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Amazon Vehicles
- jflowers45 10y agohere's some context: https://www.engadget.com/2016/08/25/amazon-vehicles-announced/ https://www.engadget.com/2016/08/25/amazon-vehicles-announce...
- MasterYoda 10y agoI was hoping for Volvo Amazon vehicles :) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volvo_Amazon https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volvo_Amazon
- simonsarris 10y agoBefore 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 up with spark plug wires that are for the non-California version of the engine of your girlfriend's 2004 Outback, and then you have to build an awkward bracket over the motor because you're too stubborn to return them...
- notyourwork 10y agoThey also have this for other categories like appliances too: amazon.com/partstore
- pkaye 10y agoThis worked great on my old car where the sun visor was deteriorated and I was searching for a replacement with matching fabric color.
- pkaye 10y agoThis worked great on my old car where the sun visor was deteriorated and I was searching for a replacement with matching fabric color.
- djcapelis 10y agoI 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 in both the false positive and false negative directions, so I stopped trusting it's screening capabilities really at all and mostly have ignored it since. It's motorcycle part match is an even larger adventure.
- rudedogg 10y agoHave had the same experience with motorcycle brake pads.
- ThomPete 10y agoDo you know if there is a stand alone service like "Your Garage" somewhere?
- xkjkls 10y agohttp://www.amazon.com/gp/your-garage http://www.amazon.com/gp/your-garage
- ThomPete 10y agoYes I mean if there is a service not on amazon :)
- thearn4 10y agoMost auto parts sites have something along these lines. Rock Auto is my go-to for most parts. Example, for my 2012 civic: http://www.rockauto.com/en/catalog/honda,2012,civic,1.8l+l4,1501248 http://www.rockauto.com/en/catalog/honda,2012,civic,1.8l+l4,...
- rudedogg 10y agoI bought exhaust bolts this way, and of course they didn't fit. The spacers on the bolts were longer than the OEM bolts, so fumes would go into the cabin. Lesson learned.. It would be nice if they fixed this problem. I saw a ton of parts that incorrectly said they'd fit my vehicle. Windshield wipers are an easy example. You'll see varying length wiper blades they say will fit. Edit: It seems like they could favor search results matching specific vehicles to combat this. For example, a part should be viewed as less relevant for claiming compatibility with more vehicles. This would be problematic for universal stuff like tires, wiper blades, and other accessories, but I'm sure they could differentiate between the legit universal stuff and the seller's who claim their part fits every vehicle in existence. I'm sure this is harder than I'm making it out to be, I can't imagine all the edge cases they have to deal with. But some effort would really help, and I'd be more likely to buy this stuff online if it wasn't so damn difficult to verify that the part is compatible.
- xkjkls 10y ago? Varying lengths of wiper blades will fit your car. Most cars have a front-left, front-right, and rear wiper blade, all of which are different sizes.
- rudedogg 10y agoI should of been more specific. I just did a quick check to confirm, and I see three wiper blade sizes (24", 16", and 14") on the first page of results. My car doesn't have a model/trim with a rear wiper blade.
- ars 10y agoI always up-size my wiper blades, the larger ones work just fine and clear a larger area on the window. I never understood why they under-size them to begin with. So a 16" will almost certainly fit where a 14" goes.
- olyjohn 10y agoI run into this same problem on eBay. I search for my make and model, and tons of junk aftermarket parts show up that won't fit without thousands of dollars of fabrication. Sure that $150 turbo will fit my car, after I fabricate 50 parts. I now have to put "-fits" in my search query, but I'm sure that omits tons of legitimate results. But eBay makes a grip of money from all the listings of crap generic parts, so they have no incentive to stop it.
- tomtang0514 10y agoI don't think amazon will start selling car now or in the near future. The subtitle below "amazon vehicles" logo says "see specs, read reviews and ask owners". It looks like it's just a forum kind of thing at this moment. And we know there're huge amount of legal issues people needs to deal with when sell cars as well as financing, leasing etc. If amazon gonna launch this, it's going to be a huge product, huge enough to be another billion dollar company.
- back_beyond 10y agoAFAIK, Amazon Japan does sell cars.
