Death of a car salesman
汽车推销员之死
No one much likes car dealers. But changing the system will be hard
没人喜欢汽车经销商，但改变销售体系很难。
THE internet was supposed to do away with all sorts of middlemen. Yet house sales are mostly conducted by estate agents, and car sales are still finalised in cavernous showrooms that smell of tyres. Technology is diminishing the role of car dealers, however.
互联网会让各种中间商消失。然而，房屋销售大多是通过房地产中介进行的，汽车销售仍然在弥漫着轮胎味的空旷展厅完成。但是，技术正在削弱汽车经销商的作用。
Customers are using the internet for much of the process of choosing a new car, and are increasingly getting loans and insurance online rather than buying them from the dealer who sells them their car. Some carmakers are seeking ways to bypass dealers too.
顾客们开始在互联网上完成新车挑选过程的很大部分，并且越来越多地通过网络获得贷款、购买保险，而不在销售汽车的经销商那里掏腰包。一些汽车制造商也正在寻求绕过经销商的途径。
In the motor industry’s early days, a century ago, manufacturers tried selling their vehicles at the factory gate, in shops they owned themselves, by mail order and through travelling salesmen. But eventually they settled on a system of franchising, in which independent dealers mostly sell just one maker’s models.
在一个世纪以前，汽车工业的早期，生产商试图在工厂门口、在自己拥有的商店里、通过邮件订购，或者通过旅行推销员来销售汽车。但最终，生产商选择了特许经销体系，在这一体系中，独立的经销商大多只卖一家制造商的车型。
Now, almost all of the 90m motor vehicles sold worldwide each year cross dealers’ forecourts. In America, the second-largest car market, their total revenues reached $806 billion in 2014. China’s car market, the largest, has rapidly come to resemble the West’s, with all its faults .
今天，全世界每年卖出的9000万辆车中，绝大部分都要经过经销商之手。2014年美国，这个世界第二大汽车市场，汽车经销商的总收入达到了8060亿美元。最大的汽车市场，中国，已经迅速效仿了这一西方模式，连同它的全部毛病。
Surveys show that car buyers find the experience of visiting a dealer boring, confrontational and bureaucratic, notes Nick Gill of Capgemini, a consulting firm. No wonder they try to avoid them. Ten years ago Americans visited five dealers before making a purchase, according to McKinsey, another consulting outfit, but now they visit 1.6 on average. The trend is similar elsewhere in the world.
Nick Gill of Capgemini咨询公司的调查显示，购车者发现造访经销商的经历无趣，富有对抗性，还充满官僚习气。难怪顾客总是试图避开经销商。而另一个咨询机构麦肯锡的调查表明，十年前美国人在购车前要转五个经销商，但现在他们平均访问1.6个。世界其他地方的趋势是相似的。
In many cases car buyers turn up having already decided which model and which options they require; and, having checked price-comparison websites, how much they will pay. Almost all cars these days have decent performance and handling, so test drives are less important than ever.
很多情况下，购车者已经决定了他们所需要的型号和选配，并且，通过价格对比网站，他们也知道需要支付多少钱。今天几乎所有的汽车，都有着不错的操控和性能，所以试驾相比以往显得不是那么重要了。
Styling and branding—things that can be assessed without visiting a dealer—figure more prominently in buyers’ minds. The role of traditional car salesmen, geared for the hard sell, is waning.
客户越来越看重风格和品牌，而这些信息不需要访问经销商即可获得。需要一张铁嘴的传统销售岗位，正在逐渐消逝。
What motorists do want, though, is someone to talk them through all the features that cars come with these days—entertainment systems, navigation services, automated parking and so on. Carmakers are beginning to respond.
然而，驾驶者真正想要的是，有人来告诉他们现在车上的所有功能，比如娱乐系统、导航服务、自动泊车等等。汽车制造商正开始做出反应。
Since 2013 BMW, taking Apple Stores as its model, has been installing “product geniuses” in some larger showrooms, to talk potential buyers through its cars’ features without pressing them to close a sale. Daimler Benz, another German premium carmaker, and even Kia, a mass-market South Korean firm, have begun similar initiatives.
自2013以来，宝马向苹果商店学习，在一些较大的展厅设置了“产品天才”，与潜在买家讨论其汽车的特性，而不是催着顾客买辆车。另一家德国高级汽车制造商戴姆勒奔驰，甚至还有面向大众市场的韩国起亚，也开始了类似的举措。
Apple’s softer sell, which stresses its products’ design and whizzy features, helps to persuade customers to pay premium prices. Its selling methods have also succeeded in training customers to accept that the list price is the final price.
苹果的软推销，强调其产品的设计和新奇特性，有助于说服客户支付溢价。这种销售方法还成功地使客户接受标价即是最终售价。
In contrast, the motor industry has spent more than a century training buyers to expect haggling, followed by discounts. Yet customers say having to argue about the price is one of the things that puts them off dealers.
