BUSINESS & TECHNOLOGY
|BUSINESS & TECHNOLOGY |
| |
|Firm Brings Car-Buying Process to the Net |
|Abhi Raghunathan. STAFF WRITER |
| |
| |
|07/13/2000 |
|Newsday |
| |
|ALL EDITIONS |
|A61 |
|(Copyright Newsday Inc., 2000) |
| |
| |
| |
|, a company that sells used cars in a new way on a new medium, has just expanded to a new region. |
|iMotors doesn't have dealerships or an inventory. Customers interested in buying a used car log on to the |
|10-month-old company's Web site at or call a toll-free number to specify the year, make, |
|model, style, color and options. The site sells used cars from 1995 onward. |
| |
|The company immediately gives the customer a price based on a patent-pending algorithm that monitors wholesale|
|automobile transaction costs across the United States, asks for financing information, which it can help |
|provide if the customer needs it, and for a $250 credit card deposit, which it says is refundable up to seven |
|days or 700 miles after the customer receives the car. |
|Thousands of sites on the Internet sell used cars, but most are online for-sale advertisements or listings of |
|dealership inventories. |
|"They truly have something unique," Chris Denove, a partner with market research firm J.D. Power and |
|Associates said of iMotors. "They will probably be successful among the limited number of used-car buyers who |
|are specific about what they want. Whether they are a long- term success will depend on what they do to reach |
|out to broaden the base of used-car buyers that are less particular about matters such as color and options." |
|To locate a car for customers, iMotors scours its network of leasing companies and wholesale auctions, |
|purchases the car with its own money, gives it a 269 point inspection, and refurbishes it at one of its |
|"Vehicle Service Centers"-large used-car repair facilities in Atlanta, Sacramento, and Cincinnati. The company|
|ships the car to a delivery center, two of which are located in Huntington Station and 53rd Street in |
|Manhattan. The process, from the click of the mouse to the turn of the key, takes an average of 3 1/2 weeks. |
|The company says it sells cars several hundred to a thousand dollars below the Kelly Blue Book price and also |
|offers a limited warrantee for three months or 3,000 miles. |
|Rob Erlichman, vice president of marketing for iMotors, calls the company the Dell Computer of used cars. He |
|said it can make a profit on each sale because it doesn't face problems like bloated inventory and upkeep that|
|often plague traditional used car dealers. "We've shortened the supply chain," Erlichman said. |
|Mark Scheinberg, president of the Greater New York Auto Dealers Association, said: "There are still a lot of |
|questions out there," about whether people will be able to trust buying used cars via a Web site. "Used cars |
|are not new cars." |
|Still, over the past 10 months, iMotors has had thousands of customers on the West Coast, and it plans to |
|expand nationwide in the next six months. "If you want a car in a week or want to drive different ones around,|
|then we're probably not the best ones," Erlichman said. "But the used car market is a $370 billion market. If |
|we get a 4 percent market share, we're a 6 or 7 billion dollar business." |
| |
|MONEY |
| |
|GM, Autobytel to test car sales on Net Shoppers will be able to scan local GM stock |
|Earle Eldridge |
| |
| |
|02/22/2001 |
|USA Today |
| |
|FINAL |
|03B |
|(Copyright 2001) |
| |
| |
| |
|Independent Internet-based car-buying services, competing with dealers and manufacturers with their own Web |
|sites, are struggling to survive. |
|Some have gone out of business while others have merged with competitors. And some are trying to hook up with |
|automakers. |
| |
|Latest: , the largest car-buying Web site, announced Wednesday that it will run a 90-day regional|
|pilot program for General Motors. |
|Under the deal, consumers using to search for a GM brand will be given a list of inventory at |
|local dealerships and a special "e-price" for the vehicle. Working on its own, Autobytel wouldn't be able to |
|provide an inventory list. |
|GM hasn't identified the specific brand or local market that will be part of the project. And to avoid charges|
|that GM is unfairly setting prices, dealers involved will determine the "e-price" for each vehicle. |
|"One reason we want to test this is because consumers, by a 3-1 margin, say they trust an independent Web |
|site," says Mike Devereux, director of business development for e-GM. |
|Some who haven't benefited from that: |
|* went out of business on Feb. 15. |
|* was bought by , which is backed in part by Michael Dell, founder of Dell |
|Computer. Most, if not all, of the 75 employees at Greenlight are expected to lose their jobs once the deal is|
|completed next month. |
|* CarOrder recently dropped the dot-com from its name and bought two dealerships with the goal of becoming a |
|bricks-and-mortar chain. |
|Analysts expect a major shakeout of independents this year and next. |
|"We will definitely see more consolidation this year, and there will be few left," says Dawn McGreevey, auto |