- rblatz 10y agoDisclaimer: I work for a company selling cars online. These are my personal opinions, not my employers. First let's assume that Amazon can't sell new cars due to restrictive franchise laws in every state. You are easily off by an order of magnitude on the billion dollar business statement. Carmax is the largest used car dealer in the nation, with a market cap of over 11 billion. As of 2015 they captured about 1.7% of used car sales. (They sold 582,282 vehicles to consumers and over 33.8 million used vehicles were sold, I'm on my phone so I can source this later if you'd like) Second Amazon is an beast and anyone in a market that Amazon is considering should pay careful attention. That said I think that vehicle sales is such a different market in many ways that Amazon will either take a long time to figure out the whole process and provide a consistent quality product or they will acquire a company currently in the used vehicle market. The two leaders in the online space had a huge leg up due to ancestry or acquisition. I doubt Amazon would be stubborn enough to learn the business the hard way.
- whyenot 10y agoIn theory is right! I added my Toyota Tacoma a few years ago, and STILL ended up with the wrong windshield wipers.
- crazcarl 10y agoI bought a new headlight for my car that Amazon said would fit. It did not. Maybe it was a problem with a 3rd party that is selling through Amazon, but it was Amazon that told me it would fit and they lost my trust on car parts.
- dboreham 10y agoSomewhat surprising the manufacturers were still selling two different engines in 2004. My pet peeve with Amazon is a similar "nice but not quite good enough feature" : their selling of fasteners. Nuts, bolts, etc fall into a clear if quite complex N-space of sizes and features. This can be represented nicely in a web site, for example : http://www.mcmaster.com/ http://www.mcmaster.com/ however even though Amazon acquired a nuts-n-bolts retailer some years ago, their site is a horrible mess for this kind of item. I'm not sure if this is because there are no humans curating the catalog, or because Bezos doesn't do his own maker projects and vehicle maintenance...
- Tiksi 10y agoTo add to the problem with fasteners or really anything that has sizes listed with fractions, the search is completely oblivious to the `/` character, so trying to find a 1/2-20 bolt will get you every bolt with a 1 2 or 20 somewhere in the description, without taking it's position/context into account at all. I usually end up using google to search amazon in those situations, which kinda sucks since you give up the ability to filter by prime or one day items.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- kerneis 10y agoLikewise, try to find some "ECC RAM" for your server on amazon.fr. They don't make the distinction between "ECC" and "non-ECC" in search, hence returning basically every kind of RAM. Because, for some weird reason, French retailers like to specify that their RAM is not ECC in the title of the item. (Surprisingly enough, this doesn't seem to be an issue on amazon.com.)
- cbo100 10y agoThey were still doing it in 2008. I had a 2008 Lancer and the owners manual constantly had to make distinctions between "California" and "non-California" versions for various procedures/features. (I'm not even in North America, that's just global manufacturing for you)
- thearn4 10y agoIt seems to work somewhat well. I bought a set of brake rotors that were 100% great, but a replacement wiper motor that ended up being for the wrong model. I wonder to what degree third party sellers are required to verify fit information.
- chaostheory 10y ago> 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. If that's the case, why didn't Amazon include older model cars? I know the Chevy Volt has models starting from 2012 or 2011, yet only 2016 and 2017 models are shown UPDATE: I was wrong. The different models do show up if you search for it, but for some reason I did not see it while browsing. I just wish that Amazon could start selling cars directly.
- andoriyu 10y agoI have my '96 Saab in amazon garage.
- ceejayoz 10y ago> If that's the case, why didn't Amazon include older model cars? Given that I can add an 1896 Duryea (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duryea_Motor_Wagon_Company https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duryea_Motor_Wagon_Company) to my garage, I think it's safe to say they include older model cars.
- 0xmohit 10y ago> I just wish that Amazon could start selling cars directly. They are waiting for people to buy enough accessories that aren't suitable for their existing vehicles. Subsequently, they'll start selling vehicles that might be suitable for the accessories sold.
- yellowapple 10y agoI just did a search for full-size vans with all-wheel drive (I have idealistic and irrational dreams of being an all-terrain courier), and it had results for model years as far back as 2001.
