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So in January 2,100 out of 2,900 Minis sold were 4 doors, almost 75%. That outta tell you something. Remember when the G2 Countryman came out? It took over sales from the HB pretty quick.
So in January 2,100 out of 2,900 Minis sold were 4 doors, almost 75%. That outta tell you something. Remember when the G2 Countryman came out? It took over sales from the HB pretty quick.
Good point! The times, and the demographics, they are a changin'.
So in January 2,100 out of 2,900 Minis sold were 4 doors, almost 75%. That outta tell you something. Remember when the G2 Countryman came out? It took over sales from the HB pretty quick.
Funny, I spoke to a co-worker today, who has had 3 minis (2 R56s, and 1 F56)
She is turning her lease in for an F55.
Funny, I spoke to a co-worker today, who has had 3 minis (2 R56s, and 1 F56)
She is turning her lease in for an F55.
At least the back seat in the F55 is useable. The one in my R56 was worthless, I had it 7 years and probably 2 people ever used it. That's why I got a Coupe. But if you use one it might as well be halfway decent. Right?
At least the back seat in the F55 is useable. The one in my R56 was worthless, I had it 7 years and probably 2 people ever used it. That's why I got a Coupe. But if you use one it might as well be halfway decent. Right?
Nah, I think of the rear seats in my F56 the way I thought of the rear seats in my 318ti - just there for show.
Nah, I think of the rear seats in my F56 the way I thought of the rear seats in my 318ti - just there for show.
Prior to getting my F54 Clubman, which has a ton of rear seat room, but is, indeed, a jumbo MINI, I had a 2012 Jag XK. Check out the so-called rear seating configuration in one of those beasts. Makes your MINI's back yard look giant
But, hey, do we buy these cars for the rear seating arrangements??? I think it's low on most motorer's priority list.
Remember the great line in the movie “Patton” where General Patton yells towards Rommel’s tanks, “I read your book!”? The implication being that knowing how your enemy thinks might be advantageous.
So let’s reflect on the plight of the MA sitting across from you as you hammer out the details on that killer deal for your new MINI.
First and foremost, nobody gets paid until you sign on the bottom line. The MA’s rent is due and he/she has to put gas in the car and food on the table. Your money is their payday. So they, naturally, have to manage some internal anxiety and are watching like a hawk for any signs from you that you might not complete the deal. They are trying to balance things – apply just the right amount of pressure to keep moving you toward closing the deal yet, at the same time, keeping things happy enough so you don’t become upset or overly frustrated and “blow out,” by getting up and walking away from all of their hard work and time spent with you.
Next, there is a desk manager, and, perhaps a general manager on top of the sales manager manning the desk, watching and monitoring and coaching the MA as the steps move along. Most folks who survive the auto sales biz and make it into sales management are pretty thick-skinned, highly trained, and very good at closing sales. The car business is in their blood, they have paid their dues by spending many nights and weekends at a car dealership grinding out deals and hitting their numbers. And, they have complete authority over the front line sales team.
Sales managers influence MA’s paychecks and working conditions and access to customers in many ways. Sales managers can hire and fire and spoon-feed ups to favored salespeople and tell MAs when they need to turn over a prospect to another salesperson (thus resulting in a split commission). So the MA sitting in front of you, in addition to managing the relationship with you, the customer, also must constantly attend to managing his/her relationship with the management. There is tension; lots of tension.
During negotiations where The Desk (sales management) is working up numbers and having the MA present those numbers to the customer, the MA is in the middle. A good MA works both sides – the customer and the sales desk – in order to get to a closed deal. This is the key point. A customer who helps the salesperson work The Desk often gets better deals, and they often get those deals faster.
For example, if a customer tells the MA, “There is no way I can afford more than a $400 a month payment and I will not go more than 60 months on the loan, and my trade in is the total down payment I plan on giving you, so we need to work this deal within those limits,” then the MA can go to The Desk and inform the sales manager of those limits.
It is not unusual in these situations for a sales manager to “test” those limits by doing a “first pencil” proposal that exceeds the customer’s stated limit. The poor MA has to go back to the customer and say whatever the sales manager has instructed to see if the customer can be bumped up on price, payment, down payment, loan rate, or anything else that will get more money into the deal.
