We investigate the effect of Internet car referral services on dealer pricing of automobiles in California. Customers of an online service pay on average 2% less for their car ($450 for the average car). 25% of the savings come from purchasing at low‐price dealerships affiliated with the online service. The remaining 75% stem from information provision by the online service, bargaining by the service on behalf of consumers, and cost efficiencies. A consumer receiving the mean online price does better than 65% of offline consumers, conditional on the car being purchased.
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Morton et al. (2001) studied this question.
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