|analyst for Gomez, an Internet consulting and research firm. |
|McGreevey says there is a place for third-party sites because consumers trust an unbiased source. But she says|
|only three of the 10 to 15 major players will survive the shakeout. |
|McGreevey applauds GM's pilot project with Autobytel because it lets GM benefit from the independence of a |
|third-party Web site. |
|Some dealers are skeptical about the independents' chances to survive. |
|Mike Jackson, CEO of AutoNation, the USA's largest dealership chain, says dealers working in partnership with |
|manufacturers can offer better prices and fewer hassles in buying a car over the Internet. |
|"We run our site with a 100,000-vehicle inventory," Jackson says. |
|But Mark Lorimer, CEO of Autobytel, says it's way too early to write off the independents -- at least his. |
|Automakers are hiring Autobytel to train dealerships on using the Internet to generate sales, even if they |
|don't use Autobytel's service, he says. |
|"They will continue to work with us, and I see more and more transactions like the GM deal," Lorimer says. |
| |
|MONEY |
| |
|Car dealers get aggressive on Net Sales on Web likely to grow |
|Earle Eldridge |
| |
| |
|04/11/2001 |
|USA Today |
| |
|FINAL |
|B.03 |
|(Copyright 2001) |
| |
| |
| |
|Every month, five to 10 people fly 2,500 miles from the East Coast to rural Kellogg, Idaho, to buy a new car |
|or truck from Dave Smith Motors. |
|They come after visiting Smith's Web site at . They get competitive prices and perks such |
|as skiing, mountain biking, mine tours and free barbecue every Saturday -- rain, snow or sunshine. |
| |
|It's an example of how aggressively dealers have begun using the Internet to reach customers. So many people |
|flock to Smith Motors that, in a report out today, Ward's Dealer Business magazine ranks it as the nation's |
|No. 2 e-dealer, ahead of dozens of dealerships in major metropolitan areas. |
|Ward's picked the top 100 e-dealers based on how many vehicles were sold through their Web sites. Ward's |
|considers a Web sale one in which the customer's first contact with the dealership was via the Internet and |
|the dealership's online staff handled the sale. |
|Industry analysts say that despite the economic struggles of independent car-buying sites such as |
| and , dealers are increasingly selling more cars online. And some dealers predict the|
|Internet will generate up to 50% of their sales by the end of this year. |
|"Cars are going to be sold at a record pace online, with many dealers creating their own Web sites," says Rich|
|West, publisher of Ward's Dealer Business. |
|Ward's says its top 100 e-dealers sold more than 61,000 new and used vehicles via the Internet last year. |
|"Our Internet site gets over 4 million hits a year. That's more than the Chrysler Internet site," says Ken |
|Smith, owner of Dave Smith Motors, which sells every Chrysler and every General Motors brand. |
|His dealership is the largest employer in Kellogg, population 2,500. He has 40 of his 240 workers handling |
|Internet sales. Smith expects his Web sales -- currently about 25% of his total sales -- to reach 50% by the |
|end of the year. |
|Ward's No. 1 e-dealership is Anderson Honda in Palo Alto, Calif. |
|Owner John Anderson attributes the success of his dealership's Web site, at , to his |
|dealership being located in Silicon Valley and to quick e-mail responses from his 12 employees doing Internet |
|work. |
|"We don't have the lowest price, but our average response time is under 5 minutes," Anderson says. "And people|
|are surprised when they get an e-mail response from us at 11:30 at night." |
|AutoNation, the USA's biggest dealer chain, fared well in the ranking. Its dealerships took 51 of the top 100 |
|spots. |
|Analysts predict more sales will come through the Internet as more dealers build Web sites and a young |
|Web-savvy generation begins to buy cars. |
|Baba Shetty, an analyst at Forrester Research, says the next Internet wave will focus on giving consumers a |
|look at all the vehicles in a dealer's inventory. Both Ford Motor and GM have pilot projects to help dealers |
|list their inventories on Web sites. |
|"Not only will dealers use the Internet as a tool, but the Internet as a tool will get better," says Jonathan |
|Gaw, an analyst for technology research firm IDC. |
|But Gaw says dealers must be willing to give shoppers a firm price online. "The industry is still struggling |
|to wean itself from haggling over prices." |
| |
................
................
In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.
To fulfill the demand for quickly locating and searching documents.
It is intelligent file search solution for home and business.
Related searches
- information technology in business today
- technology in business today
- new technology in business world
- business plan for technology startup
- new technology in business today
- technology for small business owners
- technology used in business today
- how technology affects business environment
- business information technology news
- small business technology needs
- business and technology stevens
- business healthcare technology degree salary