A Broken Paradigm…But Which One?

Over the weekend, I read the regular litany of complaints about high pressure timeshare sales tactics. 

Yawn. 

Don’t get me wrong…the high pressure, the misinformation, the nonsense of the ‘today only price’, the running of credit without prior approval…I’ve heard every single one of them. And it needs to stop. 

But does it really need to stop?  It’s obviously working for the developers or else they’d stop it. For all the bitching and complaining by consumers, reporters and consumer advocates; it’s still working. 

For every consumer that stands up at the end of the mandated 120 minutes, there are at least 7 that stay for who knows how long. For every consumer that does their advance homework and knows that the $20,000 timeshare the salesperson is hawking is available for $1,000 or less on the resale market. For every one person that understands the resale market, there are at least 10 that think that $20,000 is a good deal because the salesperson originally said it was $45,000. For every consumer that understands that the resort update is a sales pitch and not required, there are at least 12 that go along with the pitch the ‘concierge’ gives them. 

You’d be hard pressed to come across anybody who either hasn’t heard about these antiquated practices or personally encountered them. 

And yet every single day, timeshare sales centers around the country are filled with consumers sitting across little round tables listening to the same tired pitches. And for the past 20 or so years since I stumbled into this industry, an average of 10% of those consumers purchase something. 

So is the timeshare paradigm broken?  Not even close, buster. Not even close. You know what is broken?  The customers’ paradigm. Change that and I guarantee you the developers will change immediately.