Hyundai has launched a digital showroom on the Amazon Vehicles research hub, the first automaker to create such a page on the massive shopping site.
Amazon became a potential competitor to third-party auto shopping guides in August 2016 when it unveiled the research site. While vehicle detail pages didn't connect consumers to dealers initially, they housed extensive product information one would expect to see on sites such as Cars.com and Autotrader.
Hyundai hopes to separate itself from other manufacturers by building upon the Amazon platform with its own showroom that provides a portal to schedule test drives, a pricing calculator, inventory listings and a dealership locator on Hyundaiusa.com. The showroom also features informational videos on Hyundai's Shopper Assurance program that seeks to add convenience to the shopping process, and the Hyundai Blue Link connected car service's integration with virtual assistant Amazon Alexa.
The ability to send consumers to Hyundai web portals outside of Amazon is a distinct change from typical vehicle pages, which normally keep researchers on the site. Other brands such as Toyota and Honda route users to dealer locators from the detail pages as well.
Hyundai and Amazon have aligned brand values stemming from the automaker's Shopper Assurance initiative -- such as transparent pricing -- that helped make the showroom a reality, said Dean Evans, Hyundai Motor America's chief marketing officer. Shopper Assurance is built around fair-market price listings online, flexible test drives, the ability to handle more of the transaction online and a three-day worry-free exchange on newly purchased vehicles.
"Over time, as consumers learn that Amazon has an auto section worth utilizing, the traffic [will] continue to grow. We think that Amazon autos will become the No. 1 auto research destination you can go to online," Evans said.
