10 ms·
Amazon announces online car sales for the first time, starting with Hyundai
- eatonphil 3y ago> Importantly, the end seller of the vehicle is still the dealer; Amazon’s platform will be the middleman between the customer and the dealership. It’s unclear whether the company is talking to other automakers about listing their vehicles on the site. Doesn't get rid of dealerships. Still interesting though.
- hospitalJail 3y agoClassic example of the 99.9% not being able to lobby enough to beat the 0.1% of scalpers. Highest priority is to take down the ~5 US medical cartels. After that, I imagine only real estate matches anything that has anti-consumer and pro-business as US medical. Then.... after that, dealerships?
- userinanother 3y agoI was excited because that’s literally the killer feature. The dealer is the worst part because the bad ones tie up inventory and the good ones are always sold out and not getting enough allocated to account for their higher volume
- buildbot 3y agoWhat's the point of this? How is Amazon going to make Amazon level impact/money here? It's just another online portal to buy a car. Feels like some VP had a pet project and ran with it. I bet the dealers still get to upsell you on body undercoating or whatever before the sale is finalized. Is amazon going to handle loan approval? Or do they think that people will just up their Amazon Prime chase card limits to 40K and pay for it the same as box of paper clips?
- anonymousab 3y agoCan it actually be used to buy a car, unlike dealer sites, which lie about inventory and are a heavy handed laborious way of just getting put on a waitlist and getting a salesman to call you? That'd be a pretty direct improvement in the modern car market.
- buildbot 3y agoI don’t know what would change if the dealer is still involved - why wouldn’t they lie to Amazon? “Oops sorry we sold it before you got here, what about this model?”
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago> why wouldn’t they lie to Amazon? Because now they're playing a repeated game [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repeated_game https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repeated_game
- gwbas1c 3y agoAmazon is generally very pro-customer and low seller nonsense. (Say what you want about Amazon's reputation towards sellers,) but they generally swiftly handle stereotypical seller BS when it comes from sellers for other kinds of items.
- zeusk 3y agoAnd yet their storefront is full of counterfeits and gibberish brands with fake reviews.
- geodel 3y agoBut as per Amazon fans it is very pro-customer. Everyone knows Amazon is data driven organization which does not make decisions based on intuition. So they do know customers like at least 75 pages of search results for a trivial kitchen gadget.
- buildbot 3y ago
- busterarm 3y agoThey have direct info on what model car you have and can recommend to you all sorts of products for your vehicle. Currently you have to manually opt-in to do this and enter the information in yourself. I already frequently buy all of my vehicle maintenance items via AMZN.
- pengaru 3y agoDisclaimer: I haven't read TFA I presume Amazon wants in on the Carvana-style predatory lending action. But if Amazon isn't giving loans on these cars, yeah, it seems like an odd move.
- marcod 3y agoIt's not the first time.
- Spivak 3y agoIf they can figure out how plaster over the dealership so it feels like every other purchase from amazon then people are gonna go nuts for it.
- geodel 3y agoWell people are fine paying 10 dollars on Amazon for a disposable widget which could be 5 dollar in physical store because convenience If customer is also ready to pay a couple of thousand extra for a car. I think dealer/amazon/customer will all be happy. I'll call it a win-win-win situation.
- Spivak 3y agoWeird, I've never had the experience of a physical store being cheaper. I usually take note of stuff from stores I want and then buy them on Amazon. Now Aliexpress, that's where you can get it for half the price.
- geodel 3y agoThere are many products I brought from Amazon which are cheaper or better in store when I looked or bought another from store. E.g. exercise ball, plastic step stool, stationery, office supplies etc.
- geodel 3y agoWell, unless they are bringing in ten thousand options with brands and models having names like OSDKIFRU, KDJFRIUER, CNUEIR, IOUYRRF, CSOIFR, LOIWUEB I have no reason to buy from Amazon.
- henriquez 3y agoThey also need to nail the user experience of buying a Land Rover and receiving a LAND RONER. Having an extra middleman to the transaction in addition to the dealerships is a valuable first step though!
- travoc 3y agoYou picked the one auto brand where you might actually be better off with an Amazon counterfeit.
