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In tough economic times consumers appreciate more than ever the ability to try before they buy, as we’ve noted on many occasions before. Similar to the initiative from Renault that we covered not long ago, rental giant Hertz is now giving consumers the ability to do an extended test drive before they buy a car. Hertz bills its Rent2Buy program as a “virtual showroom” featuring a variety of high-quality rental cars—most still under original factory warranty, with between 25,000 and 40,000 miles. Consumers can search the company’s inventory by year, make, model, ZIP code or state. If they find one they’re interested in, they can rent it for three days to try it out; they sign up online, and are notified where to pick it up. After putting the car through its paces during that 3-day trial, consumers can return it to Hertz if they don’t want to keep it, simply paying the applicable rental charges. If they do want to buy it, however, there’s no need to bring it back—they simply log onto My Hertz and click “Purchase Car.” From there, they email or fax the completed Bill of Sale document back to Hertz, which will then contact them to finalize the transaction, including payment and title transfer. By offering extended try-before-you-buy along with an all-online, haggling-free sales process, Hertz eliminates in one fell swoop two of the points that typically cause consumers pain when buying a car. Which, of course, increases the odds that they will. Need further convincing? Check out the tryvertising section of trendwatching.com’s Generation G briefing for more. Spotted by: airlinetrends.com