- honkhonkpants 10y agoIf I search google for "new tires 2011 Kawasaki ninja 1000" Google is somehow unable to produce a shopping result. There is an ad for Yokohama. Do they even make motorcycle tires? If this is the competition Amazon is going to make a lot of money on this Garage thing.
- xkjkls 10y agoAmazon has the ability to search for it, but doesn't seem to have any products: https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sx_as?keywords=tires&rh=n%3A15684181%2Ck%3Atires&qid=1472172211&vehicle=2011-729-22282------------552-1 https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sx_as?keywords=tires&rh=n%3A156...
- honkhonkpants 10y agoThat is quite nice/horrible. Your link adds the bike to my Amazon garage without any other action on my part.
- toomanybeersies 10y agoSuper Cheap Auto, an Australian (and New Zealand) auto parts chain has something similar to this. You select your make, model, year, and engine, and it comes up with a list of parts that fit your vehicle, that can be filtered by use. They also offer free shipping. I got a new front bumper and apron for my truck for $200-odd shipped to my front door.
- ollie87 10y agoEuro Car Parts in the UK does this too. Infact you can even put your vehicle registration number in and it'll do the work for you.
- fryguy 10y agoWell I laughed upon adding a Tesla Model S and the "parts and accessories for your vehicle" showing tons of things that weren't even relevant like oil, oil filters, and exhaust systems.
- fudged71 10y agoSmall price to pay for living in the future ;)
- ethbro 10y agoI don't remember seeing any electric cars in Mad Max...
- jsemrau 10y agoThey all live in Electric Utopia. That's one of the parts the movie has not shown.
- phamilton 10y agoTo be fair we never get to see the bullet farm or gas town.
- mavhc 10y agoAll we saw was Australia, Australia is like that today anyway.
- falcor84 10y agoWell actually, "Gas Town" was mentioned in the latest movie. It and oil refining in general are also a significant part of the Mad Max video game. http://madmax.wikia.com/wiki/Gas_Town http://madmax.wikia.com/wiki/Gas_Town
- xkjkls 10y agoI wonder if they don't have a separate categorization for "electric vehicle"
- icantdrive55 10y agoI've been had surprising good luck ordering automotive parts from Amazon. I stripped some caliper bolts on an 90's truck. I needed a heli-coil(odd size one), and a new bolt. When ordering the program suggested new caliper bushings. Everything fit perfectly. I thought, if they can keep accuracy of orders spot on, and prices cheap; they will put a huge dent in the automotive parts market. That said, I've noticed when Amazon goes into a new market, they nail price, and accuracy of order. They then seem to raise prices slowly. I notice those price increases, and will shop elsewhere, but as of now--I will buy all my auto parts from Amazon. Whomever programmed that automotive garage did a really good job.
- flamedoge 10y agoAmazon likes to put local businesses out of business, doesn't it? It's like Internet's WalMart
- nradov 10y agoSubaru franchise dealers who do online parts sales always ask customers to enter their VIN to confirm fitment. Sometimes manufacturers (not just Subaru but all of them) even change part numbers within a model year so you always have to check.
- creshal 10y agoAmazon can't even tell me whether they're able to ship something to my country until the second-to-last page of the checkout process.
- dchuk 10y agoHow do they already have so many reviews and content for this? Private Beta? Pulled from other sources?
- daljeetv 10y agoGood question + 1.
- tekklloneer 10y agoI viewed some of the reviews. They appear to be spammers or testers. For example, Five Stars By wangchengxuan on July 21, 2016 lalala
- superbatfish 10y agoThe reviews for the car I looked at (Honda Fit 2008) all looked legit.
- jpgunter 10y agoThey've had the ability to leave review for months now on their "Your Garage" page.
- deegles 10y agoWhere's the one-click button? :) Seriously though, if I were in the market for buying a car I would love to use Amazon. I wonder what the restrictions are for them to register as a dealership in each state...
- nhumrich 10y agoPeople seem to be missing the point. You can't actually buy cars on amazon (at least not yet) its just a shopping tool where it lists details, reviews, and msrp
- adventured 10y agoPeople aren't missing the point. The parent comment directly recognized that you can't buy the vehicle from Amazon.
