Earlier this year car maker General Motor, who own brands like Pontiac and Chevrolet, filed for bankruptcy. However, they have now sorted themselves out, and from July, they have stopped receiving bankruptcy protection from the government.
Now that they have moved on, they are trying some new methods for being in more car sales. They are currently looking into 2 new methods to selling their cars. The first method they have already tried but pulled out of last year, and that’s car leasing. They have put together plans to once again return to the contract hire market sometime this year. General Motors, being the manufacturer, may be able to give some extremely cheap van leasing offers as they can sell straight from the manufacturer lines, undercutting many other companies.
The other method they are trying to the more news worthy one, they are going to be making deals with eBay, the online auction site. As of August 11th, within the California area, General Motors started listing brand new Buick, Chevrolet, GMC and Pontic cars onto the online auction site.
The plan is to run the system on a trial basis until September, however, it’s already proved popular with over 225 out of 250 of their Californian dealers signing up. Customers using the system will be allowed to either pay the listed price for the car, or they are allowed to haggle for a new price. Once the customer buys the car, they then have to travel to their closest registered dealer to pick up their new vehicle.
If General Motors and eBay find the system to be profitable, they might introduce it to every state in America. Also if other companies see the methods being successful, I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw other manufacturers offering car leases such as a Honda lease.