One of the few things Amazon doesn’t sell in its ‘everything store’ online are cars. But that’s not stopping the e-commerce giant from creating a place where shoppers can research cars that they may be interested in buying elsewhere and reading reviews.
Called Amazon Vehicles, the new online site is intended to be a place where shoppers can get auto information and share opinions. They can search for individual car models like a 2016 Jeep Wrangler or 2014 Tesla Model S to get the specifications as well as images, videos, and reviews.
The service also includes a question and answer community where customers can ask about cars and receive answers directly from other car owners. This marks Amazon’s first time that it has created a service for conducting research about a single product.
The vehicles vertical could be a way to lift sales of auto parts and accessories on the e-commerce marketplace. While Amazon doesn’t yet sell cars, it does sell car parts and accessories, which will account for $7.4 billion in online sales in 2016, according to auto research company Hedges & Company.
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Amazon Vehicles is part of Amazon’s automotive store, where car owners can add their specific car make and model to the Amazon Garage to get suggestions about parts and accessories specific to that vehicle. Amazon says that than 35 million customers have saved their cars to the Amazon Garage. eBay one of the leaders in online auto parts sales, also lets its customers to upload information about their cars. However, eBay is different in that it also has a marketplace for buying and selling cars. Amazon also faces competition from online classifieds site Craigslist, which many owners and mechanics use to sell cars along with parts and accessories.
The big question is whether Amazon is preparing to start selling cars online, which is by one account a currently a $24 billion industry. When asked about the possibility, an Amazon spokesperson declined to comment.
