Ford increasing prices again:

emmell

I was the OP, and no ukjoel, I have not and never had any connection with Ford (other than selling lots of them used in the past). I started this thread because my husbands company are losing contracts on price, the company my son works for are losing contracts on price, if they cut prices anymore there will be no point in the businesses. This is happening all over the country in all kinds of companies, look at the building companies, no demand so no supply. The government has created a demand for new cars with the scrappage scheme, what discounts if any are still being offered for people who don't have scrappage cars? 15% discount isn't much good when you've just increased your prices by 10% over the last year.
ML.

Lemonade_Pockets

Don't you believe major companies take advantage of this and employ people to maximise this effect (within the boundaries of what is not seen as taking the mickey)?

If only I knew of such people.

We are obviously speaking a foreign language to each other so ill give up on trying to give this particular topic the benefit of some insight.

Plus i'm wary of getting myself in hot water if i try and spell it out any further.

Lemonade_Pockets

emmell wrote: »

I started this thread because my husbands company are losing contracts on price, the company my son works for are losing contracts on price, if they cut prices anymore there will be no point in the businesses.

There you have it right there.

emmell

But car manufacturers (some) are increasing prices because they are not on a level playing field, the government is giving £1000 to people to buy their products, how many more manufacturers are selling goods because the government are chipping in to keep sales up and protect jobs. Have Ford workers had a wage increase this year because not many other workers have
ML.

matt1987

They can increase their prices all they want to, I just got a brand new fiesta titanium for £11800!

The more they cost, the bigger PX I shall get if I decided to trade it in!

flyingscotno1

emmell wrote: »

But car manufacturers (some) are increasing prices because they are not on a level playing field, the government is giving £1000 to people to buy their products, how many more manufacturers are selling goods because the government are chipping in to keep sales up and protect jobs. Have Ford workers had a wage increase this year because not many other workers have
ML.

Yeah but on the other hand you have people saying the scrappage scheme is useless and targets too small a number of people.

I actually think that without scrappage the prices were due to go up anyway. If you look at some old prices, and it is difficult as things change so often in spec but the top spec old diesel model Skoda Fabia was £12,344 back in 2000. The new model of the same car is £13,730. Realistically that isn't a huge jump- £1300 or £150 a year. It is reflected in a lot of cars. We had a lot of stability in the car market, prices weren't increasing massively at all, but now with a different financial economy, euro to pound rate etc we are getting the increases now! I don't think the scrappage has essentially helped them much in the profitability stakes- more just kept them treading water.

Premier_2

emmell wrote: »

But car manufacturers (some) are increasing prices because they are not on a level playing field, the government is giving £1000 to people to buy their products, how many more manufacturers are selling goods because the government are chipping in to keep sales up and protect jobs. Have Ford workers had a wage increase this year because not many other workers have
ML.

Ford is making profits - almost $1bn in the last quarter.

Add up all the government scrappage allowances around the world and it wouldn't even come close to that, and of course Ford is only 1 of a large number of car companies that actually benefit from scrappage schemes, so Ford certainly didn't get all that money.

Why shouldn't employees share in a successful business?

Remember, Ford was the only major US car manufacturer to avoid bankruptcy/government bailouts. You can't blame Ford for taking advantage of a scheme various governments introduced to save millions of jobs, not specifically those related to Ford.

Lets not compare to banking industry, eh, with their huge bonuses despite most of them would not even have a job if it weren't for government bailouts.

Btw, employees in Ford Australia have indeed recently agreed to a 6 month pay freeze. (This is because of current cash flow issues, nothing to do with profitability)

ukjoel

emmell wrote: »

I was the OP, and no ukjoel, I have not and never had any connection with Ford (other than selling lots of them used in the past). I started this thread because my husbands company are losing contracts on price, the company my son works for are losing contracts on price, if they cut prices anymore there will be no point in the businesses. This is happening all over the country in all kinds of companies, look at the building companies, no demand so no supply. The government has created a demand for new cars with the scrappage scheme, what discounts if any are still being offered for people who don't have scrappage cars? 15% discount isn't much good when you've just increased your prices by 10% over the last year.
ML.

Ok - Understand what you are saying but am guessing the difference between your hubby and sons businesses and Fords is that when your hubby and son quote they send one quote with their best price.

Ford dont work like that - They give EVERYONE discounts. Some of these discounts equate to selling cars at a significant loss. They are a volume business and need to shift X number of units from the factory. Certain business (AA driving school is probably the best example) can be very very expensive. I heard a rumour that Ford lost millions from this last year as they had a guarunteed buyback in place on every car sold and the market dropped and they were stuck with cars they couldnt sell.

Vauxhall had similar probs with BSM driving school deal and interesting this year its gone to Fiat.

Highest discount I have ever seen offered was 67% although that wasnt on a Ford (It was end of line Vauxhall Vectra (when Insignia was on the way out). Funny thing though was the company offered it (and we are talking a 2500 unit purchase here (before anyone pops down to the dealer to ask for a similar deal) turned it down as they needed it to be 70% to make the numbers stack up.

Point I seem to have not made very well is that increasing the price will make Ford seem better business to a lot of customers as they can then ask for a bigger discount.

Makes the purchasing director look like Mr big balls when he says I managed to screw 40% out of that big motor company - arnt I fantastic.

Nowone ever challenges him on why they are still paying the same or a bit more than they did last year.

goldspanners

Lemonade_Pockets wrote: »

Having said all that i do agree it is counter intuative but MFR's have learnt (some the hardway see GM and chrysler) That chasing volume through price reduction does not = sustainability.
If demand falls next year i do not expect to see massive price cuts (by which i mean in list price). MFR's instead will simply readjust production to meet demand. This will mean serious job cuts.
GM has started this ball rolling with 9000 Jobs to go from Opel, and at least few thousand in Saab assuming it gets wound up.

The plus side to all of this is that if prices keep increasing on new cars our Part Exchanges will all be worth a lot more.
Dear Mr MINI please can you put your prices up 50% - Thank you.

Your right, the stack em high sell em cheap and flood the market days have gone, not just in the motoring industry but in almost every other one out there aswell.
the employers will start to pay off more employees,cutting thier cloth to suit the current market conditions.
companies are not allowed to continue doing these suicide deals any more. there are some foreign exceptions though.

thor

So with the country is in recession with people having less money, Ford decide to up prices. If sales continue fall(as logic suggests it should) then jobs will go and production will be cut. As far as I am concerned this is a sure way to obvlion unless the World economy picks up. Apart from the supermarkets and utilities are there any other industries who are putting up prices above inflation in these difficult times?