The world's largest online retailer, Amazon, released a new extension to their online automotive platform today, “Vehicles", a place to “see specs, read reviews and ask owners”. 

Just a quick glance at Amazon Vehicles and you'll notice that this site extension is going to make shopping for a car online a whole lot easier. The interface allows online shoppers to research an assortment of vehicles and includes detail pages for thousands of vehicles with specs, pictures, reviews, and general pricings suggested by the manufacturers.

Like mentioned above, Amazon provides users the ability to submit reviews and pictures on specific vehicles- just like other products on their site.  As you can imagine this is either going to be a very good or bad thing for automotive retailers. 

In a statement, Adam Goetsch, director of Amazon Automotive, said the purpose of the new site is to "support customers during one of the most important, research-intensive purchases in their lives by helping them make informed decisions."

To clarify, Amazon has created three separate auto destinations:

1. “Automotive”- the marketplace for buying actual car parts.

2. “Your Garage”- a place to view, manage, and find parts for your saved vehicles. 

and now... 

3. “Vehicles”, which essentially is a massive virtual showroom. 

As of now Amazon doesn't offer an option to purchase a car through their site. Which is not surprising considering they would be battling it out with eBay, AutoTrader, Cars.com- so don't expect to Amazon Prime a car anytime soon.

How this new variable will impact automotive dealers who are aggressively trying to take on the digital world, is unclear but we are excited to find out. 

What do you think?

I’d love to hear your thoughts on Amazon's newest jab at the auto industry in the comments below!