Mammoth Blog

Beginning Tuesday, California consumers can shop and even start the purchase process for a Buick, Chevrolet, GMC or Pontiac vehicle on eBay.com through an official General Motors-eBay partnership.

General Motors is now offering its California dealers the opportunity to list select vehicles in their inventories on eBay. The inventories will consist of new 2008, 2009 and 2010 Chevrolet, Buick, Pontiac and GMC models; Cadillac, Hummer and Saturn are excluded.

The inventory will be listed in three places on eBay's site: on a special co-branded GM and eBay Motors micro site; on eBayMotors.com, where many dealers already list their new-car inventories; and on eBay.com, which lists all kinds of items well beyond cars.

The vehicles will have prices and will not be auctioned like traditional eBay-posted items. Instead, interested consumers can click the "buy it now price" and actually start the buying process online. Or, they can hit the "make an offer" button that sends a message to the dealer with the amount they are willing to pay. They can then negotiate online, by phone, or in person. Consumers also can hit a button to ask a question about the vehicle or dealership. The sold vehicle is then delivered at the dealership.

GM expects at least 200 of its 250 eligible California dealers to participate, listing thousands of vehicles.

Officially, GM's California eBay venture runs from August 11 to September 8. However, the automaker is optimistic it will be successful and expects it will be rolled out nationwide quickly.

Listing vehicles online is not groundbreaking, but GM's venture with eBay allows the automaker to draw more shoppers to vehicles without raising the ire of dealers by going around them. Dealers voluntarily participate.

California was selected because the state is quick to adopt new technology, a GM spokesman said. Plus GM sales have been weak in California, a state vital to the turnaround for the automaker that recently emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy thanks to taxpayer funding. source>>>