GM Abandoning eBay Effort

It’s the end of the road for GM’s attempt to sell cars on eBay.

The program, one of the highest-profile attempts yet to sell new cars online in California, will end today. "We're taking what we learned from eBay and applying it to our digital and social-media marketing strategies," GM spokesman John McDonald told the Associated Press. "From our view, it was a success."

But the program didn’t last long, only a little over a month.

Auto dealers told the Wall Street Journal the program launched August 11 became an avenue for customers to put in lowball offers on new vehicles, wasting their staff's time. Richard Slade of FH Dailey Chevrolet in San Leandro, California, told the Journal his dealership received one offer of $2,500 for a $40,000 vehicle.

The program was set up so that cars weren’t auctioned but instead had a "buy it now" price or an avenue for potential customers to contact dealers with offers.

The site did draw about 1.5 million visits, which eBay and GM officials equated with success.

The traffic to the site, said Rob Chesney, vice president of eBay Motors, proves "there is a real proposition that we can build upon there."

But Slade, whose dealership didn’t sell any cars as a result of the program, said GM and eBay should have set more realistic expectations for customers participating in it. "We don't need to have fire sales. We need to promote the quality of the product," Slade said.