To make the 2013 Chevrolet Malibu more appealing to online car shoppers, General Motors lowered the price by hundreds of dollars to compete against better-selling midsize sedans. Prices were reduced as much as $ 770, making it more competitively priced for its class. The average price drop for the Malibu is $ 450.
“We did it in order to generate more potential traffic on the car both on the websites as well as dealers but I can’t tell you that January itself was a big change just because of that,†said Russ Clark, Malibu’s marketing director. The entry-level Malibu has been reduced by $ 345, making the base price $ 21,995, not including freight charges.
Design changes are in the works for the Malibu, including a roomier back seat that will be introduced in the third quarter of 2013. Introduced over several months in 2012, the current Malibu’s sales have declined by 6.1 percent in the fourth quarter of 2012, compared to the last-generation’s sales over the same time period in 2011.
With revamped offerings from Chevrolet and Toyota, competition rose for the midsize sedan class, with the Malibu trailing behind the Honda Accord, Nissan Altima, and the Ford Fusion. Toyota sold 404,886 units of the Camry, the current class leader.
The 2013 Malibu 2LT has been cut by $ 300, along with the Eco models, and up to $ 770 for the LT version. Gains for the months were short of the industry’s 14 percent increase. The cuts weren’t done with the intention that there would be immediate turnaround, and according to Clark, “We just wanted to make sure that as that momentum continues to build that the car is competitive on the shopping websites.â€
Source: Bloomberg
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