Buy a brand new car on Amazon

Online retail giant Amazon is now promoting vehicle sales on its website, advertising the new Nissan Versa Note supermini for $13,990 (around £8,630) on the US arm of its Internet-based department store.

However, the firm isn’t directly selling the cars – it is instead ‘promoting’ the vehicles. The Nissans do get a full listing, though, as opposed to the simple hosted advert often seen elsewhere online.

On Bing: see pictures of the Nissan Note

Find out how much a Nissan Note costs on Auto Trader

Described as ‘available now,’ but ‘sold by Nissan’, the Japanese hatchback listing is displayed very much like a traditional Amazon product: there’s a gallery of pictures, as well as an interactive display to show the car in the available range of colours from the factory.

There’s also a rundown of key features – including efficiency and any notable gadgets – while browsers can also check out other attributes of the Note in a similar fashion to a regular Amazon listing. You can even share the product via Twitter and Facebook with your friends.

Featuring mechanical information, interior and exterior specification, safety and security details, dimensions and capacities, as well as any optional extra ‘packs’, it’s effectively what consumers need to know from a car brochure translated to an impartial retailer without any of the marketing waffle.

Selling vehicles online is nothing new, but the appearance of Nissan’s Note on Amazon could herald a new way of buying cars. Obviously there’s an incentive for Amazon to drive sales and viewing traffic, but there are no annoying pop-ups or gimmicky techniques used here.

If customers are interested after viewing the details, they simply click through to Nissan’s website to make the purchase.

The potential for Amazon to penetrate the car retail business is massive, given its overall reach. Just like it does with many other products on its books, could we potentially see ‘New & Used’ versions listed on the site in time? Don’t rule it out.

What we’re intrigued to know is if the Note comes with Amazon’s famous next-day ‘Prime’ delivery…

Nissan Note review (2013 onwards)

Read another Nissan review on MSN Cars

Tesco revs up for online car sales

Finance: buying a car on the web

By motoringresearch.com