An automobile salesperson is a retail salesperson who sells new or used

car A car, or an automobile, is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of cars state that they run primarily on roads, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport people rather than cargo. There are around one billio ...

s. Unlike traditional retail sales, car sales are sometimes negotiable. Salesmen are employed by new

car dealership A car dealership, or car dealer, is a business that sells new or used cars, at the retail level, based on a dealership contract with an automaker or its sales subsidiary. Car dealerships also often sell spare parts and automotive maintena ...

s or

used car A used car, a pre-owned vehicle, or a secondhand car, is a vehicle that has previously had one or more retailing, retail owners. Used cars are sold through a variety of outlets, including franchise and independent car dealership, car dealers, ...

dealerships.

Car negotiation

The price of a car, unlike many retail sales, is often negotiable. New cars will often have a factory window sticker (

Monroney sticker The Monroney sticker, window sticker, or Automobile Information Disclosure label is a label required by federal law to be affixed on every new passenger car and light-duty truck sold in the United States. It lists the manufacturer’s suggest ...

in the US) listing equipment and options, and the suggested retail price or

MSRP The list price, also known as the manufacturer's suggested retail price (MSRP), or the recommended retail price (RRP), or the suggested retail price (SRP) of a product is the price at which its manufacturer notionally recommends that a retailer ...

. The salesman is traditionally paid a

commission In-Commission or commissioning may refer to: Business and contracting * Commission (remuneration), a form of payment to an agent for services rendered ** Commission (art), the purchase or the creation of a piece of art most often on behalf of anot ...

rather than a fixed salary, usually based on a combination of profit margin and unit volume.

Popular culture

The automobile salesman, particularly the used car salesman, has often been a source of characters, often negative, in movies, television shows, and cartoons. History and fairy tales often characterize peddlers (people selling goods) as negative influences, or outsiders out to take advantage of people. Politicians have been negatively associated with used car salesmen in the past. A poster from the Kennedy campaign in 1960 has an image of Nixon with the caption: "Would YOU buy a used car from this man?" Such salesmen are often well aware of their occupation's negative public image. As

Valerie Biden Owens Mary Valerie Biden Owens (; born November 5, 1945) is an American Political consulting, political strategist, campaign manager and former educator. She is the younger sister of Joe Biden, the 46th president of the United States. In 2016, Preside ...

explained, Joe Biden Sr. left automobile sales for real estate when his son Joe Biden Jr. was elected to the

United States Senate The United States Senate is a chamber of the Bicameralism, bicameral United States Congress; it is the upper house, with the United States House of Representatives, U.S. House of Representatives being the lower house. Together, the Senate and ...

in 1972, because "he didn't want a United States senator to have a used-car salesman for a dad." It is a common theme for the "used car salesman" to be cast as a shyster in

popular culture Popular culture (also called pop culture or mass culture) is generally recognized by members of a society as a set of cultural practice, practices, beliefs, artistic output (also known as popular art

f. pop art F is the sixth letter of the Latin alphabet. F may also refer to: Science and technology Mathematics * F or f, the number 15 (number), 15 in hexadecimal and higher positional systems * ''p'F'q'', the hypergeometric function * F-distributi ...

or mass art, sometimes contraste ...

. The used car salesman

trope Trope or tropes may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Trope (cinema), a cinematic convention for conveying a concept * Trope (literature), a figure of speech or common literary device * Trope (music), any of a variety of different things in medi ...

is "modern culture's epitome of the sleazy, two-faced, greedy capitalist out to cheat honest people of their hard-earned money by tricking them into buying damaged or inferior goods", even though such "salespersons are engaged in a perfectly respectable endeavor that benefits millions of ordinary people".

References

{{Reflist Sales occupations