Because (some) people like to get a "deal". And if you move your car brand to "no dicker stickers" and I don't, I'm likely to capture a share of the "likes a bargain" shoppers, though I admit I'll lose some of the "likes a sense of apparent fairness shoppers" to you.
Now, what happens when you have a "no dicker" policy and you need to move a car for whatever reason? Maybe the new models are coming out. Maybe the dealer needs to raise some cash to meet his loan payments. Maybe a model is intended for snow/foul weather usage, and you shipped too many of them into New England, expecting a normal winter. How do you entice customers who will eventually need a new car (according to them) into buying your car from your dealer now. Do you lower MSRP across the board for year-end models? That could work. Do you lower your MSRP only in New England? That could work, but smells worse from a globally consistent pricing point of view. Do you allow just the dealer who needs cash to lower his price? Well, you can't really do that and have any notion of consistent pricing.
And that's just the problems in the new car market, where a given car could be identical to any other any equivalent car. In the used car market, it gets way, way worse (in terms of complexity and sleaziness).
I mostly agree with your response, but it isn't entirely accurate. You can sale-price items that have a constant retail value.
If you see a sale in a supermarket, you don't think the price is inconsistent or that you need to haggle over cereal prices. You just realize it is a temporary sale, a discount on the normal price.
Agreed, but once you do that, you get away from tejaswiy's idea of just "sell all cars at that price". I don't have an issue with negotiated prices or sales, but some do.
This is a flaw in inventory control (too much of it), and it can be fixed. The toyota production system is about getting the car to the customer as quickly as possible.
If you were smart you would organize your production/inventory into a Just In Time system. Every car is a bespoke order, each store has a demo of each type of vehicle available for test drives.
There's already an order of magnitude more used cars going around that fundamentally can't fit this model. Savvy individual buyers don't buy new anyway; setting up your new car distribution system based on efficiently serving a savvy customer in a way that doesn't extend to the rest of your business doesn't make much sense.
Now, what happens when you have a "no dicker" policy and you need to move a car for whatever reason? Maybe the new models are coming out. Maybe the dealer needs to raise some cash to meet his loan payments. Maybe a model is intended for snow/foul weather usage, and you shipped too many of them into New England, expecting a normal winter. How do you entice customers who will eventually need a new car (according to them) into buying your car from your dealer now. Do you lower MSRP across the board for year-end models? That could work. Do you lower your MSRP only in New England? That could work, but smells worse from a globally consistent pricing point of view. Do you allow just the dealer who needs cash to lower his price? Well, you can't really do that and have any notion of consistent pricing.
And that's just the problems in the new car market, where a given car could be identical to any other any equivalent car. In the used car market, it gets way, way worse (in terms of complexity and sleaziness).