GM to stop auctioning new cars on EBay

The hammer has fallen on General Motors Co.'s experiment with EBay Inc.

The automaker said Tuesday that it would halt sales of new vehicles on the auction site today, just six weeks after the first new car went up for bid.

Neither the automaker nor the online auctioneer would reveal sales results, but car dealers said the program accounted for very few purchases and failed to fulfill its promise of upending the way cars are bought and sold.

"It was not a successful program, unfortunately," said Peter Welch, president of the California New Car Dealers Assn., whose membership includes 225 General Motors dealers that participated in the EBay sales. "I'm not sure whether their motivation was to sell cars or just create buzz."

GM and EBay said the program, which was limited to California, was useful in helping determine whether auctions would work on a nationwide basis. The online auctions were credited with generating 1.5 million page views and 15,000 sales leads for dealers.

"I think it brought a lot of awareness to consumers in California," GM spokesman John McDonald said.

But instead of continuing the program, the company will focus on a newer marketing campaign that, among other things, offers car buyers a 60-day money-back guarantee on new-vehicle purchases, he said.

Although GM and EBay declined to reveal sales results, The Times reviewed EBay auction data for the last two weeks. In that period, there were only 13 recorded sales out of more than 21,000 listings. (Data going back beyond two weeks were not available on EBay's site.)

GM and EBay said the online totals might not reflect sales that began with online negotiations but were concluded in person with the dealerships.

Greg Hewett, a sales manager at Marvin K. Brown GMC and Buick in San Diego, said the dealership sold a Buick Enclave crossover and a GMC Sierra pickup on EBay. Hewett said he was glad to rack up the sales, but he saw little benefit from the program in terms of generating sales leads.

"We didn't have many people coming into the store, and the offers being made were rather low," Hewett said. Still, he said, considering the anemic sales environment, "any sales promotion that brings customers is a good thing."

Hewett also complained that the program left little room for dealers to sell add-ons or options to customers.