Nissan Dealers Will Have Extra Motivation to Sell You a New Car Next Month

You have to spend money to make money, right? Well, Nissan is about to test that theory. Starting in June, the manufacturer is throwing out the complex system it used to calculate dealer bonuses in favor of a simple edict: sell all of the (new) cars. When the new system goes into effect, the mother ship will start rewarding its dealers based entirely on how many new Nissans they manage to put in customer driveways, Automotive News reports. The idea is to incentivise dealers to focus on increasing the brand’s sales numbers, which might pay off for consumers willing to buy something in stock.

In case you’ve managed to find your way under a rock at some point over the past eighteen months or so, here’s the short version: Nissan’s sales have been in complete free-fall. Nissan’s own U.S. sales boss Vinay Shahani told dealer representatives this week that April’s sales reports were nothing short of an “absolute catastrophe” for the brand—and one he intends to address. Urgently.

It seems that some Nissan dealers have been selling more used cars than new ones, and that’s a trend the company’s corporate headquarters is looking to reverse.

Nissan’s new bonus strategy will reward dealers based on their performance relative to simple volume goals—achievable ones, Shahani promises. While he didn’t share the company’s actual targets, he did outline the new bonus structure. Dealers who hit 90% of their volume goal will receive an additional $350 per new vehicle sold. Hit goal and that becomes $600. Exceed goal by 10% and that bonus doubles.

What does that mean for you? Well, if you’ve had your eye on a new Z, it’s about to be time to lowball your dealer. Under a system like this one, dealers will often eat a loss on individual sales in order to hit their targets. It’s a gamble, because anything less than 90% of goal might as well be zero. You know how that one uncle is always saying you should wait until the last day of the month to get the best deal on a car? For once, his advice might be worth something.

On paper, Nissan isn’t really asking its dealers for much. Its share of the U.S. retail car market sits at about 5.4%. While this pie chart includes Mitsubishi in Nissan’s total, it still illustrates the relative volumes of the major automakers. Nissan holds an advantage over the likes of Volkswagen and Mazda, but it’s lagging Honda, Stellantis, Hyundai/Kia (combined in that chart), Toyota, and the two American juggernauts badly.

Shahani wants his dealers to stop the bleeding. He’d like an increase of about half a percent by the end of the year—that equates to a lot of volume, since Americans bought just shy of 16 million new cars last year. Half a percent of that is still 80,000 cars, or about 9 percent of the company’s total 2024 sales volume.

But unlike the rewards offered by typical incentive programs, this cash comes with no strings attached. Dealers can use it however they see fit, up to and including pocketing every penny. One dealer told AN that some of his stores could bring in an additional million dollars a year if this program remains in place.

If this has the whiff of desperation about it, you’re not far off the mark. Nissan’s already-persistent issues are only going to be compounded by the current turmoil in the global economy. As the company tightens its belt, it continues to sacrifice the agility it may need to remain afloat until the market settles back down—and when that might happen is anybody’s guess.

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