相比之下，汽车工业已经花了一个多世纪使客户希望讨价还价，目的就是为了折扣。然而，顾客们说，不得不讨价还价是他们避开经销商的原因之一。
Some firms are offering them ways to avoid it. Costco, a discount retailer, sold 400,000 new and used cars in America last year, using its buying power to get good deals, doing the haggling on behalf of motorists. Lexus, Toyota’s premium brand, is experimenting with haggle-free pricing in a handful of its American dealerships.
一些公司正提供避免这一困扰的办法。折扣零售商Costco，去年在美国销售四十万辆新车和二手车，利用其购买力代客户讨价还价，取得了不错的业绩。丰田的高端品牌雷克萨斯，正在一些美国经销商那里尝试免议价策略。
Some dealers are experimenting with selling cars online, or opening temporary “pop-up” showrooms in shopping centres. Others are offering to bring cars to a potential buyer’s home or workplace for a test drive.
一些经销商开始尝试在网上卖车，或在购物中心开临时“弹出”展厅。还有的给潜在购买者提供在家里或工作地试驾的机会。
But the most controversial experiment is the one that Tesla, a maker of expensive electric cars, is trying: cutting out the dealers altogether and selling directly to motorists. Two decades ago Ford and General Motors tried to revive this idea from the industry’s early days, but they were deterred by resistant dealers and restrictive laws in some American states.
但最具争议性的尝试是特斯拉，这样一个高价电动汽车制造商，正在努力完全踢开经销商，直接向驾车者销售。二十年前，福特和通用汽车试图重现这个汽车工业早期的想法，但由于美国一些州的法律限制和经销商的阻挠而被迫放弃。
The legislation, enacted in the 1950s to protect dealers from onerous terms that carmakers were trying to impose on them, is now being used to put the brakes on Tesla. It has battled to open stores in several states where direct sales are banned or restricted.
这项立法，于20世纪50年代颁布，以防止汽车制造商强加给经销商繁重的条款，现在却被用来阻止特斯拉。在禁止或限制直销的几个州，特斯拉的开店之战已经开始。
And it is winning most of its fights. New Jersey and Maryland recently overturned bans, though the struggle continues in Arizona, Michigan, Texas, and West Virginia.
特斯拉赢得了大部分的战斗。新泽西和马里兰州最近推翻了禁令，但在亚利桑那，密歇根，德克萨斯，西弗吉尼亚的抗争还在继续。
In other countries, although carmakers face no legal hurdle to selling directly, they certainly would face resistance from their dealer networks. Nonetheless, Hyundai, Daimler Benz, BMW and Volvo have set up small experiments in Europe to sell cars through their company websites.
在其他国家，尽管汽车制造商们的直销模式没有面临法律障碍，但肯定会面临来自经销商网络的阻力。尽管如此，现代、戴姆勒奔驰、宝马和沃尔沃已经开始尝试在欧洲通过其公司网站销售汽车。
Customers can use the sites to configure their new cars and pay a deposit. Volvo sold all 1,900 of a special version of a sports-utility vehicle it offered online last year, and it now wants to get its entire line-up for sale online by 2016.
客户可以使用网站配置他们的新汽车，并支付定金。去年，沃尔沃的某款定制版SUV，1900辆全部在网上出售，现在公司希望到2016年时，能够在网上销售全系列产品。
Daimler is mulling an expansion of pilot schemes in Hamburg and Warsaw. GM’s premium Cadillac brand plans to open several test-drive centres and virtual dealerships across Europe.
戴姆勒正在考虑对华沙和汉堡的试点方案扩展。通用汽车公司的高端品牌凯迪拉克，计划在欧洲增设几个试驾中心和虚拟商店。
In all these cases except that of Tesla, the final stage of the transaction is handled offline, by a dealer. Even so, such selling methods strengthen customers’ relationships with carmakers, so they may steadily weaken the case for having dealers.
除了特斯拉，在其他这些案例中，交易的最后阶段还是由经销商处理的。即便如此，这样的销售方法也加强了客户与汽车制造商之间的关系，因此可能会持续削弱经销商的地位。
This trend is set to be reinforced anyway, since most new cars will soon come with built-in mobile-internet connections that, among other things, will stream data directly to the manufacturer.
无论如何，这一趋势将得到加强，比如，大多数新汽车将很快内建移动互联网连接，数据将直接流向制造商。
By offering motorists such things as remote diagnostics and automatic updates to the software installed in their cars, the makers will have a ready-made excuse to stay in touch.
通过向驾驶者提供远程诊断，自动更新安装在他们汽车上的软件，制造商将有一个现成的借口与消费者保持联系。
If carmakers did eventually cut out the middlemen, it could mean higher profits for them, lower prices for buyers, or both. Daron Gifford of Plante Moran, a consulting firm, notes that the potential savings could run from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars per car. Since mass-market carmakers’ margins are so slim, it could have a striking effect on their profitability.
如果汽车制造商最终绕过了中间商，则可能意味着给制造商更高的利润，给购买者更低的价格，或两者兼具。咨询机构Daron Gifford of Plante Moran指出，每辆车能节约几百到几千美元。由于大众消费市场汽车制造商的利润很薄，这可能对他们的盈利能力产生显著的影响。
Aside from the prospect of capturing the retail margin, and building direct links with buyers, carmakers’ shareholders have another reason to support the idea of eliminating dealers. That is because many manufacturers have got into the bad habit of overproducing, and of using dealers’ forecourts as dumping-grounds for their excess stock.
