GM's LaNeve: eBay Venture Postponed, Not Cancelled
October 01, 2009
General Motors head of sales said its California experiment listing dealer inventories on 
eBay's Web site is not cancelled for good; rather it is postponed.
"By no means was it a failure," said Mark LaNeve, GM's vice president of sales, said in Thursday's sales conference call. "It was a pilot and we're not ready to go full bore with it but we think we've got something that could work with some tweaking of the model."
He added: "It was an interesting program with interesting results."
LaNeve noted that the venture generated lots of buzz and activity, including 1.5 million page views on the specially designated part of the eBay site, generated 15,000 leads for dealers. However, dealers didn't sell as many vehicles as GM had hoped.
LaNeve said it has put the program on the back burner and may return to it next year with some tweaking. Changes may include narrowing the focus in terms of brands listed on eBay and modifying the way customers obtain pricing information.
In addition, LaNeve said GM has lots of messages out there, including its new May the Best Car Win campaign and its 60-day money-back guarantee. "We'll meet with eBay and dealers and may be return next year when the air is clearer." -- Michelle Krebs, Senior Analyst and Editor at Large
Posted by Michelle Krebs at 11:43 AM under Companies , GM | Comments (2) | digg this | Seed Newsvine
This is one of those times I would not suggest you hold your breath until GM breings this program back to eBay. Give them credit for an attempt that was original.
Posted by: jsayer | October 01, 2009 at 5:48 PM
Everyone gave the "new GM" credit for pulling the plug quickly on an unsuccessful program. Now, they come back with this double-speak. See the "new GM", same as the old GM.
Posted by: maitlandking | October 03, 2009 at 5:31 PM