Startup drives used cars right to your door - The Detroit News
Shift Technologies has for the past year been trying to steal a slice of secondhand car sales from Craigslist, CarMax and traditional dealerships. In the magical cities of San Francisco and Los Angeles, where the marginally more convenient future sometimes arrives first, would-be buyers can now skip the used-car lots and awkward emails to strangers with a 2009 Honda Civic to spare. Flush with $50 million of funding led by the venture team at Goldman Sachs, the San Francisco-based Shift plans to take its car-shopping service to 18 more U. S. cities by 2017. Here’s how it works: Someone with a vehicle to sell pings Shift,... If the ride passes muster, Shift and the seller agree on a guaranteed minimum price and the vehicle is listed on Shift’s site. When prospective buyers schedule a test-drive, one of Shift’s “car enthusiasts” swings by with the car. In the event of a sale, Shift keeps half of every sales dollar over its guaranteed minimum price. Shift claims that sellers, generally, pocket about 10 percent more than they would on a dealership trade-in, while buyers spend about 15 percent less than they would at a car lot. Source: www.detroitnews.com
