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Nissan Just Sold A Car On Twitter

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2016 Nissan Rogue

Nissan is proud of the cars, trucks, and SUVs it sells to customers around the world, but it is fairly rare for the automaker to announce a particular sale from the rooftops. When it does, you know that it’s because of something very important. The automaker is very proud to announce that it has sold a Nissan X-Trail in Spain, but using only Twitter and social media.

According to the automaker, this is the first car ever sold over Twitter in Europe, which makes us wonder who else bought a car over Twitter to stop them from saying “in the world.” Raul Escolano, the lucky car buyer, originally posted on Twitter using the hashtag #compraruncocheportwitter (which translates to “buy a car on Twitter”) to try and attract carmakers to his search. He wanted to see if any of Spain’s brands could convince him to buy a vehicle using only social media.

The dealership, Antamotor in the country’s Galician region, stepped in on Nissan’s behalf to woo Escolano, known as @Escolano on Twitter. The dealership used Periscope, a live video streaming service partnered with Twitter, to give him a walk-around tour of the Nissan X-Trail and all its features. It took about two months for Escolano to make his choice from all the participating brands, with a final Twitter poll helping him make his final choice. The poll was seen by more than two and a half million people, and the X-Trail won 43% of the vote. To make the transaction completely out of the dealership, the keys were sent to Escolano by a courier, but he did have to go to Nissan’s office in Spain to retrieve his vehicle.

While Nissan is playing up the purchase as a way to show everyone in the automotive industry how important the internet and social media are, we are a bit more concerned for Mr. Escolano. The X-Trail, also sold as the Nissan Rogue in the US, is a great car, but if the sale was conducted solely on social media then he did not take a test drive. Without a test drive, how can Escolano be sure that the SUV is the right fit for his driving style, instead of the smaller Qashqai or Juke? We hope that as the car-buying process moves further online, we don’t lose sight of the importance of getting behind the wheel before making a purchase.