- userinanother 3y agoHyundai is a top tier automaker. In the last decade they leapfrogged America manufacturers in build quality and are basically on par with Japanese manufacturers for quality. They caught a bad rap recently for the cheapness of their low end models and missing anti theft features but they were offering much more bang for your buck at the low end which is why they were popular
- hyperdimension 3y agoWell, except for the Theta II engines...though you could say they (generally) honored their warranty if you want to look at the bright side.
- s3p 3y agoThis is gold haha
- gwbas1c 3y agoThe issue isn't "online buying." The current dealership model creates and tolerates incentives for dealers to rip me off at sale time. It also injects a set of complexity into the model, where if I choose to buy a car of brand X, I then have to comparison shop for the exact same car at multiple dealerships. I've bought two Teslas, and the nice thing about the process is that it doesn't matter where I pick up the car, I get the same price, and the exact same experience. Tesla also won't try to rip me off on buy-ups like tire protection and seat protection. (Then again, Tesla really needs price protection because they significantly dropped the price of the Model Y shortly after I bought it.) One of the most annoying situations was a Subaru dealer that made me sit through a pitch for various upsells (that were rip offs) and then sign a form that I listened to them. I really hope the Amazon car purchases explicitly prohibit upsells and other nonsense. Just bring me the car, give me the keys, and stay long enough to make sure that the car works. No BS upsells.
- Spartan-S63 3y agoSo much this. I'd much rather pay a shipping fee from the factory to my address than a dealer handling fee. I honestly wish I could just order a Tacoma straight from Toyota, pay for it to be shipped to me, and avoid the dealership rigamarole altogether. I'm okay waiting my turn in line from the factory. I don't want to deal with artificial dealership "market adjustments." I don't understand why we haven't deregulated the car sales industry to allow (and even require?) manufacturers to directly sell to consumers, circumventing dealerships entirely. It would upend that industry and force them to prove they actually are a value-add service.
- theGnuMe 3y agoThere was a program where you could fly to Germany and buy a BMW there, drive it for a few days and ship it home. Ended up being cheaper than buying it at a local dealership. Not sure if it is still available. Dealerships are local jobs programs in some sense and they got State laws enacted to secure their positions. Tesla went up against them and won I guess. My guess is the Amazon program will be similar to the Costco program.
- kube-system 3y agoAmazon (sort of) did this in 2013: https://www.autoweek.com/news/a1939026/buy-nissan-versa-note-through-amazon-sort/ https://www.autoweek.com/news/a1939026/buy-nissan-versa-note...
- subpixel 3y agoI trust Amazon up to about $500. Above that price point I want all the assurances of any industry's ancien régime.
- glimshe 3y agoWhat kind of assurances do you get from dealers? My experience with dealers makes me want to pay for the car, buy no optionals and never go back again.
- subpixel 3y agoI actually bought a Hyundai from a dealership 3 hours away and the salesman drove down to where I live (with his dad!) to deliver it. That was nice, but the main assurance is that I know who sold me the car and there will be no passing of the buck on warranty service or anything else. Amazon has no place in the transaction - even if they offered some or other thing, I don't trust them trying to weasel into the deal. I'd probably wind up with an expensive Armor All subscription I need to cancel.
- solardev 3y agoDo you ever see the salesperson again after the sale? I just went straight to the service department.
- 8ytecoder 3y agoI hate dealerships in general - but - I've been lucky to have good sales people in the two car purchases I've made so far. The trick for me was to be very blunt and clear on what I'm trying to do. Usually I do the research about the car and what I want ahead of time. I've also researched what kinda pricing is normal. I'm also ready to sign the car if the price is right and I like it or walk out if I don't like. My sense is that salespeople are primed by people who haven't done any research on what they want and doing all that on the spot at the dealership. They're also not exactly sure what they want and are susceptible to be convinced one way or the other. Even when they like a car, most people tend to be not sure and want to try another car or dealership. Hence the usual deal with pricing it higher, offering free accessories, offering a discount and all that jazz.
- henriquez 3y agoThis is a first step before Amazon secures dealership licenses in 48 states and puts brick and mortar operations out of business in yet another vertical.
- seattle_spring 3y agoSounds good to me. Almost literally any model is better than the current dealership scam.
