Amazon Autos launched and immediately solved a problem nobody had. Buying a car online from a company that started selling books. Makes perfect sense. Jeff Bezos looked at the car dealership experience and thought "we can make this worse by removing the one part people enjoy: physically sitting in the vehicle before signing away five years of paychecks."
The platform offers financing through participating lenders. Participating. That word does heavy lifting. It means Amazon rounded up whoever would agree to underwrite loans for people who think clicking "add to cart" on a Hyundai is normal behavior.
The article warns shoppers to compare rates before financing. Incredible advice. Revolutionary. Compare the interest rate on your car loan. Nobody has ever thought of this before Amazon needed a press release about their new vertical.
Here's what actually happened. Amazon watched Carvana implode and thought "their only mistake was not being us." They built a platform that lets you finance a depreciating asset without ever leaving your couch. The same couch where you bought a wifi-enabled air fryer you used twice. The same decision-making process. Different dollar amount.
Retail traders already destroyed their accounts on meme stocks. Now they can destroy their credit scores on a car they bought between scrolling TikTok and ordering protein powder. The synergy is beautiful. One platform for all your financial mistakes.
The best part? Amazon gets a cut of the financing. They are not even selling you the car. They connected you to a lender and a dealer. They built a fancy referral link and called it innovation. Bezos could sell these people a timeshare on the moon and they would ask if it comes with Prime shipping.
Compare rates all you want. You're still buying a f*cking car on Amazon.
Photo by Rubaitul Azad on Unsplash
Leave a Comment