![]() Had I decided to buy it, as about one out of five Shift customers does on the spot, I would have been assured it was in good shape and given a seven-day window to return the car. He didn’t pressure me, in part because he’s paid hourly. When I made a request, which they get more than a dozen of each day, an enthusiast named Ed Yuen brought a black-on-black 2013 Porsche Cayenne to my office and let me tool around town pretending to be a Secret Service agent for a good hour (while covered by their insurance policy). ![]() An enthusiast will bring the car to wherever they are in that local market - though some enthusiasts have driven up to two hours away - in as little as 45 minutes, for nothing and with no catches. ![]() All an interested party has to do is go on their site, peruse the listings and request a test drive. On the buying side, Shift is pushing the convenience angle hard. Shift would take care of all the DMV dealings and other paperwork, the mere thought of which still exhausts me as I type. Then an Uber driver would have probably bought my car and renamed it something silly, unlike her current name, Destiny. In the case of something like my cosmetic wheel rash, they’ll offer the option to fix it, something they can provide at a lower-than-average price, because they get high-volume discounts from local mechanics.Ĭopywriters would have dealt with the listing and other SEO-related tasks that Ingersoll says are better handled by professionals. If they find a flaw related to safety, Shift will not sell the car until it’s fixed. Had I continued this charade and let the enthusiast take my car, he would have driven it to “The Hub” in South San Francisco, where Shift details and professionally photographs vehicles - including all their flaws - after mechanics give them a 150-point inspection. If you’ve got an extra thousand miles or dents, those things matter,” says Ingersoll, who left Google to become COO of Shift. In fact, having previously been a car dealer is sure way not to get hired. No one working there has a dealer’s license and no one is paid on commission. They don’t ever hold the titles to the cars that they help sell - much like Airbnb does not own deeds for the charming bungalows that their guests book. Like other new-economy players, Shift is not interested in owning things. “We wondered if we could build a marketplace for party-to-party transactions, that mimics what, say, Airbnb does.” The new funding round led by Goldman Sachs will help the company expand from their current two markets - San Francisco and Los Angeles - to another 20 by the end of next year. “People voiced this massive frustration with the existing system, the fact that there was so much work to do to get the car,” Arison says.
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