GM - eBay Online Sales Experiment Ended

After the US automaker and eBay Motors announced the extension of their partnership in the beginning of the month, the two companies will put an end to the online sales experiment as of today.

According to GM, the trial program will further be evaluated to see the results and how it affected the automaker’s sales, as cnbc.com reported.

The joint venture that started at the beginning of August, right after GM came out of bankruptcy, was seen as a bold initiative and many were skeptical in the success of this innovative move.

“This innovative relationship with GM allows us to do what eBay Motors does best — deliver to our buyers quality products at great value through a trusted and reliable marketplace,” Rob Chesney, vice president of eBay Motors was saying three weeks ago, when it announced the program’s extension.

“The response we’ve received from both consumers and dealers is reinforcing the idea that the Internet is truly changing the way people shop for cars, and eBay Motors is at the forefront delivering great new options to research and buy new vehicles online,” Chesney then added.

The GM/eBay web site attracted about 1.5 million visitors and generated a lot of searches of the GM inventory (roughly 2 million), the aforementioned source said. Still, the actual sales are hard to track, though GM says the joint web site generated 15,000 direct leads to dealers.

However, though GM and eBay Motors were seriously considering extending the program nationwide, it seems that this will not happen very soon.