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Amazon Vehicles

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Re: Amazon Vehicles

#91

Post by nlh »

hardwaresofton wrote: post #27

Yes please. Anything that will get us closer to direct-to-consumer sales of cars. I'm ready for car dealerships to be a relic of the past.

+1 me too, of course.

The problem, unfortunately, as we learned through some of Tesla's struggles, is that car dealerships are deeply embedded in a bunch of localities through legislation. There are literally written into law as the way consumers needs to buy cars.

So the tough part here is that we consumers would LOVE a better way, but it's going to be a while before this takes nationwide. A few progressive municipalities will, I'm sure, adopt (and make it legal to buy via Amazon Cars), but don't hold your breath for the death of car dealerships in the next ~10 years.

(PS - I deeply hope I'm wrong.)

Re: Amazon Vehicles

#92

Post by grahamburger »

robbiemitchell wrote: post #59

It will surprise many that this is already a thing. e.g., vroom.com

Is there something like this for buying new cars online? I thought I something a while back about a company like this working directly with dealerships selling new cars but I can't find it now.

I'm planning on buying an EV car this year for the tax benefits, but I'm dreading the dealership.

Re: Amazon Vehicles

#93

Post by kevincox »

hardwaresofton wrote: post #27

Yes please. Anything that will get us closer to direct-to-consumer sales of cars. I'm ready for car dealerships to be a relic of the past.

While a generally agree that dealerships are awful I think the service they provide is the test drive. Car companies don't want to spend money managing "drive centers" all over the world. Since dealerships provide this "service" to them they must in turn ensure that the dealerships can survive by keeping them the most common place to buy a car. If they did all of their sales online the dealerships would go out of business.

Re: Amazon Vehicles

#94

Post by BinaryIdiot »

libria wrote: post #36
swang wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

easy. just crowdsource the test drives.

Car owners volunteer their cars for test drives and get a kickback if the customer purchases that model? Essentially crowd sourced micro-commissions, that's brilliant.

I dunno have you seen the average person take a car for a test drive? Half the times they don't really want to buy it and just want to play with it. I don't know that I would want tens or hundreds of people in my [figurative] Tesla, possibly beating it up only for a chance at some sort of small kickback.

Then again I didn't think Uber could work and now I take them all the time so who knows!

Re: Amazon Vehicles

#95

Post by smnscu »

andykellr wrote: post #68
overcast wrote: post #43

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,…

Now BMW offers Apple CarPlay, might be a reason to buy the upgraded screen. Anyway it's ridiculously expensive for what it is, but it gives them space to negotiate and/or make a profit.

Re: Amazon Vehicles

#96

Post by AnimalMuppet »

bluedino wrote: post #69
hardwaresofton wrote: post #27

Yes please. Anything that will get us closer to direct-to-consumer sales of cars. I'm ready for car dealerships to be a relic of the past.

You need the dealership to handle the trade-in of your used vehicle. Selling to a private buyer can be (but isn't always) a pain.

Selling it yourself can also get you more money for the old car. If the dealer gets to couple the two deals, they can come down $3000 (say) on the price of the new car, if they can rip you off $3000 on the price they give you for the used one.

Re: Amazon Vehicles

#100

Post by camtarn »

Hah! When I worked at Amazon, we occasionally used to joke that the only thing you couldn't buy in the Automotive and Industrial department was actual cars. That discrepancy has now been corrected :)

[edit] Aw. No, it hasn't: this is just a way to "See specs, read reviews, and ask owners" about vehicles. Pity.

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