Earlier this year General Motors, owner of Chevrolet, files 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 sort of recovered, they are now attempting to build themselves back up again and bring in more sales to the company. 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. The company is now planning to return to the contract hire market sometime in the next month. General Motors, being the manufacturer, may be able to give some extremely cheap van leasing offers as they can undercut much of their competition because the cars come straight off the production line.
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. Starting yesterday, General Motors started selling new Buick, Chevrolet, GMC and Pontiac cars via the online auction website within the California area.
The system is being run on a trial basis up until the beginning of September, however, currently over 225 of the 250 Californian dealers for General Motors are signed up for the scheme. 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 car has been bought, the customers must then go to one of the registered dealers to pick up their new vehicle.
If both eBay and General Motors find the system to be successful and profitable, they will looks to expand it across the entire United States. 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 Nissan lease.
