Amazon to sell cars online, starting with Hyundai

[SunTrader]

Competition is fine...

Agree - the rest is nonsense.

 

[lwlee]

One or the other is expected. But not both at the same time, which is what is happening.

Dude, I feel your pain. But I would prob take that over the now "required" tipping at some place. The entitlement!

 

[newwurldmn]

Really? I haven't had the opportunity to try out Tesla ordering. I will say that EVs could go the way of software. Basically you don't own the car, you are subscribing to it. Apple did something similar to the iPhone. Still it's better than playing games with MSRP with car salesmen. No reason why one configuration of a car should be different pricing for 2 different set of people in the same region.
Another thing that does seem to be pervasive is elastic pricing. It's currently popularized by gig economy economies like rideshare (Uber) and has expanded to other industries like hotels. Prices become a bidding war dependent on "surge" demand. This becomes pervasive as corporate greed demand higher and higher profits. Doordash is now displaying alert msgs to consumers that if you don't tip (or tip enough), you could see worse service. Wow, they jack up food prices from what you can get at that physical store, then they add a bunch of fees, plus now they tell you, you don't get what you want unless you also sufficiently tip????

I spend thousands a month at DoorDash. I’ve never gotten that message. A few of the drivers know me now. But I tip the cheapest and I always seem to be the second delivery stop.


Dealer prices vary because they compete for your business. It’s the opposite of what happens with Tesla. The reason they have the hidden charges at dealers is because they hook you in with the lower price. Tesla’s website does this in the worst way. In both cases it’s dishonest.

 

[Georpe]

What is the whole point of this exercise? Amazon gets nothing from the dealers, and Amazon is certainly not offering Prime 1-2 day free shipping on this, so why would a Hyundai dealer bother listing their lot inventory on Amazon AND their own website?

There are a lot of advertising dollars that come from Tier 2/3 auto.

Dealerships get reach & potential volume.

 

[Timbr]

(The Daily Upside)

AUTOMOBILES
Hyundai Says it Will Start Selling on Amazon
First, Amazon came for the bookstores. Then it came for seemingly everything else except car dealerships. You see where we are going with this.
Hyundai said Thursday that starting next year it will sell its cars directly on Amazon, marking the first major auto brand to list on the massive e-commerce platform. We’re just hoping Amazon doesn’t come for newsletters next.

Hey Alexa, Check My Blind Spot
Online shopping and direct-to-consumer models have long been at play in the auto industry, with Tesla employing the latter, inspiring EV brands like Rivian and Lucid to follow suit. Meanwhile, a recent study from research firm Cox Automotive found that consumers who complete most of the car-buying process online tend to report the highest satisfaction results.
Hyundai’s e-commerce play will still loop in local auto dealers, rather than circumventing them entirely, allowing for something of a best-of-both-worlds hybrid approach, letting franchisees list their lot stock online and users to digitally window-shop vehicles in their area.

Established players in the ecommerce car space are already feeling the heat:

• Carvana, the online used car dealer and pandemic-era darling, saw its share price skid more than 5% following Hyundai’s announcement. Meanwhile, dealership giant Asbury Automotive Group’s shares plunged more than 8%.

• CarMax dropped 5%, while TrueCar fell nearly 7%. Ivan Drury, director of insights at the auto industry research firm Edmunds, told Axios that car sellers: “have all said, 'We want to be the Amazon of car buying.' Well, now Amazon is the Amazon of car buying."
Also announced Thursday: Starting in 2025, all Hyundai cars will feature Amazon Alexa technology as part of the partnership.

Gone in 60 Seconds: In May, Hyundai settled a $200 million class action lawsuit, following complaints that the automaker failed to install appropriate anti-theft technology in millions of its vehicles, leading to a plague of carjackings. Now 17 US cities including Chicago, New York, and San Diego, are filing lawsuits of their own, saying that Hyundai cars represent a large portion of stolen vehicles in their jurisdictions. In other words, plan on being home when the Amazon guy delivers your new Kona — lest you fall victim to a particularly costly case of porch piracy.

- Brian Boyle

Gonna be interesting to see how Car "listings" are going to look like compared to usual products, can't be the same old template right(even though I've seen some really ones made by folks like Weby Corp n such).

Wonder how quick shares going to drop when the service actually goes live... Which niches Amazon doesn't cover at this point out of mainstream ones? Firearms I think? If you can call it mainstream ofc

 

[murray t turtle]

somewhere I read that Teslas profit margin is literally the dealer margin that the dealers make.

it will be legally hard for legacy manufacturers to cut out those dealers.

%%
Most likely right.
Even more so when[not if, but when] an auto requires service?? Oh yea, the dealer LOL also.
TSLA sounds like good idea for overcrowded cities, for those that CHOOSE it there.
But I asked the guy that works on my auto[all his life] ''ever worked on a EV?? No ''
I found my last auto, not electric, thru Cars.com, Carfax, Carvana ,CarMax type ads on internet; no reason AMZN or MSFT could not join that group.........

 

[Cuddles]

If you’ve ever ordered a Tesla it’s a surprisingly dirty feeling process, even if the prices are fixed and the options are limited.

I cancelled my last order because of this.

in the future I bet Tesla becomes just like every other car brand, except all the dealers are company owned. Right now they can afford to not play pricing games because they are a unique product. That will change.

It will be like the apple store except with Amazon's "dynamic pricing" based on demand/region/time of day etc..

 

[Cuddles]

Amazon should build its own cars in the form of Tesla's Cybertruck, ya know, dull unpainted sheets of metal arranged in a way to look like a vehicle and then slap an Amazon Basics badge on it.

Amazon's got a sizeable stake of Rivian who's building their delivery vehicle.

Going direct would seem inevitable for all automakers since they have to combat the new gorilla in the room, Tesla. Tesla is more efficient in making cars aka gigacasting, more reliable with less maintenance aka no oils, only electrical which leads to higher margins. Plus add on top of that, that they sell direct to consumers so cutting out the expensive middle man, it's inevitable that other automakers have to follow suit.

the discount's on the dealership upcharge. Other OEMs want in on that action.

 

[TheDawn]

Do they allow negotiations??!! Are they going to allow multiple vendors on Amazon to sell their inventory just like any other vendors?

 

[gwb-trading]

Can Amazon And Hyundai Solve Online Car Sales?