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After an enormous amount of hype and wasted PR-money, General Motors is ending its car-selling partnership with eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) after dealers reported that the program didn't spur sales and led to a raft of low-ball offers that didn't go anywhere.
By far my favorite quote from the Wall Street Journal coverage (subscription required) of this development: "We thought the program was successful but that this was not the right time," GM sales chief Mark LaNeve said.
It's the same old GM. GM unveiled the eBay partnership with a ton of hype and plans to expand it nationally. If they thought the program was successful, they would not have ended it after eight weeks. Does GM really think that people are so stupid that they won't see through that bit of bluster? Memo to GM brass: Most Americans are not as stupid as you are.
The problem with the eBay-GM partnership -- as I've been writing all along -- was that it really offered nothing even remotely unique: a site where you could either buy the car at the listed price or try to negotiate for a lower price. How is that different from every other car buying website/classified ad/magazine on the planet? It isn't. And it was disingenuous of GM to try to pitch as something new and different.
So far we've seen more of the same-old from the new GM: overhyped new programs that yield no results and are quickly abandoned. That doesn't bode well for our investment in the company.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
9-30-2009 @ 5:58PM
nilsvonre said...
I am just waiting for the day when the "New" GM, with all their new found ingenuity, will come up with the idea to offer steak knives or Disney collectable water glasses with the purchase of a new GM car.
God save us, the American taxpayer has been hosed again.