- steve19 10y agoThis is going to make dealers very nervous. Right now dealerships have all sorts of legal protections ... but as Uber and then self driving cars take over, these antiquated protections are slowly going to disappear.
- paulrosenzweig 10y agoI wonder if once Tesla fights back all the local monopoly regulation around dealerships, this will naturally transition to an online car dealership. They'll have to figure out test drives though.
- swang 10y agoeasy. just crowdsource the test drives.
- libria 10y agoCar 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.
- BinaryIdiot 10y agoI 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!
- Johnny555 10y agoThe kickback has to be large enough to make it worthwhile. You might not do it for $100, but maybe for $1000?
- BinaryIdiot 10y agoMaybe? Depends on what the ratio shakes out to be. If I have to let 10 people drive my car then maybe. 20? Probably not worth my time. This will also raise insurance rates as you have to be covered for other drivers on your vehicle.
- 10y ago
- rm_-rf_slash 10y agoI wonder how long it will take until you can buy a house on Amazon.
- rb808 10y agoAmazon Hookers & Weed. (In the appropriate states of course!)
- gballer 10y agoDon't laugh! We actually pitched weed delivery as an Amazon service while working there, but we were quickly advised that bezos didn't want to get into marijuana, so we dropped it before going into OP1...
- massysett 10y agoRedfin 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.
- rb808 10y agoI 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.
- pkaye 10y agoYou can negotiate the commission if you will do more of the legwork. Also you can do it without an agent.
- prplhaz4 10y agoIt is rare to see a buyers agent earning their 3% in the US. The amount of information and tools available to consumers is nearly in parity with agents. The more hands-on you are with the process, the less value the agents bring. They can still provide value in competitive markets or through complex deals, but your inspector and lawyer are the ones doing the real work.
- kyyd 10y agoSo many 5 star reviews.
- shogun21 10y agoI would think if you're dropping tens of thousands of dollars for a product, you'd be satisfied with it or convince yourself you're satisfied.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- daljeetv 10y agoSoon we'll rent cars, like we rent books. :)
- hawski 10y agoWhat do you mean? Rent for free with governmental subsidy? Rent for small recurring fee?
- chadgeidel 10y agoMany folks do just that. It's called "leasing". ;-)
- amorphid 10y agoWhy lock yourself into a lease? I can rent a private car w/ chauffeur right from my phone.
- CharlesW 10y agoSomeday we'll be able to rent a car and a driver, just long enough for the trip!
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- soheil 10y agoYou can't actually buy a car, but could this be a prelude to a near future when you can?
- mattiemass 10y ago"like hell Tesla is going to be the only one selling cars online"
- bonestamp2 10y agoNot sure how they would pull off new vehicles though. I'm pretty sure existing dealers would take the manufacturers to court if they made amazon a dealer who could sell cars in their exclusivity region. Tesla on the other hand is the manufacturer so they can do it (where legal).
- jsight 10y agoDidn't they actually have a car sales service at one time? It seems like I remember them doing something with this about 15 years ago.
- Normal_gaussian 10y agoKind of. They partnered with Nissan to deliver a car to somebody in a huge box; it was never meant as a continual or long term thing just a marketing stunt. Here is a truly horrid video about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yISx15OYogU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yISx15OYogU
- qntty 10y agoHow do I buy one? I don't see an "add to cart" button anywhere.
- cjhveal 10y agoFrom my understanding, Amazon Vehicles isn't (as yet) about buying cars, but about selling you the parts and accessories for the vehicles that you do own. Here's their 'Garage' page: https://www.amazon.com/gp/your-garage/ https://www.amazon.com/gp/your-garage/ From the surrounding comments, it seems they do something similar with home appliances and photography equipment.
- jamiesonbecker 10y agoVia the aptly named Amazon Dash buttons* or by saying "Alexa... I wish I had a red Ferrari." * keep away from pets and small children
- hehheh 10y agoIt's unlikely they'll add an add to cart button any time soon. They could work out deals to refer you to local dealers, however.
- hardwaresofton 10y agoYes 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.
