Ford moving toward build-to-order, away from huge dealer inventories

[erickbe]

I agree. I have bought many new cars, but I have never ordered one. Told dealer what I wanted and they located it or close to it at another dealer's lot. One time I went in to have a custom air filter installed and came out with a new truck instead. The dealer didn't make me pay for custom filter system!

this is the second car I'm trying to order. I had previously ordered the original first mazda6 way back when on pre-order without any issue. Came in --2 months. I guess I should have ordered the badlands last year but wanted to test drive one first.

Hoping to order the bs badlands on august 30th though.

Toyota doesn't let you order either, their regional office determines what the popular colors/trims/options are and sends to dealers. Been looking at RAV4 trd as a backup choice and nothing in the state with options I want. My wife just got a 4 runner so don't need 2 4Runners.

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[Osco]

what a concept, order a vehicle, wait a few weeks, drive away.

reminds me of the good old days. what's next, bell bottoms?

That's not what I've been hearing in here.
It's been, order a bronco Sport, wait three months, get the order pushed back more and more.....
I'd never do that.
I was getting my van fixed at Ford.
Walked up to my Bronco Sport, took it home. I just don't seem to need most of the bells and whistles of a special order I guess.
If I could wait months for a vehicle that only tells me I don't really need one, my current ride must still be ok.
If I need one I'm gonna buy one that day. Careful Ford. Americans like to touch when they shop.

 

[ChefDank]

And honestly I've usually walked in and purchase the vehicle I want off a lot. The only reason I built is they didn't exist.

Me too; usually have a little more negotiating weight when freeing up a spot on a dealer lot. I usually make out (atleast walk out believing so) ?

 

[Kachadurian]

Looks like Ford is going to try something transformational in auto marketing.

Ford Moving toward Build-to-Order, Away from Packed Dealer Lots (msn.com)

Sounds like a good option, no one enjoys the current car buying process. Should be good competition for lowest price, but dealers will still find ways to tack on fees etc. This would also help with parts shortages, not trying to build the huge dealer inventories, but concentrating selling to customers who are ready to buy now. We'll see how this works.

I'm amazed at the number of people on this thread who want to keep the dealer model. Why would you want to rely on dealers who often don't even know the cars they sell. Dealers are a thing of the past; time to move on. The dealer model just puts more people in your pocket before you get the car you want.

 

[Fossil]

That's not what I've been hearing in here.
It's been, order a bronco Sport, wait three months, get the order pushed back more and more.....
I'd never do that.
I was getting my van fixed at Ford.
Walked up to my Bronco Sport, took it home. I just don't seem to need most of the bells and whistles of a special order I guess.
If I could wait months for a vehicle that only tells me I don't really need one, my current ride must still be ok.
If I need one I'm gonna buy one that day. Careful Ford. Americans like to touch when they shop.

that's why they put all that junk at the check out in our stores, impulse buyers. likely if you had to go looking for that candy bar you'd pass. what you described was an impulse buy.

me, I research my buys, study the options, read the reviews and make an informed choice. with 50/60 day supply on dealer lots there will be plenty of toys on the lot for fondling.

I suppose if Americans truly wanted to touch when they shop there would be no Amazon.

yep waited 5 months on my Raptor to get the 6.2L

 

[ChefDank]

that's why they put all that junk at the check out in our stores, impulse buyers. likely if you had to go looking for that candy bar you'd pass. what you described was an impulse buy.

me, I research my buys, study the options, read the reviews and make an informed choice. with 50/60 day supply on dealer lots there will be plenty of toys on the lot for fondling.

I suppose if Americans truly wanted to touch when they shop there would be no Amazon.

yep waited 5 months on my Raptor to get the 6.2L

Exactly; due your due diligence before any purchase. I knew I wanted the BL before I even looked at one after I did my research online. No 3banger for me. I got my off the lot in February; BL w/o the BL package(build date of 11/23/2020). I like the fabric seats with the microfiber, I didn't want the moon roof or 360 co-pilot. HD radio and dual zone heating was not a deal breaker for me. I added the hitch it was missing.

 

[13MikeH]

I'm amazed at the number of people on this thread who want to keep the dealer model. Why would you want to rely on dealers who often don't even know the cars they sell. Dealers are a thing of the past; time to move on. The dealer model just puts more people in your pocket before you get the car you want.

Shame on any consumer who doesn't know what they are walking in to. I've never had issue getting what I want off a lot. I often know more about the vehicle than they do, as I research a LOT. The window sticker tells me most of what I need to know. I'm also quite simple and don't have huge demands or picky needs. Tires, check. Engine configuration, check, seats check.
To each their own but the current order/delivery pace may leave a lot of buyers wanting to take what they can off a lot.
Granted maybe order to buy will go much faster without dealer inventory on the line. I bought mine off the lot, had the options I wanted and left my order with my dealer so someone else could buy off the lot. The model isn't going away any time soon.

