In the US, Kia Motors has begun selling new vehicles through eBay, making it the first major automaker to do so. Through its online store, customers can search and shop through the new Kia vehicle inventory across all participating dealers and make offers online through eBay’s “Best Offer” option.
Now, from the comfort of their own home environment, consumers can have a convenient shopping experience deciding what they want from the brand’s lineup. More than 345 Kia dealers in the US have signed up to list their entire stock of new Kia vehicle inventory online.
The stats say this trend is on the upswing – J.D. Power and Associates says that Internet auto shoppers are up 17% in 2010, and 79% of all auto shoppers source third-party websites such as eBay Motors before making a purchase.
Naturally, the assumption is that the consumer still goes to the showroom once he/she has decided on a model to ascertain that it’s the right choice. But one wonders if in the future, there’d be anyone who’d buy a new car without seeing or touching it in the metal first; no test drive, no walkabout, just select, order, pay and the car gets delivered to you. It’ll take a lot of bravado to do so. Intriguing, to say the least.
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malaysia, apa pun tak jadi, car are monopoly biz, only naza for kia, sd for hyundai and so on.. and non of the dealer sell car need to hold stock, you order also, kena wait 3-4 months for popular model..
except for used car, used car also tak jadi, coz all used car dealer tak boleh harap one..and not trustworthy and no system to make them trustworthy..
so, we have a long way to go for online car sales.
To buy it without touching , it think not possible in malaysia, exceptional 1-2 case maybe for those very rich felo and buy kancil…
car price is as expensive as a house, maybe possible in oversea with their car price in 5-15k usd, ours over 100k ?
how to click n buy. credit card also cannot approve.
USD? Don’t you mean pounds? Anyway, just because they sell it on ebay doesn’t mean they don’t check the car out. On ebay you could contact the seller and arrange for a viewing of the car to ensure that the car in question meets the description in ebay, and if it doesn’t and you haven’t paid for the bid you are not obligated to complete the purchase.
Besides, you think 15K bucks is small money? For Americans, even 1K is expensive enough!
Americans earns an average of USD3k per month. USD15k for a car is small money indeed. In Malaysia people spend more than RM100k for cars, do u think RM100k is small money??
Paul….Kia is behind Proton la…..LOL , Proton has been selling their car even before anybody can lay their eyes on actual body let alone touches it. no test drive, no walkabout, just select, order, pay and the car gets delivered to you…LOL
Proton has been selling, but…has anybody been buying?
Wonder will proton just advertise a sketch in the future and sell it
It would be intriguing. But its not very much different situation in some showrooms even locally here with some UMW Toyota and Proton dealers asking for deposit to test drive!
I was so put off by the attitude of these people simply because their products were selling like hot cakes. I figured that would probably be the attitude of servicing too. What if I have a warranty claim? Was looking between a Fortuner and CRV. No chocolate for guessing, I got the CRV in the end.
wow…i wanna be affiliate ….so ic an earn commission…
Put it this way, this is another advertisement campaign by Kia. They can now boast that they are the first in all other media…Ppl might drop-by to look see look see the eBay page thus create a lot of pageview, LOL
When come to buy car, i still believe that we need to look at the car in real. Actual sitting in one, touch the dash, feel the seats, take a view from back mirror, close the door to hear the ‘trummmp’ sound (or may be only applies to msian, haha), all these will gather interest in buying a car of your dream. No see,no touch, no feel….just pay and got it delivered….hmmmm….not my style…
you can go to the showroom to have a closer look at the car, then go home and do the bidding online… you will be surprised at how much price discounts u can get from different dealers/salesmen…
I wouldn’t dare buy a car without experiencing it as much as possible. Too much risk.
buy car just staring at LCD monitor?
they will send the car at your doorstep ke? using DHL? POS LAJU?
lolz
How do you think m’sia local dealer deliver cars to other branches or customer?…do they use poslaju? skynet?…I don’t think so…
why so serious meh?
thehehe
Sometimes, I believe we are too skeptical of new ways of doing things. Give it a chance first. It may work, or it may not work here in Malaysia.
For one thing, I join a local photography forum. Many members there buy photographic equipment costing thousands of ringgits online. If that can happen here in Malaysia, the possibility for buying car online exists.
We never know until we try it.