Cars are getting connected, marketers are inventing new ways to get advertising and messaging to drivers and passengers in those cars and now online car sales are getting involved.
Fiat Chrysler Automobiles has teamed with Amazon to sell cars online with additional discounts.
"The time has arrived to give consumers a new, more efficient and transparent way to choose a
new vehicle," Gianluca Italia, responsible for Fiat Chrysler in Italy, said during an online press conference reported by Reuters.
The online car sales will start in the Italian market with
consumers ordering the car online and then being contacted by Amazon to decide which dealer they want to go to for the car pickup.
This takes the concept of a connected car to a whole new
level, starting the connecting in the actual purchase phase.
This is in the context of the continuing evolution of the entire connected car environment.
For example, General
Motors invested $500 million in ridesharing service Lyft, Vugo is marketing back-seat video screens for to deliver messaging to ridesharing passengers and Intel last week said it was investing $250
million to advance connected cars.
In that context, ordering a car through Amazon and picking it up at a dealer later fits right in with the internetworking of cars.