>Why aren't dealerships just consignment stores for cars? That seems like it'd work out better for everyone involved.

It wouldn't be better for the dealership when you take into the fact that they are a dying business that literally everyone (car manufacturers, clients, etc.) hate. The only thing that keeps them in business is laws that were passed so f()cking long ago that your grand parent were not even born yet. The justification at the time were valid, they were helping protect consumers and tried to create a "fair" market place amongst car sellers. That was back in the pre-internet and for some people even pre-phone era. when society changed and they became a useless parasite, they never tried to innovate or adapt to the new reality, they just doubled down on their hostile model.

There is no long term future for most of them, especially not with EV cars that require less maintenance. If there were no laws protecting them, most of them would be gone and car manufacturers would let you buy direct from them online. None of the crap they force you to go thought would be tolerated if you could just pull your phone in front of the sales rep and buy the exact model you want on the spot at msrp.

>It wouldn't be better for the dealership when you take into the fact that they are a dying business that literally everyone (car manufacturers, clients, etc.) hate. The only thing that keeps them in business is laws that were passed so f()cking long ago that your grand parent were not even born yet.

There is no evidence of this. Dealerships exist, and flourish, all over the world where no such business laws exist.

Their business will change and adapt, some dealerships will fail, but "everyone hates" them is a major exaggeration.

Are you speaking of used-car dealerships, or "franchised first-party" new-car dealerships (e.g. "a Honda dealership")? I know the former exist in most places, but I think the latter is pretty-uniquely American.

> There is no long term future for most of them...

Since the dealerships generate so mush tax revenue, they have a great deal of political power and won't go down without a fight.

> Why aren't dealerships just consignment stores for cars?

Presumably because people prefer getting less money now to getting more money later. Also most dealerships essentially "flip" cars (like those people on HGTV flip houses) - they clean them up, do basic service, add a warranty of some sort and that gives them extra margin versus just taking a small fee for handling sale paperwork.

Honestly I'd hate to sell a car via consignment because there's zero incentive for the dealer to do anything with it. They might sit on it for months.

> Also most dealerships essentially "flip" cars (like those people on HGTV flip houses) - they clean them up, do basic service, add a warranty of some sort and that gives them extra margin versus just taking a small fee for handling sale paperwork.

To be clear, I meant new car dealerships — the ones that are branded to a particular manufacturer brand (e.g. "Ford dealership", etc.) Why aren't those dealerships just consignment stores? It would stabilize a very cashflow-constrained franchise business, into something that's essentially just "making money to be a showroom" — which is exactly what those really are.

> Honestly I'd hate to sell a car via consignment because there's zero incentive for the dealer to do anything with it. They might sit on it for months.

Seems fine to me. Any consignment store is really just doing lead-gen: helping to arrange a contract between the buyer and the manufacturer (where they just happen to take temporary possession of the car in-between.) Sort of like a car real-estate agent.

The important thing to realize about consignment models, is that your customers aren't the people coming in to buy things. Your customers are the manufacturers, who essentially rent space in your lot to show off their products. If you don't work to sell their products, the manufacturers stop renting that space from you, and you don't make money.

Certainly, consignment stores aren't as motivated to move particular products. Especially particular high-margin halo products. But they are motivated to do volume — i.e. to hit their manufacturer/renters' revenue targets.

(Also, keep in mind that a consignment store can't really "sit on" consignment goods; those aren't their goods to sit on. If the manufacturer wants to rotate them out for other stock, they just go to the store, take those goods out, and put something (or nothing) else in its place.)

For new car dealerships I think the reason is mostly just historical precedent but much like how movie theater owners make their money by selling popcorn and all the ticket sales go back to the studio, car dealerships make their real money through service and the car sales are often a wash.

That's also essentially how a lot of financing arrangements are already made on the consumer side anyways. When getting financing over the weekend the dealer will draft up a contract between them and the consumer and then later on transfer the actual loan to the financial institution actually providing financing. It wouldn't be that much more convoluted for the dealer to sign the contract and then settle the whole ownership - loan holder details right afterwards.