Internet bidders pushed the price of a new BMW X5 sport utility vehicle to US$72,100 Friday -- almost $15,000 above the sticker price -- in the first use of the Web to launch the sale of an all-new model.
With 53 bids in the first 45 minutes of the online auction on eBay, the price soared to $66,805 and kept rising. The auction began at 9 a.m. EDT and is scheduled to run for 10 days.
The winning bidder will receive a silver X5 on 1 December, about two weeks before the new SUV shows up on dealer lots. Analysts expect the 4-wheel-drive X5 to be an instant hit among upscale buyers looking for the latest offering in the growing segment of car-like SUVs.
The suggested retail price of the eBay X5, which includes a navigation system, rain-sensing windscreen wipers, heated front seats, a moon roof, larger tires, sport suspension calibration, and a ski bag is $57,105.
The SUV being auctioned was donated by the German automaker to the Dallas-based Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, which will keep the proceeds.
EBay, based in San Jose, California, is the most popular online auction site. Auctioning cars is not unusual on eBay, but the X5 auction is the first time an automaker has sold the first of a new model over the Internet.
One early bidder, Jim Smith, a programmer analyst in Sherman, Texas, said he submitted a bid to be a part of history and never expected to win the car. Smith bid $2,553.
"They say everybody has their 15 minutes of fame. Well, my bid lasted 18 minutes," Smith said with a chuckle.
Another bidder, Richard from Hershey, Pennsylvania, who did not want his surname used, submitted a bid in the mid-$60,000s. He wants the car for his wife.
"I'm a real buyer of this thing," he said, adding he wants the BMW to go alongside a new M-Class SUV from Mercedes he will get in January.
Besides the publicity BMW is receiving, using the Internet to launch a new car is a savvy move by the automaker, said Tom Libby, a consultant at J.D. Power and Associates.
"It's a good strategy. It helps to show they are with-it and current," he said.
It also is a smart move as the SUV segment continues its explosive growth. Libby said J.D. Power has found that 34 percent of SUV buyers are heavy Internet users, meaning they probably go online to do price comparisons and other research before heading into a dealership.
By comparison, only 16 percent of large-car buyers qualilfy as heavy Internet users.
Copyright 1999 Reuters Limited.
