OMG! Lamborghini Sold On Chinese Ebay!
Taobao is China’s Ebay. After Geely had kicked-off the craze, other brands, such as BMW, Audi, and Volvo followed. Yesterday, Lamborghini created quite a stir in China by mentioning to Beijing Times that they would also create a webstore for their 3 to 6 million yuan ($ 460,000 to about a million U.S.) supercars. Yesterday, the site went up. Depending on who’s writing, the site created between 5,000 and 8,000 orders in a single day. Not bad for a brand that moved 260 Lambos in all of 2010. New and old media (see new item from Hong Kong above) praised the site where you can “peruse the 17 models on offer, which go from 3.5 million RMB right up to 6.5 million RMB for the fantastically sinister and shouty Aventador LP700-4.” However …
… if you click on http://lamborghinizm.tmall.com/shop/view_shop.htm?prc=3 today, you get nothing. None of the “orders” turned into a sale. It looks like the Lamborghini on-line sale was a big publicity stunt, and the jury is still out whether it was engineered by Lamborghini or by Taobao. Come to think of it, that “lamborghinizm” looks a bit odd.
But wait, there ARE Lamborghinis on Taobao. Of the kind Murilee Martin Martin gets as a LeMons bribe.
Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.
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Bertel, the auction was real. It wasn't a publicity stunt. But none of the bidders really bought them. They just bid for fun. That's what the video said.
Tomorrow: "...cars are being relisted because of deadbeat high bidders" Oh wait. This WASN'T eBay??????