In its first foray into e-commerce, BMW has opened a store on eBay selling car parts and accessories.
This move makes BMW the first car maker to sell directly through the site, and allows it to take advantage of the sizeable market for motor spares on the site.
The fact that there are 600,000 searches a month on eBay UK for BMW shows the size of the potential customer base for the car maker.
There are already plenty of sellers dealing with this demand, but the fact that parts are official and come with a two year guarantee will no doubt persuade many customers to switch.
BMW joins a growing number of established retail brands that have begun selling on the site over the last few years, as eBay continues to expand beyond its original auction model.
For well known brands selling via eBay, the sheer size of eBay’s customer base, with 96m ‘active users’ worldwide, provides a valuable additional channel.
For example, fashion retailer Office sells end of line items and surplus stock through eBay, and sales have passed the £1m mark.
According to Office E-commerce manager Al Gerrie, the retailer has acquired 60,000 new customers through its eBay outlet, which he said appeals to different demographic than its other sales channels.
Graham Charlton is Editor at Econsultancy. Follow him on Twitter or connect via Linkedin or Google+.
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11:23AM on 9th May 2011
Great idea! very practical and great option for parts and accessories ;)
7:13PM on 9th May 2011
Very interesting story. I am very curious to see first results. Will they sell at suggested retail prices?
3:32PM on 11th May 2011
Bummer....The other dealers will be pissed!!!
8:49PM on 11th May 2011
Car parts in general seems to be somewhat lacking in e-commerce, I have lost track of how long I have spent trawling through poor navigation on badly thought out sites to find parts which eventually aren't available then having to start again on the next site.
Coming from an automotive parts background there is a lot of potential to do it so much better than anybody does at the moment. I do think ebay gets a lot of the traffic because there aren't many other viable options to find what you want.
8:25PM on 29th June 2011
Any news about the store on ebay?