I’m not saying the dealer tax is warranted (absolutely not), I’m saying it’s still a lot of human effort even if you streamline the process with an app (financing, tax, title, licensing, vehicle defect issues, etc). Tesla totally botched my first Model S purchase and I was stuck for two days out of state while they fixed my purchase contract and my financing. This was after having bought through their website.
Just as high touch enterprise sales is here to stay, so is a human in the loop for auto purchases. You are not the average consumer if you’re here. Your average consumer will not tolerate rough edges of an app when spending $37k.
> Your average consumer will not tolerate rough edges of an app when spending $37k.
But that's the process problem. If you go to the website and click "buy" and the car shows up in perfect condition exactly to your specifications then there is nothing to need a human to interact with. And if they can get it to the point where that's what happens 99.99% of the time, having to send out a human representative the other 0.01% of the time is cost effective.
Just as high touch enterprise sales is here to stay, so is a human in the loop for auto purchases. You are not the average consumer if you’re here. Your average consumer will not tolerate rough edges of an app when spending $37k.