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Amazon Now Sells Cars (reuters.com)
Fiat Chrysler said it has teamed up with Amazon to sell its cars via the e-commerce company's site. Not only will you be able to order a car with a simple click online, but doing so will earn you an additional discount. Reuters reports: Initially only Italian buyers will be able to purchase their cars with a simple click online and the offers on Amazon. It will be limited to three models -- the 500, the Panda and the 500L. FCA said the choice was deliberate because the Panda is Italy's biggest selling car, while buyers of the 500 and its larger 500L version embody the young and adventurous nature this initiative is trying to appeal to. "The time has arrived to give consumers a new, more efficient and transparent way to choose a new vehicle," Gianluca Italia, responsible for Fiat Chrysler in Italy, said during an online press conference. The manager at the world's seventh largest carmaker said the partnership will appeal to buyers looking for deals from the comfort of their own home, adding that existing promotions will be improved by up to 33 percent for online customers. So, after making their clicks online, buyers will be contacted by Amazon to decide on a dealer where they can finalize their purchase and pick up the car. The vehicle should be ready within two weeks of the initial click.
They have completely missed the point. I, nor just about any other human on earth, wants to have to "deal" with a dealer. Those sleazy turds are only going to give this process a bad name. If there is a way that any one of them can figure out how to screw us on this deal, then they will. Once one figures out the loophole, they all have figured out the loophole.
One of the few powers I have when dealing with a dealer is to say, FU and walk away the moment they pull their sleazy crap. But if I have made a commitment to Amazon and then have to go to some dirtbag who will own me. I might as well go there not wearing pants as it will just make the whole process of screwing me that much faster.
A tiny example of the sort of sleaze that dealers will do is to hand you a pile of forms for you to sign. They will say things like that they are required by law, or that the warranty won't be valid. But the reality is that you don't need to sign anything but the registration form that is part of the car's title. So what forms are they getting you to sign? A very common one is that you are agreeing to binding arbitration if there is any dispute about the car. Another allows them to do a credit check, even if you are paying cash. Others will look very official but are just to get detailed marketing information. These will look like finance agreements and will ask for SSN wages, employers, references, etc.
The dealers are scum, and Amazon gave me a glimmer of hope that they were going to allow us to end run them, but nope, they are just sending us to a deeper form of dealer hell.
All hail Tesla for doing its damnedest to break the backs of the dealers and their monopolistic abuses.
Is it prime eligible?
and i suppose i have to assemble it too?
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
the 500, the Panda and the 500L
That's two out of three vehicles worth buying from FCA, plus the 500L
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Because you gonna die in one of those!
A free fatal crushing is available with the special "star trek" edition
Inquiring minds (who can't be bothered to read the summary) want to know.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
Just not impressed with this news.
500 and Panda are Italian, not American. (and the Panda used to be made in Poland and quite a bit cheaper)
what does the Ferengi Commerce Authority have to do with trade on Earth? Did the Grand Nagus buy Amazon? (That would explain a few things, mind)
Expecting same in Northern Europe. Here to buy car you have to make "friends" with the car salesman, who will neglect all customers of wrong gender, age or what not. In the profession there may be a underlying assumption of brand loyalty -- as if cars were sports teams to be devoted for for eternity at age of three without any knowledge of why. So when you enter the car store, you've already made the most important decisions and what's left is sucking up the sales"man", who is the only obstacle in between you and the possession of a car. Except that you don't know the rules and he won't tell them.
Conversation: I'd like to try that one out (for a MB A model, which I located from an ad).
- Are you planning to buy it?
- If the driving experience satisfies me, yes.
- But you have to buy it [first].
- [speechless]
Amazon started selling cars back in 2013
https://tech.slashdot.org/story/13/09/26/1550251/big-box-nissan-note-the-first-ever-car-you-can-buy-on-amazon
The company that became preeminent by exploiting their ability to undercut legitimate retail businesses by paying their human drones almost nothing, avoiding paying sales taxes for YEARS, (giving them an automatic nearly 10% discount/price advantage AND ripping off state, AND local municipal governments, reducing the availability of services to the very people buying shit from Amazon, ironically,) then used their wealth as a cudgel in the most fucked-up traditions of Microsoft... and would have failed and died over and over again if not for the loving care the government gave them in the form of lax or nonexistent regulations, letting them skirt all kinds of rules and laws to nurture their shiny new "online" business model, for no other reason than because it would be "cool" to have online retailing, directly contributing to the deaths of countless REAL, actual booksellers...
Is teaming up with a car company that would have gone tits-up over and over and OVER without the government bailing them out, and propping them up, over and over and... over... and... over...
What a lovely thing THAT partnership will be. Can't wait to see the pieces of defective shit THEY start leaving on people's doorsteps.
It does make me wonder though. How DO you shove a car into mailbox?
Jeeze, getting that package from the truck to the porch was hard. What's in the box? Lead? (actual conversation when I had bullets delivered)
One click and the car drives itself to my house.
And with that, suddenly the Grand Tour has a conflict of interest. Will they still be allowed to slag off Fiats?
do you want to bet that the first car they sell will be a cheap chinese knock-off?
Japanese Cars FTW https://www.yourmechanic.com/article/the-most-and-least-expensive-cars-to-maintain-by-maddy-martin
Casteism