When Ebay and General Motors last week announced they would partner to let California buyers haggle with dealers online, observers said the deal would be a “win-win for both sides”, if it worked.
After a week of the arrangement Ebay released some figures that suggest if the deal’s not working already, it might.
Through August 17 the new co-branded “virtual showroom” got 630,000 visits, and users performed just shy of 1m searches of GM inventory. More importantly, the company said about 2,400 new car buyers had entered into talks with dealers as a result of the promotion.
But Ebay didn’t release the most important number — how many new vehicles it has helped GM sell.
There are two ways to read this. On the one hand, it’s not unusual for a new car deal to take more than a week to close. It can take time to get financing in order, and some buyers prefer to mull their decision over for a few days.
On the other hand, it could point to a more painful reality for both companies. While consumers are increasingly using the Internet to research new car purchases, they may hesitate before clicking the ‘complete my purchase’ button. As we wrote when the deal was announced, “the typical car buyer still feels the need to ‘kick the tyres’ of a new vehicle” before they sign the cheque.
