PriceGrabber drives into the car business
Fueling consumers’ growing appetite for using the web to shop for a car, PriceGrabber.com today launched a service that lets shoppers configure a desired automobile and request bids from dealers. The service covers most of the approximately 27,000 U.S. new-car dealers, PriceGrabber says.
“PriceGrabber`s Autos channel is designed to save car buyers significant time and money by minimizing the upfront leg work and negotiations that typically go into purchasing a car,” said president Kamran Pourzanjani. PriceGrabber cites the Jupiter Research/Ipsos-Insight Automotive Consumer Survey, which notes that, of the 62% of US. consumers who use the Internet, 83% are auto consumers and 61% use the web to research their car purchases.
Shoppers in PriceGrabber’s new Autos section fill out a list of preferred car features for their desired make and model, and designate the distance they’re willing to travel to visit a dealer. PriceGrabber then automatically sends e-mails with the shopper’s preferences to each dealer within the designated area; dealers have 72 hours to submit their bids detailing price and available car features. To submit a bid, dealers click a link within the e-mail to enter a dealer-only section of PriceGrabber.com. PriceGrabber also requires dealers to make their bid prices available for at least seven days.
PriceGrabber charges a lead-generation fee of $20 to $30 to the dealer that submits the lowest bid. But if the shopper decides to contact a dealer other than the low bidder, PriceGrabber charges that dealer as well as the the lower bidder a lead-generation fee, a spokeswoman says. PriceGrabber defines the lowest bidder as the dealer who submits the best bid based on mixture of the lowest price and the set of features that comes closest to meeting the shopper’s preferences.
Dealers can view the bidding process on PriceGrabber.com to see how their bids compare with those submitted by other dealers, and PriceGrabber will also e-mail dealers to alert them if other dealers have submitted lower bids. Dealers can change their bids multiple times within the 72 hours.
Dealers can also request to initiate contact with the shopper and pay the same lead-generation fee. Dealers also have the option of using PriceGrabber’s ActiQuote system, which lets them designate automatic offers for particular models and feature sets.
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