Second hand car sales shifts online

A survey conducted by the popular online vehicle listing website Cars.co.za has revealed that vehicle buyers have shifted their attention online when scouting for their next set of wheels. The survey focusses on Purchasing Experience, Aftermarket Experience and Overall Ownership Experience and has resulted in the company rewarding the highest performing brands with the Brand of the Year Award at its annual Consumer Awards ceremony which is powered by WesBank.

The survey has been conducted annually over the past five years and has seen more than 30 000 consumers participating with over 10 000 submissions in 2019 alone. The survey encapsulates a wide variety of questions relating to the most important aspects for consumers when considering a vehicle or a brand resulting in very interesting data collected over the five year period.

One of the questions presented were; when buying your car, why did you choose that particular dealership? Participants had the option to respond with; convenient location, only option for the brand, word-of-mouth recommendation, best deal offered, previous experience/dealt with them before, advertising, and other. Over the extended survey period, a shift in customers’ dealer selection motivation was revealed with factors such as “convenient location” and “previous experience with the dealership” diminishing.

While these factors were becoming less relevant to buyers, “service reputation” “best deal available” and “online advertising and availability of a specific vehicle” were seeing a dramatic increase and have continued to grow in significance to vehicle buyers. After an analysis of the data was completed the results indicated that consumers found finding a specific vehicle with the best deal available eight times more important in 2019 than in 2017.

“It is important to note that this research was conducted prior to the current COVID-19 crisis, which is likely to only accelerate the identified trend,” Hannes Oosthuizen, Consumer Experience Manager, Cars.co.za.