81–90 of 258 posts
I think it would be great to buy a car from Amazon. The WYSISYG pricing is something missing from car buying. Negotiating a car price can be a lot of fun if you're a good negotiator, but people who aren't might love this. It also gives you a tool for negotiating if you DO plan to take the offer in to a local dealership.
---
In the used-car market, this is what CarMax does.[1]
I don't believe those ratings. I was looking at Ram truck ratings the other day from (from an unbiased site) and they were 1.5/5.
I think it would be great to buy a car from Amazon. The WYSISYG pricing is something missing from car buying. Negotiating a car price can be a lot of fun if you're a good negotiator, but people who aren't might love this. It also gives you a tool for negotiating if you DO plan to take the offer in to a local dealership.
Oops. Beaten to the punch. --- In the used-car market, this is what CarMax does.[1] [1]: https://www.carmax.com/car-buying-process/why-carmax
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Redfin would do this first. Since they have a fair number of listings, I'm waiting for them to offer something where the buyer gets a substantial discount for buying it directly from the Redfin agent, without using a buyer's agent. Next step would be to sell listings exclusively through Redfin and not through the MLS, though this would be riskier.
I think this was the original business plan of Zillow & Trulia - they wanted people to list without the help of agents. It never really became successful enough so they sold out. I don't understand how agents can charge 6% in America when they charge 1 or 1.5% in the UK.
As such, real estate agents need to be highly informed and often rigorously certified. This has the dual effects of raising costs to offset their own, and it also shrinks the potential labor pool, which has the expected outcome of higher wages.
Before you laugh that you'd never use this to buy a car, it may be worth taking the time to find your make/model and add it to your "Garage" on amazon. Amazon will then try to confirm or not if the cabin air filter you are about to buy is a correct fit for your car. Amazon tries to do the same thing with camera gear. At least, that's the theory. In practice you still need to do 100% of the due diligence or you'll end…
I did this awhile ago with my old car and found it tried to tell me whether a bunch of random non-car electronics parts I was buying were compatible with my car. Which was a bit cluttering. It is an interesting feature and sometimes useful, but like you I found that when I even was buying car parts it wasn't always on the ball about whether or not the part I was looking at was compatible. I believe I remember errors…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Seriously. My last car (BMW) from seven years ago, I did entirely through email. Sent a handful of dealerships their cost sheet with the options I wanted, until I got the price I was looking for. Few months later when it was built and shipped from Germany, I drove my old car to the dealership, and drove off with the new one. Done. As an aside, I just ordered a mattress site unseen from an online only company, and it…
I did the same thing when we bought my wife's 328 wagon 2 years ago. I emailed about 5 dealerships with a PDF of the options + msrp and they all got back to me in a day or two. I sent a followup email to the others to see if they wanted to beat the best price I received and they all said they couldn't. I also ordered mine because we wanted a specific set of options like adaptive cruise control, upgraded sound system,…
I've been curious how much below invoice they are. The closest one is 4 hours away from me, so I'm not a member (and can't see prices).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is the only way to do new car shopping. Get the price + windows sticker in writing over email. Send it out to all the dealers in the nearby area and tell them they have your business if you can beat the deal. Repeat 2-3x, pick the lowest price dealer and be willing to walk out the door if anything funny comes up. Also quite a few dealerships are directly or indirectly part of a franchise so they won't compete wi…
Yes, when it comes to a lot of luxury European cars, cities typically only have a single dealership, and there isn't much wiggle room. Ended up with one back home 240 miles away. Picked it up my way home for Thanksgiving right off the thruway. Pulled into parents with the new ride :)
Pretty transparent and only changed once we started emailing dealers across state lines. Either way they lost our business. Subaru on the other had has a pretty diverse set of dealers and we ended up with one well below "inventory"(that's a whole nother bit of misinformation) at a dealership ~15mi away.
That said Tesla still wipes the floor with any dealership experience I've had which is why I'm pretty excited to see the Model 3 hit the market and more people experience it.
Before you laugh that you'd never use this to buy a car, it may be worth taking the time to find your make/model and add it to your "Garage" on amazon. Amazon will then try to confirm or not if the cabin air filter you are about to buy is a correct fit for your car. Amazon tries to do the same thing with camera gear. At least, that's the theory. In practice you still need to do 100% of the due diligence or you'll end…