[prince_pervez]

75 K is too much. Here is what I know. My neighbour who works for a US major, had a corporate offer from Ford. This was 5 years back. If there were 3- 4 guys buying a Ford Ikon each would get a 70 K discount (from the same company).

My company had a scheme running from M&M where a particular grade of employees would get Registration and Insurance free if they purchased a Scorpio. So my manager got his Scorpio for the ex-showroom price, well almost.

For individuals who work for corporates, some documentation from their company reduces the research work of the dealer, finance etc. (something to do with risk management) and hence reduces the cost to the dealer, which in turn he passes on to the customer as a 'discount'. And yes, this discount is not more than 10K in many cases. It is somewhat like 6-7 K. Thats about it. 75 K and all is wishful.

[mkh]

It was the same case with me, when i went with a friend they mentioned big discount for GE employees and lesser for me but they were giving free insurance for me so that made it almost the same
Th car does have to be taken on company lease for this discount and its because there is a certain business that they get from the company. Places like Wipro and Infy, they also get GROUP discounts on ALMOST ALL manufacturers as they go together as 4-5 people MIN.
In fact i bought my i-10 as part of a group purchase of a company, but my wife does not work there, just had to give a copy of the Employee ID with her photo, which is so easy to get- they are completely dumb about this.

[Gansan]

Originally Posted by Carmageddon

C'mon guys this is very common. My employer (leading services firm) provides preferential discounted mobile plans, insurance plans and car discounts. When I bought my SX4 i got a discount of 20K.

The car manufacturer benefits too... they put up flyers in the office, get mailers sent to employees announcing the benefits etc. Its an easy way to target your core market segment when compared to mass media.

The discount is treated as the cost of customer acquisition... and believe me returns are similar to media spend.

That may be so, but as a customer I feel short changed.

If the car companies had any sense, they will read Team BHP and give a special forum discount to members!

[KiloAlpha]

As a customer not getting a corporate discount, I am sure you will feel aggrieved and short-changed. I would too.

However, this is a free market. A seller is free to price his goods/services any which way he pleases. The market responds by either buying the product or not. As a consumer, choice is yours.

It will help if you set aside such feelings of injustice in a free market. It is bound to happen. I have figured out that the best approach is to think like a pure economist. Believe me, I have been in similar situations, when I tell them that I work in a "niche" IT company which obviously is not a Wipro/Infosys/IBM/etc and the salesman is instantly less interested in the sale.

[gshanky]

This is an interesting thread. This seems to be a marketing tactic used by the manufacturer and dealer. I wonder how much margin the dealer will have after these discounts.

This raises bunch of ethical questions on bunch of different levels.

1) Is it OK if I also got that discount while some others still can't
2) How does this compare with seasonal promotions like 50k discount for a week before diwali, etc. If i bought my car a week ago, should I still feel discriminated and sue?

IMO we should go with the extremes. Either the manufacturer can do anything they want, i.e. give the discount to whoever they want and announce any discount schemes well in advance so that people can plan. OR no discount for nobody.

I don't buy the argument that discounts of 5-10k is fine while 50k is not. The resale of course is affected and I wish there are some laws in this regard, which could be enforced.

sigh.. it is so easy to be a dissident

[poloman]

Seasonal discounts are ok since every one knows some discounts are going to be available during festival and lean seasons and plan their purchases accordingly. But some discounts are never revealed to general public. Hefty corporate discounts are given to employees of powerful corporates and a common man who is not aware of all these sales techniques is made to pay through the nose. Another poor marketing gimmick from Ford is the unending limited edition launches. You paid the market price for a particular model and peacefully return home with the car. Next day you are seeing a limited edition launch with more features with hefty discounts. How would you feel?

[shantanumishra]

I would agree to KiloAlpha,

This is a free market and everyone is allowed to market their products in their own fashion,

For the fact of the matter, Spark had a long running discount of close to 50K running for an elongated period of time last year for all of their customers, this cant be called as a discrimination,

For Employees of some corporates who are offered huge discounts, it is more of a Employee Welfare scheme, A lot of companies do this for the welfare of their employees,

Even govt of India has a CSD system under which certain cars are available for a lot less than their market price, although it is limited to certain set of people.

[finneyp]

1. Corporate discount is borne by the Car company, not by the dealer.
2. The context here is individual buying the car on his own & in his name, not buying car on a lease agreement (with the employer).

[mkh]

Originally Posted by finneyp

1. Corporate discount is borne by the Car company, not by the dealer.
2. The context here is individual buying the car on his own & in his name, not buying car on a lease agreement (with the employer).

A lot of these are negotiated by organizations on a global level. Ex- GE has a tie up with Ford and Coke had with GM. In that case any employee can get a discount. Dell does the same for its PC/Notebooks with some companies.
Its completely ethical, they can decide based on which company has a tie up.

[Captain Slow]

So what if 3-4 Bhpians in the same city want to buy the same car shouldn't we also get similar discounts?

[Sandegov]

Come on, no big deal here. Corporate discounts have been around from a very long time and I don't see anything wrong in that.

I know of a person working in a financial firm who got a much better deal than they had for most of the IT company, this was for a Maruti. They have many non IT companys in the list too. Maruti offers a discount to Doctors as well apart from the discounts they get from Insurance firms.

[Gilead]

Ford gives 60K corporate discount to select corporates. The only condition they impose is that the employees of that particular corporate have to pick up at least 10 cars a month from that city. Such a corporate is designated to be in an 'A List'. There is a B and C list as well. It does not matter if it's individual registration or company registration. I got this info from my company's admin dept. Apparently Ford had made a pitch to them. The funny thing is my company is not in any of their lists due to our small size in India, though we happen to be the largest corporate buyer of Ford vehicles in the world. We have slightly more than 34K vehicles on last count. If you are just working in a regular corporate, the 15K discount is available and that's what I got.

[poloman]

Gilead, this is exactly what I also told Ford. If you treat Ford car purchases made by my company/employees on a global scale, it will be more than any other corporate to whom they are giving such hefty discounts in India. But they were not willing to listen and even 15k corporate discount which you are talking was denied to me.

[kiku007]

Guys Chill! I don't understand why this is getting so personal? I repeat, car companies don't give discounts just like that. It's their prerogative to choose the companies/sector/people and offer them a price.

It's as simple as a wholesaler being able to sell a product at a lesser price than a retailer. He's got the volume. So is the case here. They should be making up for the discounts by way of the volumes from these corporates.

How about this? I get a standard 10% discount at Pantaloons outlet. Now is that discriminative pricing for the guy who doesn't get that? No. Why? I have spent more than 20K the previous year to earn this discount for the current year.

[nitrous]

I've usually arm twist my way to a platinum-titanium corporate discount.