eBay and GM

uugggh, remember when everything had to have the letter e put in front of it? Holy crap was that annoying. I think email is the only one to really stick, besides the few websites that survived the big "dot com" burst of 2000.

It reminds me of that new show "Tosh 2.0" which has a horribly out of date name, for a show about the internet. The whole "2.0" joke was old before the internet was even popular. People who are adults now, weren't even born when 2.0 was old. Yeah. It's that old. I'm that old for thinking this.

Anyway, eBay has managed to not only stay relevant, it is still one of the best used item sources on the internet. I would say Craigslist is a great contender, but Craigslist and eBay do not entirely overlap. Where eBay won't even allow you to sell a fucking pocket knife, Craigslist has whores listed 24/7 365, every city in America.

Note I said eBay is one of the best used item sellers. New stuff is usually better served at a source. It's the auction that doesn't align correctly. An auction presumes some measure of scarcity. Having a room full of people bid on something usually implies that the entire room can't have it. Something that is new, and still in production can most certainly be sold to an entire room, so there's no buyer or seller advantage to auction.

Enter GM and eBay. I found out about their little experiment mere minutes before it went "online" so to speak. Now weeks have passed, and I think there's a pertinent assessment to be made (that's right folks, you won't read about this anywhere else).

If you haven't heard about this, here is a summary:

GM is experimenting with selling new cars "through" eBay. The cars are listed directly by each individual dealership, the GM overlords aren't doing any of the actual selling. This is only available in California right now.

The first thing I noticed was that eBay gave GM special privilege that they wouldn't give any other seller on their website. They granted GM "Power Seller" status before the first cars had even been put on sale. Being an eBay Power Seller is supposed to be an accolade, it shows one has made many business transactions over eBay, and remains in good standing. It also affords the seller special privileges and advantages against other sellers and buyers.

Next I noticed that the account "yourgmdealer" was listed as being from back in Dec. 2007. The page shows an automated notice that the account had actually changed its name on August 3 (a few days before they went online) from bighouse0001, to yourgmdealer. There's a term for this in the internet world but I can't remember it right now. What GM was doing was trying to give themselves "e cred"(lol) by making it look like they've had that account for 2 years.

Most importantly, is the matter of the auctions themselves. They are not, as one might think from the ads, or the fact that this is on eBay, open auctions. These are actually a version of "closed auctions" that only people like "Power Sellers" are allowed to perform. Basically you can't get into a bidding war, nor can you get a great deal.

These closed bids are specifically tailored to guarantee that the cars will not be sold for less than a secret amount, but buyers can foolishly overbid and have to pay. I actually bid $100, then $1,000 for a new Impala, and I was automatically rejected both times.

From what I've read, the listed "Buy it now" prices are on average 2% above normal sticker price at a dealership. But the website claims the "Buy it Now" prices are a couple thousand under MSRP. I'm not really sure if that's a conflict though. The secret bid minimums are actually automated. That is, if you make a bid under their secret minimum bid, it will automatically reject your offer. If you make a bid above their minimum, you will be put on hold. In the mean time the dealer can wait for better offers to come in. If they don't get a better offer, they can still chose whether or not to accept your offer. So, in this context, the buyer actually has no advantage whatsoever on the pricing of the car.

This is where it gets all bullshitty. Up until this point, I've pointed out minor crap, but what I think is newsworthy (and isn't being reported anywhere) is how fundamentally screwed up this scheme is, and how it isn't panning out.

1. No one's using it (this is news on its own). When I say no one, I mean there are 8 feedback comments on GM's page. I have 16 feedback comments on my account. And I've only very casually used eBay throughout the past 7 years. Everyone is compelled to leave feedback. It's not something people forget, because eBay won't let you. Any regular user would leave feedback. So I would have to see numbers showing in this one instance people aren't leaving feedback (but for such a huge purchase, it would be counter-intuitive).

2. The few people that have purchased through eBay, haven't been the happiest eBayers. Right now, with 8 people, 6 are positive, 2 are negative. This gives GM a rating of 47%, which is horrible for a seller. I have a 100% rating. Sell enough, buy enough, you will get negative reviews, but most good eBayers will stay in the 99% range. None would have a 47%. Hell, as far as I can gather, the bad rating has forced GM out of the special "Power Seller" status. They currently have a cumulative "2" (which statistically weighs positive against negative), you have to make 10 just to get to the first tier in the eBay "star" scale.

3. You still have to deal with a dealer. This is the only news that should ever have been reported. Ultimately, there is fundamentally no advantage to the buyer to go through eBay. Imagining that a buyer manages not to bid too high, but still high enough to be "worthy" of a sale, assuming the buyer isn't already paying more than if he had just walked into the showroom and been robbed blind, this isn't a clean win for the buyer. You see, as soon as you make a deal for a price, the dealer will try to raise it. The eBay "win" in this case means absolutely nothing. You still have to negotiate for the car, negotiate for options, negotiate for all the shit people negotiate for in person. Then you have to show up in person at the dealership, and at this point, the deal still isn't "done".

Like some disgusting hybrid, where you "win" a bid on eBay, then have to meet the seller in person a la Craigslist, only to have the seller change the deal on the spot. In fact, a better analogy would be to stick to what this is, just another scam by car salesmen to get you in the door. Considering nothing you do before they get you in meant anything, this is in effect, a big ass publicity stunt, with one purpose, tricking semi serious buyers to go to the dealership.

One of the negative comments made this glaringly obvious, even its ungrammatical brevity. "BAIT AND SWITCH. POST BIN RAISED PRICE BY 950 FOR "TRUE COAT" ALA FARGO."

If GM would deal directly through eBay, not through dealerships and eBay, this might have worked. If eBay had actually used an open auction, this might have worked (for the buyer anyway).

I think this issue is doubly important considering we are part owners in this company, and we shouldn't be putting up with these shenanigans.