Amazon is officially in the online car sales business.

According to TechCrunch, Amazon expanded Monday into online car sales with the launch of Amazon Autos, an e commerce business that lets customers find, order, and buy new cars, trucks, and SUVs from dealerships.

Amazon is kicking off the new endeavor with Hyundai.

Hyundai.

I never say that.

Right.

Hyundai.

Hyundai.

I don't know.

In 48.

Hyundai.

I don't think so, but Hyundai.

I think Hyundai.

We're gonna have to, like, cut a clip of us trying to say this because it is ridiculous.

I.

I want to say Hyundai, but it's not.

Right.

Okay.

Anyway, yeah, 48 U.S.

cities now, including Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, L.A.

new York.

And the launch comes more than a year since the e commerce giant announced plans to start selling vehicles on its website in the second half of 2024.

Amazon Autos will function in many ways like the rest of the broader Amazon e commerce ecosystem.

Shoppers will be able to search for available vehicles from participating dealers by model, trim, color, and features.

Notably, customers will also be able to secure financing and e sign paperwork via the Amazon Auto site.

Once the payment is finalized, customers can schedule when to pick up their vehicle from that dealership.

Chris, could you ever see yourself buying a Hyundai or any other car from Amazon?

Double down on the joke.

I love it.

All right.

Yes, I actually could.

I actually could see myself doing this.

I.

Okay, Yeah, I think this.

I 100.

I think this is pretty freaking sweet.

I think it's a great move by Amazon.

I don't.

Did you try it out yet?

Did you go on the site?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I can't wait to hear what you thought.

But I thought it was.

I thought it was pretty darn good.

I mean, it'll coordinate financing for you.

The pricing is transparent.

You can see all the features of the car you're buying.

And you can schedule the pickup, too, at the dealership.

So.

And the other part about it, and which you talked about in the headline, read it.

It works just like Amazon's garden variety marketplace.

And so for that reason, I love it.

I think it's great.

And once there's more inventory than just Hyundai, look out, Ann.

I mean, that's what's so great about this.

Like, you know, if they get this off the ground, it's just going to keep rolling.

But the thing I really love about it, Ann, and this is the thing I really like, and this, the last point I'll make on this is, you know, who spends a lot of money on advertising?

Oh, yeah.

Yes.

The car companies.

Right?

Yeah.

Car companies.

And to this day, the car companies via Amazon's traditional online portal have not spent any money on advertising.

So, you know, and so why shouldn't ads exist in the same way they have traditionally existed on Amazon for cars?

And so this is a big, big play when you combine the fact that consumers can shop this way, but also Amazon could get significantly more advertising revenue from this play too.

So.

So net.

Net.

I'm in.

I'm in love with Amazon Auto.

Anne.

Yeah, I didn't even really, I don't know how I didn't think about the advertising angle, but that's huge.

I mean, when I was in advertising the car, like having an auto client was like the biggest deal on, like you had to have an auto client to sustain an entire agency.

So I think, yeah, that's massive.

I agree.

I love this too.

But I came at it from the customer experience.

And actually what I thought the coolest part of this was, Chris, is the Rufus integration.

Like how you can use Genai now because that's to me that's like the logical process of going through.

Like I'm looking for an suv.

I need to have five seats because I have three kids and two whatever.

Like all those questions that you typically would be searching on your own, you know, spending hours doing or talking to a car salesperson to kind of get to the right car for your family.

Like now that can all be done on the Amazon platform.

And it brings in the advertising eagle that you're talking about too.

Like what, what an even better opportunity for some of these car companies to start targeting or serving up know their cars in that moment when you're really looking at it or being able to pull unique features.

So I that, that alone, to me it was like, that's really cool.

Plus I've said this a million times, like the car buying experience needs to be disrupted.

I've purchased two cars in the last five years.

Like there's no re.

There's, there's not even haggling on price anymore.

It's just like, this is the price.

It's all stupid stuff, like warranty stuff and all kinds of things that you take hours of your life that you're never going to get back.

And like that stuff is out of the way.

You just go, you pick up the car and you're done.

And I love this.

I love it.

Yeah, that's a great point.

Yeah, I'd rather sit in front of my computer doing all that stuff than sit in, right in the office of some sales guy or finance guy while he prints out everything on a dot matrix printer and I gotta wait for him to do everything.

Yeah.

The other point I bring up about the ads and too, which I think is really interesting, is for new cars, particularly personalized ads do not exist in the automotive world.

Like, they don't.

Like, that's not something that we as consumers get served up.

So now when I think about that and the potential here, this just, this gets really big, really big, really fast in my mind.