured during your buying experience. Forget about being taken care of after the sale. Just walk in and take your number just like the old school deli counters.

What GM, and Ford for that matter, doesn’t understand is that one of the few things that they have going for them is the family store atmosphere. Why do you think most people hate buying cars? Because of the pain in the ass it is a large stores where everyone is just a number and once they are out the door they are forgotten. Time and time again I have heard from customers where I work that the main reason they buy from us is the small, family driven atmosphere. Getting away from that will be the end of the big 3 for sure

Dear GM Dealers:

The recent article in Automotive News concerning a major push to put all of GM brands under one roof is out of context and a mischaracterization of our ongoing channel and dealer profit improvement initiatives.

There will be no announcements of any kind regarding any new initiative or change to our channel strategy at the upcoming NADA convention in San Francisco.

What is true is that we have made tremendous progress on our channel efforts to date and recently completed a series of meetings with over 2000 Buick-Pontiac-GMC dealers where we updated them on our progress and plans for the future of the BPG channel.

We have also worked with our dealers on consolidation activity and made significant progress over the past couple of years.

In conjunction with the profitability subcommittee of the National Dealer Council, we have established a Dealer Profitability Department, dramatically reduced dealer inventory, increased the Wholesale Floor Plan program and are looking at many other initiatives.

One of the critical issues facing dealers is the high cost of real estate in the prime locations. We are working with the Subcommittee to address the proper size of dealer facilities, explore additional remote service opportunities and the inclusion of more than one channel at a prime location. To some extent, these types of discussions and activities are nothing new and have been going on for some time on a limited basis.

It is unfortunate the story gave the impression of a major policy announcement or shift in strategy. GM remains committed to working diligently to improving our dealers throughput, return on investment (ROI) and franchise value.

Thank You.

Mark LaNeve

Vice President

Vehicle Sales, Service and Marketing

sucks for saturn, i sure hope gm takes the role of the saturn salesmen and makes that universal too.

A better way to hold gross? Instead of going five blocks away to the next GM store and beating up all the GM dealers that are in one are. Hell I think it’s a good idea.

I agree with Gary.

I kind of like the idea of a super store. It would save a lot of time and gas comparing similar models that are sold across brands. You could go to one place and check out the differences between the Enclave, Outlook, Acadia, etc and decide for yourself what you like and dislike about each instead of driving all over town and taking up a few days to do the same thing. It would save a lot of time for test drives too, because then you just deal with one BS sales person instead of three.

In Syracuse there is already a mega mall called DriversVillage. You go to one place and check out pretty much any make of car that a majority of people would be interested in. It saves you a lot of time and effort.

Im waiting for them to eliminate the useless c**ksuckers that stand between me and my purchase. Dealers are a useless and unnecessary middle man.
Why they dont just sell cars direct to public? Would we really ever miss these misinformed drug addicts, we refer to as the often hated always, avoided car salesman.

Oh gosh. For a second there, when I read the title “metro superstores”, I was thinking “I guess GM found an alternative to Wal-Mart”.

Obviously though, only categorizing them by brand market (bread and butter, bread and butter plus and bread and butter upgraded) will only make it more like a mass market race.

SwerveEarly- Part of it is publicity, and where would you take your used vehicle? Yes, you can always sell it yourself, but I’d much rather buy a used vehicle from a dealership, and it’s much easier.
Of course, you can sometimes order your car from the factory… it will end up at the nearest dealership.

LivelyJay- The place in Syracuse was pretty neat, seemed a little like mass marketing to me though. Ithaca dealerships are pretty close together, or are family owned (Mcguire, es)

In the beautiful land of ours there is only 1 state where you can buy new car without a dealer: Alaska. Everywhere else it is the law that new cars are purchased from former/current politicians. Used cars are purchased from convicts who served their time and rehabilitated. This of course the move to do something, primarily to minimize dealers network. When times were goos (in 60’s) GM did allow one individual or company to own more then 1 (one) dealership from GM. This helped spread of Japanese brands:: GM could not prohibit ownership of competing product. How ironic.

Sorry fat fingers again, meant to say: GM did NOT allow one individual or company to own more then 1 (one) dealership from GM.

One stop shopping for copy-cat cars.

Just choose a different grill or tail light.

What a way to shop for GM product.

I would love to know where deanster gets the idea that the small store is where you get screwed. The small store is the one that has survived because they take care of their customers and provide some measure of service after the sale. The big store is where you get turned from the new car manager to the used car manager to the finance manager to the delivery person to be pushed out the door. Do me a favor, walk into each store sometime. I have a good idea that at the small store you will get greeted like a human being where at the big store you probably won’t even make it out of your car without 4 or 5 salespeople jumping over each other to get to you. Who’s the one trying to cram a car down your throat?

crash and Deanster, you both make good points. I however work for a rather large dealership, yes, you do have to deal with several salespeople that are trying to beat one another to you, that’s not to beat you up, it’s because their are a dozen or more salespeople who have to provide for their families, just like you and I. The dealership that I work for and the majority all of the larger dealers in the state are considered the best for customer service though. I know that if salespeople don’t stay in contact with their customers, and keep them happy they are liable to not last that long.

Let me make the case for the smaller store – I see people all the time who have been lured into the big places with ‘gotcha’ pricing, onlt to have things like ‘paperwork’ and ‘dealer prep’ fees added in, and extended warranties bundled in as well. They mark up their financing, and treat you like a faceless number. Get a grip, people. Large stores have large overhead. They need to make a profit, and they typically do.

On the small dealership side, less inventory seems inevitible. They are typically tighter on controlling their costs and every customer is that much more important to the health of the business. You want to speak to the dealer? He’s probably there and available to talk to you.

Sure, there are some real scumbags out there, but that has NOTHING to do with the size of the store. There are thieves at every level.

Personally, I feel that if I have to go more than 30 miles to buy a car and/or get it serviced, I’d be less likely to be loyal to the dealer who treated me right on the last deal. It’s too far to travel to be fair…

not a good idea