Hertz turns to eBay as it expands retail sales options

The Hertz Corp. has found a new place to sell its cars: eBay.

The Estero  car rental giant announced Tuesday it had launched a Hertz Car Sales showroom with access to more than 8,000 vehicle listings on the website.

The vehicles will be available through The eBay Vehicle Selling Center, which offers a secure purchase program that Hertz says allows for “a seamless end-to-end transaction experience, including payment, financing, registration, ownership transfer, transport and up to $100,000 vehicle purchase protection.”

eBay’s vehicle sales center already works with several car dealerships across the country, among them Century Motors of South Florida and Long McArthur Ford in Kansas. In testimonials on the site, the dealers say eBay allows them to tap into new markets and reach a broader audience of car buyers.

For Hertz, the program works with its strategy to sell off some of its fleet of vehicles through retail channels rather than on the wholesale market through automobile auctions, where returns are lower.

Speaking to investors on a fourth quarter earnings call in February, Hertz CEO Wayne West says of its focus on retail, “the opportunity here is significant.”

In response to an analyst on the call, West says that currently about a third of its cars moved through the company’s retail channels. Hertz wants to grow that to 80%, taking an omnichannel approach.

“We've got a physical footprint today. We've been investing in our digital channels and e-commerce as well,” he says.

“The combination of those creates a really good model for us, so we can meet our customers where ultimately they want to be, rather than just relying either on a physical channel or a digital channel. So that combination is really important for us.”

The company currently operates 46 Hertz Car Sales locations nationwide.

Hertz, which releases its first quarter earnings Thursday, reported its fourth quarter revenue was down 1% to $2.02 billion when compared with the same period the year before. For the full year, its revenue was down 6% to $8.5 billion when compared with the previous year.