It's an invitation to treat
The card price is what they'd like me to pay, and an invitation to open negotiations.

There's always haggle room, providing the number's already got at least 4 numbers in it.

The last car we bought, they offered us £900 less on trade-in than our current car was worth. No, sorry, that's a deal-breaker. They instantly upped the offer by £450. Then it got down to details - that tyre's close to the limit, can you replace it? Yes, but with a remould, not a brand new one. How about a year's road tax? No, but we'll do you 6 months.

They actually gave us a much better deal than they'd been expecting, because when all was finished and we were down to the final price, the sales-critter started pulling out credit forms, assuring us we'd have no trouble getting credit through them, and the APR was very reasonable. The look on his face when my wife took out her cheque-book and started writing was a joy to behold. Obviously these guys make some money on the cars, and a nice kick-back on the finance deals, and seem to weight their prices accordingly.
(Leo Sasquatch hates being the grown-up, Tue 6 May 2008, 10:48, Reply)