- overcast 10y agoSeriously. 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 turned out to be one of the best mattresses I've ever slept in. https://www.saatva.com/ https://www.saatva.com/ $1000 for the luxury firm Queen, and that included shipping and taking the old one.
- vvanders 10y agoThis 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 with each other. In that case you usually need to expand your radius to ~100mi. Here in PNW there's great Subaru competition but when we looked at Mazda they didn't haggle at all until we went to dealers in a different state.
- overcast 10y agoYes, 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 :)
- vvanders 10y ago
- bowmessage 10y agono motorcycles? :(
- itajaja 10y agoSame question. Hopefully they are going to extend it soon, I see no reason why bikes are left out
- webwanderings 10y agoI was just wondering yesterday, if there is a service out there, which would let me see the type and model of cars which are popular, and most-bought? I assume there must be such a dataset available somewhere through government sources? Or perhaps not. Such a data could be a valuable service based on crowd's wisdom. Amazon here seems to provide public comments, which is generally available via Google.
- redblacktree 10y agoAlso would be handy to make sure you're buying something with good parts availability.
- tdicola 10y agoI doubt the government has any data, there's no need or desire for dealers to send them info on their sales. Look at things like Consumer Reports who go out and survey large audiences of everyday people to see what they purchased, how much they paid, how much they like the car, etc.
- ypog 10y agoLikely not helpful, however it is possible to check registration records in Germany (Europe?). Isn't there a way to check these in the US too? Is the type of car recorded (and on which administrative level)? If you could get these info and subtract cars previously registered, a blurred picture of recent sales should emerge.
- nradov 10y agoFor the USA you can find that data here. http://www.goodcarbadcar.net/p/sales-stats.html http://www.goodcarbadcar.net/p/sales-stats.html
- CodeSheikh 10y agoBoy, good thing Amazon does not need to ship them with USPS. "Pime Drivers" will drive them to your door steps.
- erickhill 10y agoNow, if they delivered one of these via Prime ...
- ipsi 10y agoIn the not-too-distant future: "Amazon now largest car dealer in the US, and fleets of Amazonian drones flying cars across the country are now a common sight. Fatalities from dropped cars are down 25% on the previous quarter. More news at 11".
- erickhill 10y agoOr, self-driving cars deliver themselves, perhaps.
- mikeevans 10y agoWaiting for the time that I can referral link a car purchase.
- ejcx 10y agoI 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.
- lfowles 10y agoCarmax does exactly that and is pretty big nowadays..
- __derek__ 10y agoOops. 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 https://www.carmax.com/car-buying-process/why-carmax
- lfowles 10y agoForgot to note that it was only for the used-car market, but would also be great for the new car market.
- bonestamp2 10y ago> The WYSISYG pricing is something missing from car buying. You can do this on most manufacturer's sites. Just configure the vehicle and print out the result. Unless it's an extremely hot vehicle, they will give you that price since most people are trying to haggle below that price. The real problem is inventory. You're not likely going to find one with exactly what you want, and you can order one at that price but then you're 1-4+ months before it arrives. That's fine if you've got a lease ending soon and can plan for it, but when I buy a new car it's usually because my current car has a problem and I can't really wait more than a month. They need to figure out how to shorten lead times (perhaps making more options dealer installed), or change the way inventory is ordered/stored so Dealers aren't all ordering the same thing (which I don't blame them for doing).
- 10y ago
- robbiemitchell 10y agoIt will surprise many that this is already a thing. e.g., vroom.com
- grahamburger 10y agoIs 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.
- jmstickney 10y agoCarvana ?
- grahamburger 10y agoMaybe that was it. Looks like they only do used as well, but I might have been mis-remembering about new cars being available.
- bluedino 10y agoI don't really get what this is - if I want to find parts for my car, I can just type something like '2012 Honda Accord Wipers' I already have my car in my 'garage', they've had that functionality for years.
- madengr 10y agoI 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.
- praveenster 10y agoWhere does this leave the likes of Edmunds, AutoTrader etc.?
- rudedogg 10y agoHas anyone used Costco to buy a new vehicle? Their program isn't direct or anything, but you're supposed to get better prices than working with a dealership directly. 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).
