Toyota Won't Have Its Head Examined, Extends Spiffs
If you are in the market for a Toyota, then there is no rush to run to your dealer over the Easter weekend and to make any rash buying decisions. Toyota will extend its generous (or not so generous, depending on who’s doing the counting) incentives well into April.
Don Esmond, Toyota U.S. senior vice president, told Reuters that Toyota will dole out spiffs beyond April 5 (when the current round ends.) But he declined to go into details.
Toyota U.S. brand sales chief Bob Carter was a little more forthcoming: “Why would I change? I would have to have my head examined to change these programs.”
To keep up the suspense, Toyota will unveil specifics of its April sales after the current ones expire on Monday.
Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.
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I have to learn to read things more carefully, at first I thought you said ‘spliff’ which sort of made sense, given Toyota’s recent travails.
What a shock. Once you start discounting it is very, very hard to stop. This will have a negative impact to current owners on resale value and TCO and longer term tick off even more customers. It is a short sighted strategy, it doesn't work, there is mountains and mountains of data that show no good comes from these kinds of tactics to the bottom line or customer good will. Meanwhile in Korea, Hyundai sits back, builds great cars, and snickers at the madness. Meanwhile in China, GM basks in the glow of moving WAY more iron than they do in the United States, even if you call all those Wuling vans 1/2 sales (at 49%) they still beat the 130K number in the US into the ground. Oh 'Yota, how far you've fallen...