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Autobytel.Com Case Study

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Autobytel.Com Case Study
In 1999 Autobytel.com was leader in the online car referral business amongst a very competitive market. The online car referral concept was based on giving the consumer a way to shop for automobiles online that didn’t involve going to a dealership and dealing with high pressured sales. When time came to buy the automobile they had selected, the service provider would send the purchasers information to a qualified dealership in their area to process the sale with little to no haggling involved due to the level of information the purchaser had at their disposal. The way these online referral companies were able to make money off this process was to sign up qualified dealers around the country and charge them a fee to send motivated buyers their way, and to offer a large compliment of services that aided the purchase of the vehicle to the automobile purchaser. Though Autobytel.com was experiencing record growth in the online car referral industry it still was not able to create positive earning off the services they were providing. Like many Internet companies this was a problem that plagued their companies due to the large over for the revenue they received and they new if they were to remain a viable company something needed to be changed. In order for Autobytel.com to turn their current offering into positive earnings, there are many thing that need to be looked at create more added value proposition to both of their customers, the automobile buyer and seller. For the automobile buyer, besides getting a great deal on an automobile what separate Autobytel.com from the other online referral companies are the additional services they provide in the buying process. And the key selling feature of Autobytel.com to the dealership is that of exclusive rights to a territory. Though both of these propositions add value to the customers, neither has been truly leveraged to produce the greatest revenue possible. So by focusing on what each customer group is really
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