Ebay and GM Deal Ends Due to Poor Sales

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September 30, 2009
By the ZippyCart Shopping Carts Content Team

GM has decided to stop the pilot program on Ebay that, for seven weeks, allowed users to go online and purchase a vehicle. Many people speculated that this partnership between Ebay and GM would not last and, as it turns out, sales were lackluster. GM also reported that the pilot program resulted in many people just coming online to Ebay to put in low ball offers. Despite the program ending today, it was one of the most talked about attempts of bringing the new vehicle buying experience online to try and make it a successful ecommerce model. Sites like Redfin have shown success with people buying and selling homes online, but for some reason when it comes to new vehicles, people want to buy in person. Maybe it is because they like to haggle, maybe they want to see and touch the vehicle, or maybe they just feel better about buying a car in person. GM seems to still have some positive feelings about the pilot program and alluded to it not being the right time to make it work. The traffic and buzz was positive but sales were reported to be small and no exact number was confirmed. Ebay and GM may have not done the best job in promoting it in a way where people understood what they should bid and why the site was a big benefit over buying in person. It is only a matter of time until more and more new car sales originate online, but first a major auto manufacturer will have to figure out how to make it work.