Glenn Mercer

eBay and GM Call It Quits

Note that the GM/eBay deal was not (in my mind at least) a "true" auction in that you could not see the current bid price and were not guaranteed to "win" the car if your bid was highest. You could either buy it now at the set price or essentially email a dealer a price you'd like to negotiate on. Hardly seems like an auction?

GM: Are eBay and a $4,000 Car Enough to Turn Things Around?

Note that the GM cars on eBay are NOT actually auctioned. One can buy a car at the advertised price or submit an offer to a dealer. The dealer can accept that or not. Does not sound like an auction to me (where, once reserve is cleared, the seller "must" accept the highest offer, and where bidders can typically see what the current bid is). To me this looks more like "GM is now listing inventory on eBay as well as on its own dealers' websites," not actually moving to a new sales process.