IF..We Mean WHEN Amazon Decides To Get Into Selling Cars, HOW Should They Do It And WHO Should They Buy

Whole Foods. Whole Drugs. Whole Cars. Easy Peasy in the naming. Making it actually come together and compete on a level field with established dealer networks might be harder. It all depends how much they want to change the model and what state laws will get in their way. But if you had $5B or $10B to blow, would you get into this business or do something else?

Buying a car sight unseen is a brilliant idea.

Buy no one but set up a consolidated buying service for all car brands using its volume leverage to offer best prices in conjunction with dealers closest to customer placing order or directly with manufacturers. Amazon is a mega distributor not a manufacturer. Amazon should play to its strengths and let manufacturers bear the risk and huge cost of capital necessary to build cars.

A hybrid of what exists today. Strategically placed centralized demo centers where one can see and try out the vehicles. You only do that every few years. That is coupled with satellite localized delivery and service centers. Buy a service center business. Amazon handles the ordering/delivery/parts logistics etc. Local Mercedes dealer already doing something like this already. Fortune 50 company I worked for had a deal with Ford. Headquarters established Ford and Mercury paper dealerships to order cars. Every Oct 7000 new Fords/Mercury cars were delivered directly to our company facilities all over the country. Prepped and serviced there. I year old ones sold to employees at wholesale $ or taken to wholesale lots.

I do think car retailing is going to go through tremendous upheaval and that the day of the brand with a stand alone dealer is not going to last indefinitely.

That said, part of the joy of buying a new car is getting it right then and driving off "happily ever after".

CARMAX, it already has a well established way of taking in trade then retailing or wholesaling it. Next step will be finding manufacturers that wants to sell more cars and willing to give up its existing sales network. Take Mitsubishi for example, it's US sales force never had a clue how to market cars in US even when they had quite a few good cars in the past. I am sure once Amazon can prove to the bigger brands how they double or triple sales on few smaller brands, the bigger brands will find ways to get rid of their networks...