Price difference buying the stock vs ordering

how can you order one at the same price if they don't have one to give you a price on?

generally speaking, dealers are looking to move their stock. i think your best bet is to email as many dealers as possible, asking them for their best price on the order.

 

When we were looking to buy our '15 we went to our preferred dealer and asked them if they could get the one we wanted from another local dealer. The way they explained it to us is that they have to pay the invoice just to get it from them. It was made pretty clear to us that our negotiating power was weakened because their wiggle room was much smaller. So we ended up going to the local dealer ourself and paid well below invoice. That wouldn't have happened in the other scenario.

Not exactly the same as ordering one outright but an example.

 

Dealers inventory cars on credit (incurring interest) ...this is termed flooring.

So, yes they are more inclined to move the cars they have in stock.

If dealer orders for you, you could still reject the car when it arrives and the dealer is "stuck" with your (perhaps) undesirable slow selling special optioned model.

As for price...ordering a car can still have an attractive negotiated price.
There is not enough info in the OP post to define "tougher"...$1000 dollars or $250 dollars?

Anyway, good luck finding your perfect Prius!

 

i've never heard of a dealer negotiating a price on a car they didn't have. maybe mb does it a little differently?

 

Ordering a car, rather than buying off the lot, does three things to hurt the dealership's profit:

1. They assume higher risk, because if you back out of the order, they're stuck with a car, potentially in a configuration that they'll have trouble selling later (this is why a lot of cars are very, very hard to find in manual transmission or interesting colors)
2. They don't remove a car from their lot to make room for another one, meaning they have to sit on their existing inventory for longer, and don't get as favorable allocations for future inventory
3. The manufacturer owns the inventory on their lot, and is therefore sitting on those assets, and wants to get them off their books. Incentives are used to encourage that, whereas an ordered vehicle doesn't help that aging inventory move, so less incentives are available. (Note the fine print on things like the Toyota customer cash and 0% offers - "must take delivery from dealer stock", and those are Toyota offers, not dealer offers.)

 

otoh, it's worth shopping, because if all the dealer has to do to sell you a car is order it from the factory, and he realizes you're not taking one off his lot, there should be very little cost to him, and someone should be willing to work on a reasonable margin.
when i was in business, we always took less profit to drop ship an order from the factory. our only cost was financing, and that was very small.

 

Discussed on another thread, but I bought from an out of state dealer from their current inventory for exactly this reason. I got a fair price, and much lower than I'd have expected from my locals. They'd all have had to order since the configuration isn't stocked in my region.

 

I'm extremely surprised that you're not able to put your fingers on the car you want in your area.
You have to remember that Mercedes is a top shelf car and (much as people like to think otherwise) Toyota isn't.
In other words, Mercedes dealers already employ a low volume/high profit model that makes ordering versus buying one off the rack more attractive.
Cast a wider net.

$1000 means a lot to me.
Like.....enough to drive three or four states away to save that much money, and the difference between buying a G4 off the lot and ordering one might well be more than $1000.
Besides.....what better way to get to know a new car than a road trip?

Good Luck!

 

The local lots are overflowing.
One dealer's lot is so full they are renting parking space from a nearby shopping center.

No wonder they want to sell from stock.

 

Gulf States Toyota is an association of 154 dealers in the five states of Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Texas.

Really, don't settle for something you don't want. If you do, you'll never really be happy with the car. Find what you do want, look in NM, AZ, or CO and take a long weekend road trip to pick it up if necessary.

 

That's the narrative they want (you) to believe, and it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. They don't really know how many people buy elsewhere due to the forced unavailability, but I imagine there are plenty that do settle for something on the lot instead.

I don't know what percentage of Houston Prius drivers are on PC, but here the two of us are, with desires unmet by their pessimistic inventory.

 

Well, and most people buy off the lot, so if what they want isn't on the lot, they settle for what's available. (And, if they don't know a feature exists, they won't ask about it, so if someone just comes onto the lot to look at Priuses, they won't get told about the missing feature, because the dealer has no interest in selling someone on a feature that they don't have available.)

 

Willing to take a road trip?
Toyota inventory for Joplin, MO 64801
#12 for 3ATP and #13 for 3T
Toyota inventory for Wichita, KS 67210
#10 3ATP and #8 for 3T
What's on the local dealers lots vs. spread out across the state requires a more detailed search for the features you want.
$1,500 cashback till 7/5/2016 in this region but not sure if it's only for the Pkg2 or all Prius.

How about Mobile, AL? Yes its the evil SET region but just maybe there is 1 without all the extra crap they add.

Production is still slow do to the earthquake but ships are coming.

 

$1500 cash rebate through July 5 applies to all trim levels.

 

I live 30 minutes from a small dealership. and an hour + from several large dealerships and so far haven't seen the Three with Advanced Tech in their inventory at any lot. Please tell me how you shopped out of state dealers? I keep getting sent back to locals when on the internet. I'm willing to travel in order to get the one I want. Someone also mentioned something about out of state emission laws. . . .