GM to sell new cars on feebay! PayPal

[deltadelta48]

Interesting change on feebay. Although General Motors has closed many dealerships across the country and eliminated many jobs, at dealerships and at auto plants, it has decided to sell NEW cars directly on feebay!

This group venture is being offere dto California residents only for the present. Buyer deals directly with GM to either bid or buy the car now. GM is offering to California only at this time because California had a smaller amount of dealerships (not sure why that matters).

I suspect this is part of feebay's turnaround plans that will promote new items rather than used ones. To quote writer Michael Santoli in Barron's Insight, John Donahoe, CE, has promised that feebay "would find a way to cut costs and streammline its online marketplace to the liking of large sellers of fixed price goods". The underline is my own.

Santoli also comments on Paypal by saying that PP has "75 million registered users, and handled $16.7 BILLION worth of transactions, up 19% over last year. Loss rates are microscopic" He claims that management is going to double PP revenue over next 3 years.

Interesting!

[lejoueurdepipeau]

I'm not in California but that would not appeal to me . I have never had enough money to buy a brand new car and I'm not ever likely to! I'll stick with my 2CV!

[deltadelta48]

I'm not in California but that would not appeal to me . I have never had enough money to buy a brand new car and I'm not ever likely to! I'll stick with my 2CV!

I know exactly what you mean.

The slap in the face for dealers was losing their dealerships, some with 20+ years in business. Some got a week's notice to close and everyone was suddenly unemployed. Same on assemly lines. Now GM decides to sell outright and bypass their dealers and their itty bitty piece of the pie. .

[rethreads]

Interesting change on feebay. Although General Motors has closed many dealerships across the country and eliminated many jobs, at dealerships and at auto plants, it has decided to sell NEW cars directly on feebay!

This group venture is being offere dto California residents only for the present. Buyer deals directly with GM to either bid or buy the car now. GM is offering to California only at this time because California had a smaller amount of dealerships (not sure why that matters).

I suspect this is part of feebay's turnaround plans that will promote new items rather than used ones. To quote writer Michael Santoli in Barron's Insight, John Donahoe, CE, has promised that feebay "would find a way to cut costs and streammline its online marketplace to the liking of large sellers of fixed price goods". The underline is my own.

Santoli also comments on Paypal by saying that PP has "75 million registered users, and handled $16.7 BILLION worth of transactions, up 19% over last year. Loss rates are microscopic" He claims that management is going to double PP revenue over next 3 years.

Interesting!

Well, we saw the handwriting on the wall, didn't we? I knew they were striving to be a World Power when they bought Paypal, a brilliant move financed by the legions of small sellers who made them rich to begin with and whom they now want to rid themselves of. And the change to the feedback system made it crystal clear. Their stated aim is to draw new buyers, presumably those unused to buying this way. The best way of doing that is to squeeze out all but large-volume sellers of new items and approved Power Sellers willing to jump through additional hoops. There is method in the madness. But I personally hope this latest gambit falls flat on its face. It's slimey.

[pearlygirl555]

Eliminating the front-end salesman is a false economy, in my view. GM will still have to maintain mechanics and service departments, and the salesperson who gets the dealership/customer relationship off to a good start is a key piece of that puzzle.
Vehicle purchases are not as straightforward as plugging variables into an order form, for many people. I used to sell for a large Chevy dealership, and when I consider the transactions I was a part of, I can only think of a few people who would probably have been happy buying a car as an online transaction. Car & Driver, Automobile and some of the other magazines have had editors purchase vehicles from the 'bay motors, and each of their resulting editorial pieces were full of pros and cons to the transaction. The editors generally concluded that they got the car they wanted, but with the caveat that they are industry professionals and really knew what they were looking for. The stories always warned that the average person faced a lot of pitfalls when buying a vehicle online, even if they were already familiar with online purchasing.
When I sold Chevys there was a saleslady who had been at that dealership for more than ten years, and her business was exclusively repeat customers. She topped the sales board every month. I can't see how eliminating people like Marlene will benefit them in any way.

[rethreads]

Eliminating the front-end salesman is a false economy, in my view. GM will still have to maintain mechanics and service departments, and the salesperson who gets the dealership/customer relationship off to a good start is a key piece of that puzzle.
Vehicle purchases are not as straightforward as plugging variables into an order form, for many people. I used to sell for a large Chevy dealership, and when I consider the transactions I was a part of, I can only think of a few people who would probably have been happy buying a car as an online transaction. Car & Driver, Automobile and some of the other magazines have had editors purchase vehicles from the 'bay motors, and each of their resulting editorial pieces were full of pros and cons to the transaction. The editors generally concluded that they got the car they wanted, but with the caveat that they are industry professionals and really knew what they were looking for. The stories always warned that the average person faced a lot of pitfalls when buying a vehicle online, even if they were already familiar with online purchasing.
When I sold Chevys there was a saleslady who had been at that dealership for more than ten years, and her business was exclusively repeat customers. She topped the sales board every month. I can't see how eliminating people like Marlene will benefit them in any way.

But you're not a greedy eedjit. All I know is it will be a cold day in hell when I buy a car without kicking the tires.
But you know, these people with this goofy mindset are over-reaching, whether they know it or not. I'm already seeing the pendulum swinging back the other way, with more people making a conscious decision to support smaller, local businesses. For instance, the local consignment shop sells more of my items than sell "over there" with their gazillion lookers/buyers/whatever.