Article Surfing Archive

Today's car shopper is faced with many choices on how to buy a vehicle, but none offers more information and up-to-date information like the Internet. In years past, when you in were in the market for a car, you would go to the dealership empty-handed, test-drive the car and put together the deal based on what you thought the car was worth. Unfortunately, many times buyers ended up getting a raw deal, with the dealerships using their salesmanship and behind the scenes knowledge to turn the deal in their favor.

But now, things are different. The Web offers shoppers a tool which they can research, price and even take a virtual test drive of the car they want. They can e-mail or call, and have all the information at their fingertips at sites like Kelly Blue Book (www.kbb.com) and Edmunds (www.edmunds.com).

Possibly one of the best examples of a site dedicated to the car buyer is www.sandiegocardeals.com, run exclusively by the internet/fleet department of Kearny Mesa Toyota in San Diego. The site offers a complete virtual inventory of all new Toyota and Scion models as well as complete pre-owned inventory listings. But what really sets this site apart from the others is that they actually post retail and invoice prices so that the buyer can simply *name my price*, based on the research they*ve done online prior to coming to the site.

This approach, of providing the buyer with as much information as possible, is a product of Kearny Mesa Toyota's realization that it is not status quo in the car business anymore.

*We found that the buyer responds to being treated like an intelligent human being,* said Melissa Amick, Internet/Fleet Director at the San Diego Toyota dealer. *They have done the research, and they just love it when they talk to one of our Internet specialists and get a straightforward, honest answer.*

Kearny Mesa Toyota has even taken it a step further buy training and authorizing their entire Internet department staff so that they can quote prices over the phone without having to check with management.