Cars.com study finds many shoppers visit only 1 or 2 dealers
A new study of the digital influence in car shopping commissioned by Cars.com says that new car buyers put more weight on online research, though the dealership visit remains important.
The study finds that the average shopper is influenced by six or seven different sources when researching the car purchase and uses only one or two as the main information source. The top online sources listed by new car shoppers range from independent research sites (mentioned by 50 percent) to search engines, manufacturer websites and automotive dealers (mentioned by 42 percent).
Most shoppers are influenced by at least three online sources. Consumers said that dealership websites are quite useful, but the information is not completely trustworthy.
Top offline sources are: Talking to friends, dealership visits and noticing a vehicle on the street.
While consumers can find more information than ever online, nothing replaces the tactile experience of seeing, touching and test-driving a car, all of which helps tap into the emotional aspect of making such a significant purchase, the study says. But one of the challenges for dealers is that thereês so little they have control over before a shopper makes the decision to visit the dealership.
With online information readily available, consumers feel well informed before they go to a showroom. One in five shoppers visits just one showroom, and one in four visits two. Despite these findings by Cars.com, the J.D. Power research in the forgoing article says that people who shop for cars over the Internet visit 3.3 dealerships. It appears, therefore, that even researchers can disagree.
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