CNN reports that the "newer, leaner, meaner, more 21st century whatever" GM is looking into joining such business luminaries as
username LADIESMAN217 on eBay, once a former bleeding edge of internet commerce until your parents started selling their worthless crap on it*.
Users will be able to browse local and regional stock and make preliminary purchasing decisions in realtime, 24/7. Buyers will then finalize the purchase at a dealership.
The plan is currently in a pupal stage. Once negotiations are finalized (what, was FORDSUXORZ already taken as a username?), GM plans to roll out a pilot program in California before taking it nationwide.
(TANGENT: Great choice there, GM. A state which combines all the transportation problems inherent to huge tracts of land with a state government which is having trouble keeping the lights on. Surely nothing could possibly go wrong.)
I don't quite understand what they're trying to do here. GM isn't trying to phase out dealerships and go toward a direct internet sales model here, and it's not like they'll be using the auction site to, say, actually auction new vehicles. Buyers will still be doing final negotiations and pickup at dealerships, and the last time I checked (a little more than half a year ago, right when GM's directors were hitting up Congress for a bailout), GM had first-party websites up and running which duplicated the functionality which GM is now trying to get from eBay.
So is GM just trying to outsource their internet sales and maybe cut back on bandwidth and web development and upkeep costs? I know they're short on cash right now, but unless they got totally hosed somewhere down the line (which I can't imagine - surely they have in-house people for that), cutting back there isn't exactly going to amount to multimillion-dollar savings.
Are they looking to try to get out from under their own collapsing umbrella? Signs point to "no". Even if GM is cutting back on its own web presence, there's a certain below which it can't be streamlined any further without losing brand awareness. Don't expect GM to even approach that point.
Barring all that, is GM just trying to maximize their image as a 21st century innovator in a way that involves minimal cost and effort?
...well, probably!
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* This joke, in turn, was once the bleeding edge of internet humor until Microsoft co-opted a derivative for Hulu commercials. To every thing, turn, turn, turn.