- rusabd 10y agocostco doesn't show members tje prices. You will be referred to the dealership where they give you the pricelist. I've done this once and it saved me a lot of time. On other hand you can always ask for "costco" price in the dealership, would they honor it I don't know.
- vvanders 10y agoWe weren't overly impressed. Costco price was ~$2k above what we ended up negotiating separately.
- rblatz 10y agoDid you bring your own financing, did you let the dealer find you the best deal? A lot of dealers bump the APR on your loan and get the majority of that higher APR back from the lender as a finders fee.
- ajtaylor 10y agoI went through Costco's vehicle program last year when we bought our Toyota Sienna (used). It was pretty painless and we got a good deal on the van. Definitely worth checking out.
- LaMarseillaise 10y agoI used to work for the group that operates this service. They claimed that the prices were the lowest possible about 95% of the time. People would often say that they negotiated a lower price on their own, but this was more often due to them choosing a different vehicle or not following the process (never underestimate a car salesperson). I did not look over prices very much myself, but they could vary greatly between dealerships in different parts of the country.
- grecy 10y agoDoes anyone know if they'll do Amazon Associates on a car sales? 5% of the purchase price would be very nice indeed.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- niciliketo 10y agoFor high value items like vehicles reverse auctions can work, as long as you can specify what you want and are not too emotionally attached to the model that you want http://blog.marketdojo.com/2016/03/buying-a-car-via-auction.html?m=1 http://blog.marketdojo.com/2016/03/buying-a-car-via-auction....
- camtarn 10y agoHah! 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.
- ameliaquining 10y agoWas anyone else expecting this to be an announcement of an Amazon self-driving car project?
- MicroBerto 10y agoWill the Associates program pay commissions for this??? If so.....
- MicroBerto 10y agoWill the Associates program pay commissions for this??? If so.....
- codecamper 10y agoI couldn't find any Trabants for sale. Lame.
- briansugar 10y agocheckout http://roadster.com http://roadster.com
- GBond 10y agoSerious question. What exactly is new here? I've used the My Garage to buy part from amzn before. Did they add a new homepage for My Garage? Some of the comments are suggesting this is a one-click direct car shopping but doesn't seem to be. Just wondering if I missed something.
- htedatsu 10y agoThis will be a... clarifying moment for eBay. I make my living on eBay and gross about 10x the average USA wage. Used stuff is involved. eBay once loveed people who bought and sold used stuff. They are one of the biggest used car venues in the world. They want to sell new stuff and become Amazon. Now Amazon is beating eBay on its own turf. Maybe eBay will have to remember their roots and start taking care of both its sellers and its end users in the used stuff sector.
- bonestamp2 10y agoAbsolutely, ebay dug their own grave by treating its sellers poorly. I think amazon is also digging their own grave by becoming ebay, but more because the customers are expecting amazon customer service and keep getting referred to lousy third party sellers to fix problems. Third party sellers on amazon are often gaming the review system and even selling counterfeit products, not something amazon customers are expecting when they think they're ordering from the online equivalent of wal-mart.
- vecinu 10y agoYou make about $300k/yr by selling used items on eBay? Consistently?
- htedatsu 10y agoMore than that ($500k) for 9 years. Sorry, will not reveal niche. Douche move, I know
- hueving 10y agoSorry, but an unverifiable income brag is effectively made up from the perspective of readers. "I just click ads all day and make $5k a week" is basically the same thing.
- gambiting 10y agoMy dad was making fantastic money on ebay selling used items, but that was only because he had a cheap source of them - we have a company that sells second hand clothing, but the thing is, when you buy a truckload of second hand clothes, it comes with all sorts of crap that people give away to charities - watches, jewelery, shoes, toys, handbags, electronics, board games, books, etc etc etc. So we bought it for say(not a real value) $1/kg, but then my dad would put all of it on ebay. Thousands and thousands of items per month. Since we were buying per weight but selling individually, the profit on it was huge, and you wouldn't believe what sort of nonsense people would buy - old broken watch from a brand no one ever heard about for $5? Sold!