除了获得零售利润，与买家建立直接联系，汽车制造商的股东有另一个理由来支持消除经销商的想法。因为许多制造商已经养成了过度生产的坏习惯，并利用经销商来消化多余库存。
In the trade it is called “channel-stuffing”: manufacturers twist dealers’ arms to take on their surplus cars, with a combination of juicy discounts and the threat of holding back more sought-after models. If cars were sold directly by the maker, and production were constantly tailored to match sales, the industry’s fortunes could be transformed.
在贸易中，这种做法被称为“渠道充塞”：制造商诱以利润丰厚的折扣，结合限制畅销车型供应的威胁，迫使经销商接收他们过剩的汽车。如果汽车是由制造商直接销售，生产不断适应销售，行业际遇则有望改变。
Dealers, predictably, are desperate to remain the source of new cars even though they often make little or no money flogging them. In Britain, typically two-thirds of revenues but less than a quarter of profits come from that part of the business.
可以预见的是，经销商渴望保持新车的供应，即使他们从新车销售中很少或根本没有赚到钱。在英国，新车业务通常在销售收入中占三分之二，却只带来不到四分之一的利润。
However, selling new cars is the engine that drives the rest of their business—finance, insurance, warranties and other aftermarket products. Buyers often bring their cars back for repairs and servicing.
然而，新车销售却能够带动其他业务，金融、保险、担保，以及其他售后产品。买家通常还会回来进行维修和保养。
Trade-ins provide dealers with a stock of used cars, another important source of income. In America, such ancillaries helped dealers survive in the six years to 2011, when they were selling new cars at a loss.
而以旧抵新能够为经销商带来大量二手车，这是另一个重要的收入来源。在美国，从2006到2011年这六年中，当经销商亏本销售新车时，二手车帮助他们度过了难关。
Online firms are replicating these services and chipping away at dealers’ local monopolies. Websites such as Edmunds and TrueCar in America, Carwow in Britain and Mobile.de in Germany let buyers quickly gather quotes from multiple dealers.
在线企业同样提供这些服务，并正在打破经销商的地方垄断。如美国的Edmunds，TrueCar，英国的Carwow和德国的Mobile.de，能让买家快速收集来自多个经销商的报价。
Likewise, cheap insurance, finance and warranties are easy to find online. Motorists may get a better price for their old cars from a site like webuyanycar.com in Britain than by doing a trade-in with a dealer.
同样，便宜的保险，金融和担保服务，很容易从网上找到。英国的车主可以从一个叫webuyanycar.com网站为旧车找到更好的价格，远比去经销商那里以旧抵新划算。
But just as some tourists still like to buy package holidays, there may always be some motorists who prefer a one-stop-shop that provides everything, and some who prefer to buy face-to-face rather than over the internet.
但正如一些游客仍然喜欢让旅行社包办一切，总有人还是喜欢提供一切的一站式商店，还有人更喜欢面对面购物，而不是通过互联网。
America’s National Automobile Dealers’ Association puts forward two other reasons why motorists are better off with things the way they are. First, it argues, the competition among dealers to sell any given model helps to keep the retail profit margin low—and if carmakers captured the retail margin for themselves, there is no guarantee that any of it would be passed on to customers.
就为什么驾车者应该通过经销商购车，美国的全国汽车经销商协会提出了两条理由。首先，他们认为，经销商之间的竞争，使得销售任何车型的利润率都很低，如果汽车制造商自己获得这部分零售利润，将无法保证其中部分利润返还给客户。
Second, when a model has to be recalled because of a safety problem, dealers have an incentive to contact owners of that model promptly, since they usually get paid by the carmaker to correct the fault.
其次，当某个车型因为安全问题被召回时，由于制造商经常会向经销商支付维修纠偏的费用，经销商也更有动力及时联系该车型的拥有者。
In America especially, car dealers are a forceful lobby, and unlikely to remain silent if carmakers try cutting them out of the picture. But their grip on the industry is loosening. The all-purpose dealership, encompassing sales of new and used cars, finance, insurance, servicing and parts, once made sense.
尤其在美国，汽车经销商是一个强有力的游说团体，如果汽车制造商试图脱离他们，经销商们不可能保持沉默。但他们对行业的控制正在松动。囊括新车和二手车销售，集金融，保险，维修和配件于一身的全能经销商，已经大势不再。
Now this business model is being squeezed. If car buyers take to online buying in large numbers, it may not be long before a mass-market carmaker follows Tesla’s lead and tries to muscle aside the dealers. If customers are happy to buy direct from the manufacturer, lawmakers certainly should not stand in their way.
现在，这个商业模式正在被挤压。如果购买汽车的人大量在线购买，不消太久，在大众市场方面，制造商就会追随特斯拉的步伐，尝试边缘化经销商。如果顾客很乐意直接从制造商那里购买，立法者当然不应该妨碍他们。
翻译：迈爸（@麦田的字留地）
校对：Ghost（@Ghostmarine）
编辑：辉格@whigzhou