Edmunds.com launches online couponing for the auto industry

Edmunds.com launches online couponing for the auto industry

Edmunds.com, the online auto research and shopping portal, is looking at Groupon and LivingSocial™s daily deal model to see if it works with big-ticket items like cars. Called “Edmunds Exclusives,” it is beta testing the product in the Miami/Ft. Lauderdale, FL, corridor with hopes to offer geotargeted deals for new and used cars to consumers across the country later this summer.

“Edmunds Exclusives” will offer cash-back, financing and leasing deals to people from dealerships in their market. It may also expand to include business in repairs and parts, maintenance and body shops, aftermarket audio dealers and auto broker services.

Michelle Denogean, vice president of business operations at Edmunds.com, says the program gives people access to local deals directly at Edmunds.com, where people go when they are at the bottom of the purchase funnel and ready to buy. She says it gives automakers a topical sales ointment to treat inventory problem flare-ups that might not be responding to a more systemic treatment of national or regional incentives. A Groupon-type program for dealers and automakers, she adds, was bound to happen.

“It helps automakers and dealers who have excess inventory or oversupply of specific models, or have a need to get rid of past model-year vehicles through additional discounts,” she says. “So it is intended to be very targeted to areas that need that focused conversation around certain vehicles,” says Denogean.

“It’s all about where do you need to target sales and can we do it now, in a time period to hit those targets, Donogean says. The offers will not be real-time, “but a lot of what happens in the auto industry is in a given month, where automakers and dealers are looking at sales targets.”