Car salesman must make bank, right? You might not make a salary or wages working at a car dealership but all you need to do is sell a high-end luxury car with all the bells and whistles added on and you’re sitting pretty with a fat commission.
Easy street, right?
Well, pump the breaks. One salesperson tells TikTok that putting other people into their dream car isn’t as lucrative as some think. And it may be as grueling as any other day job.
TikToker Paolayls (@paolayls) wrote in the caption of her confessional video, “I remember I sold a 90K .. 90K car and got 250$ commission.” Posted on Feb. 29, the TikTok went on to pick up 221,400 views and counting as of Monday.
In it, Paolayls claims that “the best thing” she ever got during her two to three years as a salesperson for a Toyota dealership was “a f***ing notebook.” She displays the black notebook in question to her audience before saying that the owners of the dealership were “the stingiest f***ing owners ever.”
She claims that the owners would come into the dealership “dripped out f***ing from head to toe … I mean to the f***ing socks on their feet were f***ing Gucci.” However, she claims that despite their alleged ostentation the owners were very chintzy.
“One time they brought us Wingstop [for lunch]… literally one time in the whole f***ing three years that I worked there and the wings ran out,” she says. “Like, not everybody got wings.”
Paolayls’ claim that she only made $250 on a $90K sale seems extremely low if she was working for commission. According to carsaleprofessional.com, “Some car dealerships pay the salespeople a more dependable salary/commission. They will get a fixed dollar amount per car and possibly a car count bonus.”
However, for salespeople who don’t receive a salary, “commission is about 25% of the gross profit on each vehicle sold,” according to gitnux.org. However, the dealership can have specific rules about what determines commission rates.
For instance, veteran salesman Karl Beckham writing for carprofessional.com states, “Most dealers that use a sliding scale commission percentage make it retroactive to all cars sold for the month. So, for example, the first 6 cars paid 20%, 4 paid 25%, 5 paid 30%, and the rest paid 35%.”
A $250 commission of a $90K sale is around 0.3% of the gross—meaning that if Paolayls’ claim is true she was making far less than the average car sales commission even without factoring in how many sales she made during that month.
She later revealed in the comments section that she had not been working on commission. In response to a comment that asked, “I’m assuming it wasn’t commission based bc if so you’d be rolling in it sis,” Paolayls responded, that her pay was “hourly + 250 a car.”
The Daily Dot has reached out to Paolayls via TikTok for a statement.
@paolayls I remember i sold a 90K .. 90K car and got 250$ comission 💀💀💀💀💀 #toyota #storytime #workstories #fyp ♬ original sound – Paolayls
Some of Paolayls’ viewers spoke up in the comment section about their own, vastly different experiences.
Allison (@1123afnkx44) wrote, “The dealership I worked at paid 30% of the profit for commission.”
Another former dealership employee wrote, “I worked at a Chevy dealer. they provided lunch every weekend, has employee of the month cruises once a year. snow cones/ice cream trucks. cried when i got laid off.”
“Work at a Honda dealership and the owner would buy every one lunch every Friday plus 15% more commission if you sold a car on Friday,” another viewer added.
However, some viewers had similar tales of bad experiences.
Another concluded, “SAY IT LOUDER FOR PEOPLE IN THE BACK!! Owners are crazy cheap and Half the people wouldn’t survive dealership life honestly.”
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