This is the point where the customer’s understanding of the dynamics of the dealership can help everyone. By remaining polite and calm, the customer doesn’t need to reveal that he/she totally understands the game that is being played. But what the sensitive and savvy customer can do in this situation is remain firm and, politely, ask the MA if this is the time where everyone, including the manager, needs to sit down to hammer out the deal or if the MA would prefer to keep doing the back and forth. The customer can say, “You and I both know this offer is above my limit. What’s the best way to get these numbers where we need them to be to get to a deal? Should you and I sit down now with your manager or is it better for you if we keep doing the back-and-forth with you in the middle?”
In this example, the customer is asking the MA how to proceed. The MA, while still tense because it is unclear if a deal at the customer’s limits is possible, sees that at least the customer is calm, cooperative, and shows a willingness to keep the negotiations going in the way that is best for the MA. The pressure, and the tension, goes down a notch.
Here are some things that go on at dealerships:
MAs steal prospects from each other. A customer may return for a second visit, having done a test drive last Saturday with Bob the MA. The customer comes in and doesn’t ask for Bob, so another MA “skates” in and now owns the customer or, at the very least, if a deal happens and Bob finds out about it, Bob has to split the deal with the second MA. Or a customer calls in and asks for Bob and the MA who takes the call lies and says Bob isn’t in or is unavailable and horns into the deal that way.
So one can imagine how little trust there is among the salespeople at a dealership. It is the wild west, everyone for his or her self.
The point being, going all the way back to the first post in this thread, understanding the dynamics at the dealership, and showing some sensitivity to what the salesperson has to juggle, can result in a smoother, and possibly better deal. Savvy customers need to know their numbers, watch all the moving parts, and remain clear and firm about what sort of deal they need to have in order to sign the purchase agreement.
Part of being well-prepared means having an awareness of what’s going on at the dealership and how it might impact the way your next MINI deal goes down.
MINI Brand Sales
For February, MINI USA reported 3,065 vehicles sold, an increase of 42.3 percent from the 2,154 sold in the same month a year ago.
MINI Pre-Owned Vehicles
· MINI Certified Pre-Owned sold 860 vehicles in February, a decrease of 1.5 percent from February 2017.
· Total MINI Pre-Owned sold 2,244 vehicles in February, a decrease of 7 percent from February 2017.
MINI has announced a plan to introduce a 3-Tier ordering system, due to come on line later this Spring (2018).
The claim is that grouping of features within the various new tiers will reduce the overall cost of a new MINI, and add more value.
Savings of several thousand dollars over current pricing for similarly equipped cars are supposedly in the offing.
So, Tier 1 will be a basic MINI, Tier 2 will include packages of many of the most popular options, and the top tier, Tier 3, will be really loaded, at a better price than currently available.
There will still be opportunities for customization within the option matrix, but the idea is that it's easier to sell cars with the most popular configurations and, the theory goes, resale values might improve if more cars come back into the market with features most people want. Apparently, there are a few too many unicorn MINIS out there in the used car marketplace -- cars that were carefully optioned to the taste of eccentric MINI owners and, thus, not that appealing to the mainstream. (Like all MINI owners aren't eccentric?? We are, proudly so!!)
How all of this is going to work remains to be fully revealed. But for MINI shoppers now in the market for a new, custom ordered MINI, ASK YOUR DEALER lots of questions to make sure that you can get what you want at the right price -- wouldn't want to overpay for a car if two months down the line the same build can be had for thousands less.
I sure can. But that money won’t end up in buyers' pockets.
The slightly less cynical side of me suggests that perhaps MINI North America has discovered that jacking the price by charging for lots of formerly free options may not be encouraging buyers.
I mean, looked at the configurator lately? Remember when metallic paints $500 extra? Now everything but Pepper White is a $500-1000 add on. Want to upgrade from 6.5” to 8” screen? Can’t just spend $500 anymore, you have to buy the $2500 Technology Package. Want any dash accents at all? $250 and up, no more free variants. It’s all like that now.
MINI NA has painted itself into a corner, and aside from some pent up demand for the Countryman (which is largely cannibalizing Clubman sales, which in 2016 were around where Countryman sales are now), and the first modest (5%) growth for the 2-door hardtop in a couple years, things are not good. The Countryman is the only thing keeping MINI NA sales from being in the absolute toilet.
So, seriously, it’s a good time to buy any MINI but the Countryman. If you can stomach the inflated prices for options, anyway. Or wait a few months and see if MINI NA brings prices back down to something more reasonable. Either way, dealers need your money and they need it badly.
