Number of buyers planning to buy their next car online on the decline – survey
Research has also found that many buyers aren’t as comfortable buying a car online.
The number of car buyers who plan to buy their next vehicle online is declining, according to a new survey.
Just 4.2 per cent of the 874 in-market consumers spoken to by What Car? said that they expect to buy their next car online, down from 9.7 per cent in June 2022. In addition, 41.1 per cent of buyers said that they were comfortable with buying a car online, compared with 49.9 per cent who said the same thing in June 2022.
However, though buyers might be less comfortable with online car shopping than they were previously, the share of consumers that believe that they can get a better deal online compared with visiting a dealer has remained the same over the last nine months at 22.5 per cent.
What Car? editor Steve Huntingford said: “Despite the growing presence of online-only retailers and a push from manufacturers towards online buying, the share of people set to buy their next car online has fallen over the past nine months.
“What is particularly striking is the disparity between the number of people who say they are comfortable with the idea of buying a car online and the number of buyers actually planning to do so. This suggests manufacturers have a lot of work to do in convincing buyers that they’d be better off buying online.”
The survey also found that the share of buyers who think that heading to a physical dealership will get them a better price compared with going online has risen from 29.5 per cent to 33.4 per cent.
