Amazon to start selling cars online in FCA partnership - dealers still have a role

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• 9000up - 21/11/2016 15:45

  Why don;t Amazon continue to upset customers with their current products and leave the motor trade to the pro's who do know how to deal in a customers focused manner. Fiat take note!!!!

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• P K R Chatterjee - 22/11/2016 10:55

  I will NEVER buy a car online as that will be a complete guess work and it will be like measuring a piece of string without seeing it. CARS ARE NOT FUN ITEMS and must be taken seriously.

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• douglas munday - 23/11/2016 10:15

  It won't work. A car is a very expensive purchase, which generally involves disposing of/part exchanging your current vehicle, arranging finance and ensuring you have good after sales back up from a dedicated dealer who employs appropriately qualified staff. Buying a car is not like buying a toaster and forty years experience in the business tells me that almost without exception prospective car buyers will view and test drive numerous models and makes before making a final decision and this part of the experience simply cannot be offered online. Amazon should stick to what it does best, which in my personal experience with them is to either send the wrong product to the wrong address or deliver whatever I order,later than promised.

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  • Mogo - 28/11/2016 14:32

    I sold my previous car to Evans Halshaw via their we-buy-any-car like scheme. Easy done. Then bought an FCA Jeep Renegade, never even sat in it before taking delivery. Why? Price and ease of transaction. So it does work, can work. It will be buyers who will decide. To me, its just another route to market and buyers like choice.

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• David - 27/11/2016 06:15

  Customers will buy this way, using the same rational we do now for other items. Find the product in a local shop (Showroom), view it, even demo it, then go on line and see can you buy it cheaper at Amazon. The decision making factors are price and delivery time. A brand new car is the same, be it is Milan or Sicily, so all you have to be concerned about is where you service it. See the level of extra online discount given. Can dealers price match that discount? Customers will sell their car privately (eBay) arrange finance online (take your choice) and push the button. Customers will not forgo the "view & test drive" at dealers what they will do is forgo the buying at the dealer.

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• douglas munday - 28/11/2016 18:50

  So where will that put the dealers? Mogo comments that he sold his car to Evans Halshaw, (a dealer,) and I have no doubt they profited from that. He then bought a Jeep, (where from?) presumably a Jeep dealer than can give him the back up and good service he will need during ownership. Sorry, but David's idea of simply viewing and test driving at dealers, but not buying is wholly unrealistic, and just a little selfish. By that rationale, there will eventually be no need of high street retail enterprise of any kind and we can all simply shop online. Unfortunately of course, this begs the question of how, without such commercial enterprise and the hundreds of thousands of jobs it has created, how will a vast section of the workforce be able to earn their living. Amazon is the UK's biggest online retailer, yet despite their market cap, which is almost twenty times higher than our own home grown Tesco, they employ just 150,00 staff worldwide. Compare this to Tesco who employ over 300,000 people in the UK alone, then ask yourself does that not seem disproportionate? Be nice to think that eventually we can all sit on the river bank in white robes and contemplate the world going by as the cash flows freely into our bank accounts, but at present that is simply a pipe dream. Fact is, we still need solid commercial enterprise and the jobs that go with such enterprise.

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