Honda's no-haggle prices 'not for everyone'

Enjoy haggling over the price of a new car? Honda knows you won’t like its new way of selling cars.

The brand is moving to an ‘agency model’ for sales, part of which is fixed pricing.

Buyers also won’t be able to play dealers off against one another under the new model.

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Honda Australia managing director Stephen Collins concedes “not everyone’s going to like it”.

“We know that there’ll be some people who just, it’s in their DNA to haggle, and it won’t appeal to them,” Mr Collins said.

But Honda Australia points to internal research that says “a very high degree of people are if not open to it, very positive about it”.

“Of course you still have to give good value. That’s a given. But we’re confident that a large percentage of people are, if not open to it, positive about it,” Mr Collins said.

Honda is looking into how it can do deals without a back-and-forth between dealers and customers.

Along with periodic sales offers at peak times like the end of financial year, the company is investigating how to keep long-running customers happy in a world where dealers play a smaller role.

“We haven’t finalised anything, but we absolutely treasure and respect those repeat – we call them H-to-H – customers,” Mr Collins said.

“We’re looking at what we can do to reward that loyalty. So we haven’t finalised anything yet, but we absolutely recognise that’s an important part of the future model.”