General Motors, after prematurely announcing the news back in July (before it actually had a deal with eBay), is really truly going to start selling cars via eBay on Tuesday. You can tell it’s for real this time because the press release announcing the program is available on the eBay website (pdf!) as well as the GM one. And there’s even a gm.ebay.com site with a “Coming Soon!” banner (and the catchy if somewhat desperate slogan, “Our best cars, your best offer”).
Anyway, it’s only happening in California to start with. But I’m in California right now, and I’m feeling that Chevy Cobalt itch …
What’s most striking about this deal with eBay is how inordinately important GM’s executives seem to think it is. They kept yapping and yapping about it back on their Day of Many Press Briefings July 10 when GM emerged from bankruptcy—even though, as already noted, eBay hadn’t agreed to it yet. Clearly, they see it as an attempt to appear nimble and forward-looking and all those other things that GM so clearly hasn’t been for the past half century or so. Of course, to most of the rest of the nation, selling on eBay stopped seeming forward-looking about a decade ago, but hey, this is GM we’re talking about.
Or maybe I’m being unfair. The only way the new GM will succeed is by becoming a company less focused on keeping its bankers and shareholders and employees and retirees and dealers happy and more focused on keeping its customers happy. If nothing else, the eBay deal is a way to meet the needs and desires of at least a few more customers. Hooray for that.