Ok… I started to wonder if I was being a little too harsh on MINI NA's sales. So I went to BMW's press site and pulled up BMW USA's monthly sales reports. An hour or so of downloading PDFs and entering data into Excel, I ground out charts of the past two years (well, 26 months) of MINI North America sales:
The linear trend line is going in the wrong direction.
Being the curious type, I also wanted to see how each model contributed to sales:
MINI NA Sales breakdown by model, Jan 2016–Feb 2018
Clubman sales are trending down.
4-door Hardop sales are trending down.
Convertible sales are trending slightly down (they're highly seasonal).
Classic 2-door Hardtop bobbling up and down a lot; I'll call it flat.
And Countryman? Growing strongly! It had a nasty dip in Feb 17 as R60 stocks ran down and the F60 wasn't fully available in US/Canada yet. Smooth it out and it's the only model showing strong growth.
Okay… what are your thoughts? If you want to poke at the data yourself, here's the Excel file:
MINI has announced a plan to introduce a 3-Tier ordering system, due to come on line later this Spring (2018).
The claim is that grouping of features within the various new tiers will reduce the overall cost of a new MINI, and add more value.
Savings of several thousand dollars over current pricing for similarly equipped cars are supposedly in the offing.
So, Tier 1 will be a basic MINI, Tier 2 will include packages of many of the most popular options, and the top tier, Tier 3, will be really loaded, at a better price than currently available.
There will still be opportunities for customization within the option matrix, but the idea is that it's easier to sell cars with the most popular configurations and, the theory goes, resale values might improve if more cars come back into the market with features most people want. Apparently, there are a few too many unicorn MINIS out there in the used car marketplace -- cars that were carefully optioned to the taste of eccentric MINI owners and, thus, not that appealing to the mainstream. (Like all MINI owners aren't eccentric?? We are, proudly so!!)
How all of this is going to work remains to be fully revealed. But for MINI shoppers now in the market for a new, custom ordered MINI, ASK YOUR DEALER lots of questions to make sure that you can get what you want at the right price -- wouldn't want to overpay for a car if two months down the line the same build can be had for thousands less.
I think what this will do, ultimately, is reduce the number of oddly-optioned cars lingering on dealer lots.
Also, an unfortunate consequence will be more automatics.
Motoringfile goes into more detail on the tiers and options included, it's a decent idea and I hope it works to reduce the price bloat that occurs when you start multiplying options and packages.
I think what this will do, ultimately, is reduce the number of oddly-optioned cars lingering on dealer lots.
Also, an unfortunate consequence will be more automatics.
Motoringfile goes into more detail on the tiers and options included, it's a decent idea and I hope it works to reduce the price bloat that occurs when you start multiplying options and packages.
One more time! This morning I went back to BMW and pulled a few more years worth of data. Here is the past 5 years of MINI NA sales data, both in aggregate and broken down by model. In the by-model chart, I've also split out the R-series from the F-series. R-series cars all have stripes in their chart colors, so you can see the transition period as new models are phased into production.
5 year MINI North America total sales, period ending February 2018
5 year MINI North America sales by model, period ending February 2018
One more time! This morning I went back to BMW and pulled a few more years worth of data. Here is the past 5 years of MINI NA sales data, both in aggregate and broken down by model. In the by-model chart, I've also split out the R-series from the F-series. R-series cars all have stripes in their chart colors, so you can see the transition period as new models are phased into production.
A few key dates:
March 2013: New Hardtop F56 sales begin
May 2014: New Convertible F57 Sales Begin
March 2015: New Hardtop 4-door F55 Sales Begin
Dec 2015: New Clubman F54 Sales Begin
Mar 2016: New Countryman F60 Sales Begin
Nice work Bratling. Certainly not a very encouraging trend line.
I hear ya. I went to the BMW Center thinking I was there to buy a BMW and ended up walking across the parking lot to the MINI store and ordered my F54 and haven't looked back!! You are always welcome here!
I hear ya. I went to the BMW Center thinking I was there to buy a BMW and ended up walking across the parking lot to the MINI store and ordered my F54 and haven't looked back!! You are always welcome here!
Ha!
I really miss dealing with real human beings, honestly. BMW people are a special breed.
After 5 months looking and waiting for a nice JCW... Drove a good distance for rebel green 2016 JCW. Very clean and fully loaded very happy ...trading in my blue 2014 S on Saturday....this is mini no 4 for me! Love this website btw the way with lots of good advice and info.<br/>
02-20-2018, 06:12 PM
