Released: August 19, 2008

GM returns to employee pricing

Source: Soyoung Kim & Kevin Krolicki, Reuters (USA Today)

General Motors (GM), aiming to boost sagging sales, rolled out a major promotion for U.S. dealers Monday that includes employee-level discounts on almost all the Chevrolet cars and trucks in its showrooms.

The discount offer takes effect Wednesday and marks GM’s return to a strategy it had abandoned in the last two years in an effort to make its pricing more transparent and to wean American consumers from fire-sale blowout deals. But the downturn in U.S. auto sales has hit GM hard. Sales through July were down almost 18% and the automaker has faced pressure to cut costs amid signs that industrywide sales would remain slack in August despite lower gasoline prices.

“Desperate times call for desperate measures, and that’s what we’re seeing from GM,” said Jesse Toprak, an analyst who tracks incentives for automotive website Edmunds.

Read Full Article: GM returns to employee pricing