 

[FirsandFire]

The "order online and pick it up in a few weeks" without dealer BS works great when that's how the sales model was designed for the company. It was super convenient when we bought my wife's Tesla, close to seamless even and that was in the heat of the pandemic. Ford doesn't seem to have that figured out though. I think there are too many options to streamline the production and they get bottlenecked. They will just jumble all the orders with sunroofs together and all those without etc. and likely disregard when customers actually ordered, and build /deliver solely on what is convenient.

 

[69cuda340s]

Ford would need to stock up sufficient parts so that when orders come in excessive delays are not encountered. Highly unlikely Ford will do that and highly unlikely excessive delays ever get resolve with Ford customer ordered vehicles. As a result they are going to be forced to stock completed vehicles to avoid losing market share.

 

[Deanh]

I'm amazed at the number of people on this thread who want to keep the dealer model. Why would you want to rely on dealers who often don't even know the cars they sell. Dealers are a thing of the past; time to move on. The dealer model just puts more people in your pocket before you get the car you want.

LMAO.

 

[Bronco Sport Billy]

Apple has been the leader for the best Inventory Turnover for over a decade of any manufacture of any industry.

Days Inventory indicates the number of days of goods in sales that a company has in the inventory. Apple's Days Inventory for the three months ended in Jun. 2021 was 10.27.

 

[13MikeH]

Back in January, Ford Authority exclusively reported that Ford dealerships would have the option to invest in showroom upgrades or dedicated Ford Bronco standalone store options to showcase the brand new SUV, and dealers that choose to do either will receive more allocations based on the level of investment. Roughly 100 dealers signed up for the Ford Bronco standalone store as of April, and as it turns out, those dealers will have a lot of flexibility when it comes to designing those dedicated showrooms.

This essentially supports the Ford pecking order process and how some dealers receive inventory faster and in larger volume. Though they did state it was not incentivised to create an arms race, perhaps it will create more competent delivery and understanding of the Bronco brand at least for the 100+ dealers going full branch showroom. They mentioned a lot of flexibility to accomplish this with used car buildings conversion or some simply adding a whole new facility.

 

[Dogula]

I'm a retired Ford Engineer and I remember in the late 90's Ford had an initiative to build and deliver a vehicle to a customer in 2 weeks. They called it OTD (Order to delivery). Obviously, it never happened, so this is not a new idea. Here is what they were trying to do:
Order to Delivery
Another key process Ford reengineering initiative was Order to Delivery. The purpose of the OTD project was to reduce to 15 days the time from a customer’s order to delivery of the finished product—a significant reduction from the present performance of 45 to 65 days. Ford took a holistic approach to the reengineering. Pilot studies in 1997 and 1998 identified bottlenecks throughout Ford’s supply chain, including its marketing, material planning, vehicle production, and transportation processes. Ford’s approach to implementing an improved OTD process relied on several elements: (1) ongoing forecasting of customer demand from dealers—before OTD Ford had never officially involved dealers in forecasting demand, (2) a minimum of 15 days of vehicles in each assembly plant’s order bank to increase manufacturing stability—gaps in the order bank are filled with “suggested” dealer orders based on historical buying patterns, (3) regional “mixing centers” that optimize schedules and deliveries of finished vehicles via rail transportation, and (4) a robust order amendment process to allow vehicles to be amended for minor color and trim variations without the need to submit new orders. The OTD vision was to create a lean, flexible, and predictable process that harmonized the efforts of all of Ford’s components to enable it to provide consumers with right product in the right place at the right time. Ford believed that success in achieving this vision would provide better quality, higher customer satisfaction, improved customer selection, better plant productivity, stability for its supply base, and lower dealer and company costs.

 

[Fordfan]

Custom Order Promo in Canada on now

 

[Rkers]

Ford is currently loving the reduction/elimination of the normal huge rebates they used to offer to move vehicles off of dealers lots. So their dream is to keep inventories low to keep prices and profits high. Meanwhile when ppl order vehicles build dates continuously get pushed, or Ford builds it puts in a yard to sit for several months, Ford raises prices and wants customers who waited 1/2 year or more to pay the new higher price, then we have the usual scum bag dealer games to deal with etc. When delays occur there is no empathy from Ford to customers who wait excessive lengths of time for ordered vehicles. There is no "sorry for the delay" or "we apologize for an inconvenience this delay causes you". Nothing but a big middle finger from Ford to their waiting customers. And Ford has fumbled custom ordered vehicles for a long time this isn't just a new thing caused by COVID. So they need to make a lot of improvements before ppl are going to adopt this special order low dealer inventory concept.

And if Ford's competition has vehicles on lots that customers can look at and buy on the spot Ford will lose sales and be forced to have dealers stock lots again in order to compete.

I agree. My friend/salesman told me about this a while back. I won't buy what I can't see or test drive. The dealer with the vehicles will get the sales.

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