Wholesale vs. Retail vs. Online Auction

October 26, 2022

Here’s a tale of 3 2017 911 Carrera 4S’. All the same color, all similar options, and all with roughly 20-30,000 miles. One car sells for $95,500 at a dealer-only wholesale auto auction. Another car is listed on Cars.com for $119,000 miles. And our final car sold recently on Bring a Trailer for $107,000. Each one is roughly $12,000 from the other one.

So why such a difference between wholesale, retail, and online auctions?

The wholesale difference is the easy question. Obviously, dealers buy cars that are off-lease, trade-ins, and aged inventory from other dealers at a wholesale price in order to make a profit. But what many don’t realize is that the auction price of $95,500 isn’t the true cost of the car for a dealership.

On top of what the dealer purchased our wholesale C4S for, you have a buyer’s fee from the auction company of roughly $800-1,000. Then you need to get the car home to the dealership. Add another $250-500 for shipping depending on how far away you are from the auction house.

Now that you have the car at your dealership, the money really starts to add up. Although a 2017 911 with 25,000 is fairly new, there will always be reconditioning costs. Figure at least $3,000 for the shop, maybe a few touchups on the front bumper, and a curbed wheel or two.

Once the car is fixed, it’s then most likely certified if it is for sale at a Franchise Porsche dealership. Certification fees are somewhere around $3,000 for the extended warranty that comes with your CPO Porsche.

And then there’s interest. Dealers typically use a floorplan to finance their inventory and this financing accrues interest daily as the car sits on the lot. A car that’s been on the lot for 60 days will have roughly $800 in interest payments and another ~$100 in floor plan fees.

That $95,500 car went to $103,000+ real fast. And with an asking price of $119,000, you can clearly see the difference between wholesale and retail.

At $103,000 you’re also now not far from that $107,000 price paid for a car on Bring a Trailer. But what is not figured into that published sales price is the buyer’s fee that the auction charges on top of the sale price, in this case, the max fee of $5,000.

We’ve now shrunken the difference between the auction C4S and the Dealer’s C4S to about $7,000 from $12,000. So what do you get for that extra $7,000 from the dealer that you won’t from the seller of the auction?

For one, the dealer has the ability to make financing much easier and offer better rates if it’s a CPO car. And then there is that CPO warranty, in this case, to protect you in case something does go 12 months or so down the road.

But the most important benefit when buying a car from a dealership is that you have recourse. No matter how iron-clad the legalese is on the buyer’s order or buyer’s guide, consumer protection is on your side much more so when buying from a dealership than an individual. But that’s a whole nother topic for another time.