What does the future hold for Stealerships?

babyzilla

I'm really curious to know everyone's thoughts/opinions on this topic - dealerships price gouging during the pandemic.

I understand the basic economics of low supply, high demand, supply chain, chip shortage, logistics, staffing, etc.

I believe the majority of people who are buying cars right now NEED to for one reason or another. Then you get some people who just have the money and don't really care and want what they want when they want. On the other hand, you have people who refuse to pay over MSRP (considering the fact they were probably paying below MSRP at one point), those who refuse to give business to the stealerships, and those who can simply wait because buying the car they want isn't a necessity.

I'm sure we can all agree that dealerships don't necessarily have the best reputation for providing great experiences. However, during these times, it's like they don't even give AF. Getting a car for MSRP is considered fair at best. $5k mark up is just minimum. The sales people, sales managers, and finance managers are outright nasty. They have become so greedy, and it's so easy for them right now to get away with their behavior and tactics. It's just unethical business. Are the mark ups necessary? Are they not worried about treating customers like **** for the time being because they know people will always need to buy cars and that they can just excuse their nasty behavior on the pandemic once everything goes back to normal?

So what's their end goal here? They will continue raking in the profits while screwing over customers for the short game, and then what? I just see it as them building more of a bad reputation. Once the whole vehicle economy balances back out again, who wants to deal with them? If anything, it makes CarMax (specifically referring to the ones that sell new cars and I know that it's limited to Toyota and some other manufacturers) and other dealerships that ran their business by no-haggle pricing much more enticing.

It reminds me of history regarding old dynasties and kingdoms. The most powerful ones end up peaking at some point and then crumble. What do you all think?