- ThePhysicist 10y agoWhat's really interesting about this business model is not the fact that you can buy a car online, it's the price transparency that you create with this: Car dealers often have 10-20 % margin on a car sale, and they make most of their money by providing services to you after you bought the car, so they are usually able to give you some big discounts. Also, as they usually receive a bonus by the car maker for selling a given number of cars, they have a strong incentive to sell more. The money that they make for themselves depends therefore on the margin that they can achieve, which in turn depends on the customer's knowledge of the "fair" price. Having all the transaction prices out in the open would therefore be quite a nightmare for most of them, as it will allow customers to push the price down quite a bit. Especially for small dealerships (that have higher fixed cost in comparison to their sales and receive less bonus as they sell fewer cars than big dealers) this could be highly problematic, while it could be beneficial for the larger dealerships. Truecar has been doing this model for a while, and I guess Amazon finally wanted to have a share of this market too (and the data associated with it). On the technical side it looks like they're using the JATO database for their search/configuration tool (http://www.jato.com/ http://www.jato.com/). A few years ago I also implemented a car configuration website/app for a German startup (which doesn't exist anymore) using this data. The most challenging aspect was the huge amount of possible configurations/options that exist for some models (especially BMW and Mercedes), which would also have very complex inter-dependencies (e.g. choosing package A + B means you can't choose package C except if you also choose D). To resolve this I had to write a dynamic constraint solver: Finally some abstract computer science that was usable in practice :D As far as I understand, in the US there are usually less options to choose from, which makes extensive configurators unnecessary. Still, it was an interesting challenge.
- fweespeech 10y ago> So having all the transaction prices out in the open is a nightmare for them, as it will allow customers to get an idea of what the actual "fair" price for a car would be. Truecar has been doing this for a while, I guess Amazon finally want to have a share of this market too (and the data associated with it). As far as I can tell Amazon Vehicles is overcharging for the cars by at least 5-10% ( the car I currently drive, they are charging 25%!! more than I paid). This isn't a nightmare for Car Dealers. This is a nightmare for consumers because they will take the prices Amazon quote seriously.
- bedros 10y agowhere's the lease offer?
- mikehines 10y agoSelf-driving car market research under the cover?
- codecamper 10y agoSo if I buy the car with my amazon card, I get 3% back? woot!
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- _audakel 10y agoI would like an Amazon Prime Air to deliver my new car plz.
- bdrool 10y agoOh awesome, I can't wait to buy a knock off truck from "Ford-Motors" that has a handful of fake 5-star reviews and doesn't meet safety standards. Thanks, Amazon! (See here for explanation: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11939829 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11939829)
- diogenescynic 10y agoThe last few things I've bought from Amazon were all knockoffs--Hanes socks that wore out and the fabric pilled up immediately and gave me blisters, boxers, sunglasses, etc. Pretty disappointing. Now I try to avoid any Prime products fulfilled by third parties, but I'm not sure if buying directly from Amazon mitigates the risk.
- ruffrey 10y agoWhere are the Teslas?
- santiagobasulto 10y agoThere'll be a lot of people saying "I'd never buy a car on Amazon"... The same people that said "I'd never buy a book on the Internet" back in 2000.
- avisser 10y agoKiller URL. /s Would it kill them to add a route?
- partycoder 10y agoThey need VR
- Negative1 10y agoGetting through "The Everything Store" right now, and, yep. Wow.
