My used Subie sales are down 40% this year. With a only one daughter's tuition to pay it's not as bad as it could be, but retail is a mess right now. I just over-haggled with my dealer to buy a new 36" Panasonic TV at only $200 over cost, and he was pretty pissed when I expected a deal on delivery charges. I explained that MY retail is down 40%, and he retorted that he doesn't even look at the books monthly anymore...too depressing. It was easy to jump on capital purchases when I was feeling flush from 8 sales-per months, but at barely ONE per week, I wonder why the hell I'm buying TVs, treadmills, etc. I do my part, but ALL sales are more difficult now. A good friend of mine runs a $2mil musical instrumentation biz (guitars and pickups), and he says his sales force is "losing bandwidth because they have to 'work' each sale much more". Well put.
The guy who was about to buy new will buy your used stuff without much work because of the savings, but the normal used-purchaser is either paralyzed or if unafraid, will grind you. So it's much harder all around. And the bushman
hides his illegal tradings by starting a war? Sigh....
