TP Internet and Samar team up for new and used car web site
Information technology firm TP Internet (TPI) and automotive research company Samar are to sign a final agreement by the end of the month to start a web site dedicated to car buyers and sellers, executives at both firms said last week. It's a move that both companies hope will profit from Poles' affections for well-worn jalopies and new compacts alike.
While plans are still sketchy, executives said the site would offer both business-to-customer and business-to-business sales of new and used vehicles. TPI will chip in with the technological expertise to create and maintain the web site, while Samar will provide the automotive sales listings and related information.
The business-to-business sales will be built on deals that Samar makes with all manufacturers operating in Poland, said Wojciech Drzewiecki, the company's president. However, online inter-business sales will be limited to users who pay a fee to access the site with a password, thereby generating revenue for Samar. Some limited information will be available to non-registered users free of charge, he said.
As with most other automotive trading sites, buyers will have to conduct the final transactions on their own at the dealerships. Eventually the partners want to offer users the opportunity to pay online for their purchases. But Wojciech Wojtysiak, the vice president of the electronic-business department at TPI, the internet subsidiary of Telekomunikacja Polska (TPSA), said that most Poles couldn't afford to pay for cars through credit card payments.
Other firms will be involved in the venture as well, but both executives declined to name potential partners or to comment on the web site's start-up costs.
Although no details were given about its structure, the still unnamed web site will probably be available under two separate internet addresses,Wojtysiak said. The site will offer other information of interest to car buyers and provide links to other online auto services, Wojtysiak said. He said the site may carry a link to Pilot Finansowy (http://www.pilot-f.pl), a financial portal, to provide information on auto insurance.
The joint venture will add to a rapidly growing glut of new auto trading web sites in Poland, including Trader.pl (http://www.trader.pl), Mojeauto.pl (http://www.mojeauto.pl) Autozakup.pl (http://www.autozakup.pl) and a planned September start-up called Automarket.pl (http://www.automarket.pl).
The new site is hitting the cyberauto superhighway at a time when sales of locally manufactured and imported vehicles in Poland are down. New car sales from January to June totaled 278,147, a 13.5% decrease from the same period in 1999, according to a recent Samar report. Unfazed by the drop, Drzewiecki said there's a need for auto web sites since many buyers go online to research prices and comparison shop before visiting a dealership. Wojtysiak said the web site would help fill a gap in the growing used-car market. But as for this year's decline in new car sales, Drzewiecki blames two recent hikes in excise tax as well as high interest rates for auto loans. The government increased the excise tax by 2% in January 1999 and raised it another 2% in April 2000, bringing the total tax to 6%, he said.