- paxunix 10y agoA number of people have commented about the quality (or its lack) of Amazon's "this fits/doesn't fit your car" data. Let me explain a little about how that works: In North America, this fitment data conforms to a popular (but not the only) schema called ACES (Aftermarket Catalog Exchange Standard). It's a long and pretty well-defined XML schema that specifies things like year, make, model, and all kinds of attributes like engine configuration, fuel type, wheelbase, etc., as well as brand name, part number, quantity, and so on. Fitment data providers create an XML document according to this schema and populate it based on the products they say fit particular vehicles. For example, say you are the manufacturer of a FRAM oil filter (FRAM is a common aftermarket filter brand in the US). It has a part number A123. You know it fits the 2000-2010 Honda Accord with engine XYZ. You add to your fitment XML document an entry for this filter that specifies brand=FRAM, partnumber=A123, parttype=oil filter, years=2000-2010, make=Honda, model=Accord, engine=XYZ. Now, you (or some 3rd party you designate that specializes in turning your catalog of products into fitment data), sends this fitment document on to companies that care about fitment information because they are selling your FRAM oil filter and want to be sure their customers can tell if it will fit their car or not (Amazon, Ebay, Rock Auto, etc.). They take that fitment data and join it against their product database and out pops the yes/no fitment data you see on their website. Now scale it up: there is no requirement that only one company produce these fitment records. Anyone else can produce a fitment record that says all the above, but for the 2000-2010 Honda Civic. Maybe that's a mistake, but as a receiver of the fitment data, Amazon or Ebay can't know it's a mistake--they can only presume the fitment data they are given is valid. Now, complicate it further by adding the human element: e.g. some fitment data providers have fitment data in Excel spreadsheets. Some poor human fat-fingered that data from the spreadsheet into XML and maybe they left off the leading 0 on all the part numbers (because that's Excel's default for number cells). Oops. Now none of those fitment records will match to any parts in the database of the companies that sell them. Or they're entering this data off a piece of paper and can't tell if that's a 0 (zero) or an O (oh). Oops. Or, worse: the fitment provider gets the wrong vehicle ID (because the schema is all based on IDs, not human-readable names) and submits fitment data that says that FRAM filter fits a 2000-2010 Tesla Model S. Well, that's extremely unlikely, but the receiver of the fitment data is a machine and the machine doesn't know that is completely ridiculous. Or equally bad: the fitment provider says it fits a 2000-2010 Honda Accord, but doesn't specify the engine type at all. Now, Amazon's machines see that and think "the customer only needs to tell me their year, make, and model". A smart human knows it also needs the engine configuration, but the machine can't easily know that because none of its data specifies an engine configuration is needed for fitment. So Amazon sends out the filter because its data says "it fits!" and the customer is unhappy. So, in the end, the customer is displeased because Amazon shipped them an oil filter that can't possibly fit their car, even though it told them it would because they can only go on what the data tells them. A closely related problem is that sometimes a seller will have a product that they know should require fitment data (like an oil filter), but there has been no fitment data submitted for it. In that case, the company can neither say it fits, nor it doesn't fit--it doesn't have enough data to make the determination. This is common as the new model-years start to hit the marketplace: the car exists; you can buy it; you can buy parts for it; however, the aftermarket fitment data hasn't caught up with the car's attributes yet. It also happens when Amazon has fitment data for some models but not for others, even if the part will fit those other models--without data saying so, there's no way to say "yes that will fit your new 2017". To complicate it even further, if you're talking about this stuff outside of North America, there are other schemas and data providers with very little overlap of the NA offerings. This is visible in the very different fitment experience you see in most EU countries on Amazon (for example, try https://www.amazon.co.uk/auto https://www.amazon.co.uk/auto and select a car). The takeaway? Unhappy customers result when you have complex data quality problems, and sometimes it's no fault of the implementation at all.
- grandalf 10y agoEver since CarWoo bit the dust I've been hoping for some actual innovation in this space. Let's hope this is it!
- rblatz 10y agoCarWoo wasn't exactly innovative. It was another middleman between you and the dealers that sold the cars. They had to be careful to not be too aggressive or they would lose their dealer partners. There are already multiple innovative companies out there acting as entirely online direct to consumer vehicle dealers. Just google buy a car online.
- tapeman 10y agoPsh, no Prime delivery?
- Loic 10y agoIn Germany you have a very nice service if you want price transparency before buying a car: http://www.meinauto.de/ http://www.meinauto.de/ Basically, car dealers register their offer on the portal and you can shop without knowing about the dealer. Just at the end, you sign a middle man agreement and the website is forwarding your request to the car dealer. At the end, you need to travel maybe 300km to get your car, but you get it from a normal dealer with standard guarantees. If you still want to buy at your home car dealer, this gives you a good idea of the discount you could try to negotiate.
- known 10y agoCan we buy car engines?
- Overtonwindow 10y agoI just added two Bentley's and a Porsche to my online garage, since I'll never have these in my real garage.