General Motors of Canada is launching a service on its gmcanada.com website that the company says will give consumers the most comprehensive online research and ordering ability in the country.
The Buy Centre is already running for the Saturn part of GM's website and officials at the Oshawa firm say it will move into the other divisions by the end of the year and will be available across the country.
According to GM spokesman Stew Low, the aim is to provide "Canada's pre-eminent website," one that lets customers do more of the background, pricing and ordering work involved in buying or leasing a car than on any competitive website. That includes similar programs being run on a regional basis by Ford and Toyota, he says.
You still have to go to a dealer to get the car from the GM site, Low makes clear, and adds that "You always will."
The site does allow a considerable amount of the background work to be done online, primarily because it was designed to allow the potential GM customer to move freely back and forth between the corporate site and sites run by dealers.
"You get the same functionality in the dealer site,"Low stresses," since it is right there and layered in. So you can do a lot of things without leaving the site."
This site allows a consumer to name the type of vehicle he or she is looking for, find what models are available from dealers in the area or for some distance, check the exact prices for those models, see what national promotions might be running, set up a time for a test drive, and even put a hold on a likely choice with a credit card.