- lastofthemojito 3y agoI mean, it could be an ugly, convoluted solution to a problem. Car sales seems fairly broken these days - horror stories abound, not just about dealer markups in general, but time-wasting nonsense like dealers allowing folks to factory-order a car at an agreed-upon price and then changing their mind - demanding a markup at delivery time, or selling the ordered car to someone else who is willing to pay more. Automakers have been trying to coerce dealers to cut it out with the markups, threatening to allocate fewer vehicles to dealers who play games, but at the end of the day if enough dealerships refuse to comply, automakers are going to do what they have to do to keep moving metal. Idealists have been clamoring for changing dealership franchise laws en masse and allowing automakers to sell directly, but that seems unlikely in the near term. So if Amazon becomes a mega-dealer and forms a tight bond with one or more automakers, essentially guaranteeing good behavior (up-front pricing, no deceptive fees, etc), then the automakers can tell the PITA legacy dealerships to take a walk, sell the cars online in a high-quality, nicely branded portal with consistent pricing, and everyone is happy (except for the legacy dealerships).
- mometsi 3y agoYou search for Toyota Camry. Your search returns thousands of generic car accessories. You filter by category: Automobiles. You still need to scroll through 15 pages of miscategorized vinyl wraps and seat covers, but eventually you see a few actual car listings. One has lots of good reviews, but the reviews seem to be praising a completely different product, like a phone charger. You shrug and click buy. Two days later, you receive a rebadged Geely Panda delivered from commingled inventory by a seller called JGLEWYU. You fill out the return form and drop it off at the nearest Whole Foods parking lot.
- htrp 3y agoAmazonRoulette FTW
- NotYourLawyer 3y ago+5 accurate
- switch007 3y agoThe delivery driver takes a picture of a jiffy bag on your doorstep and Amazon accepts this as irrefutable proof that the Toyota Camry was delivered to your address
- yanis_t 3y agoHopefully dron-delivered?
- avgDev 3y agoAmazon is going to "work" with dealers until they figure out the game. I'm 100% sure this will backfire. Amazon likes money and dealers are leeches.
- ilamont 3y agoHow is this better than the Costco auto program, which has multiple participating brands? Unlike Amazon and the dealers on the platform, Costco is a brand I trust to do right by me and go to bat for me if participating dealers try to play games. https://www.costcoauto.com/enterzipcode.aspx https://www.costcoauto.com/enterzipcode.aspx
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- userinanother 3y agoDuring the pandemic nobody would honor the Costco rates. They would claim not vehicles were eligible
- gshulegaard 3y agoNot everyone has a Costco membership or a Costco near them. There also doesn't seem to be any indication that there is a pre-arranged pricing arrangement for Amazon like Costco. Amazon is simply letting Hyundai dealerships list car inventory on Amazon, Amazon isn't selling the cars.
- mhb 3y agoThe cost of a Costco membership is negligible compared to the cost of a car or even just the potential savings.
- CSMastermind 3y agoI've said before and will say again: I'll vote for any politician that kills the car dealership model in the US and lets me buy directly from the manufacturer.
- NotYourLawyer 3y agoCar dealerships are bullshit. Amazon is not the answer.
- fooker 3y agoFrom the article, it seems that it's going to be the dealers who list the cars on Amazon. This means all the hassles associated with going to dealerships, plus Amazon gets a cut and tells dealers how much to mark up cars for optimizing whatever they want to aim for. How is this better for consumers exactly?
- 4b11b4 3y agoIs this the peak Amazon.. like when Sears sold "everything"?
- swatcoder 3y agoThis is post-peak Amazon flailing around. Peak Amazon was likely when their retail catalog was reliable, before Azure matured, and before streaming content licenses got expensive and started fracturing. They’re still squeezing out growth in total financial position but every move has looked really slippery and scattered for a while now. Mostly the same for Alphabet, Meta, and others in that generation.
- sonofagunk 3y agoThis seems like driveway.com Kind of a cool concept, but falls apart when dealers get greedy and are involved. I "bought" a car on driveway.com, and then a few hours later I got an email and was told that the dealer already sold in "at the dealership". So basically they just list things there and if they can get a better price in house, they just cancel sales