Research Shows The Internet Slows Down Car Shopping Process

Buying a new car takes time. And you’d think with all the resources at our disposal, thanks to the Internet, the process would be a lot speedier. But new research out says the opposite is true.

According to market research presented at the J.D. Power and Associates 2011 Automotive Internet Roundtable, the World Wide Web does make us better informed, but it slows us down when it comes time to buying a car. Basically, it’s not making us decisive shoppers.

The research gathered shows that more than 80 percent of U.S. new-car buyers use the Internet to shop and research before going to the dealership. While on the web, online car shoppers take longer to make a decision regarding what car to buy because they’ve gathered so much information.

And dealerships aren’t helping to speed up shopping by responding slowly to Internet requests. This research shows that 95 percent of dealers respond to lead inquiries within 24 hours, and only 33 percent respond within one hour.

Breaking it down into demographics, younger car shoppers use the Internet more often to shop and research, but older shoppers are more likely to submit online leads.

Also interesting is the fact that third-party car sites are used extensively throughout the buying process, as they come in handy for vehicle-inventory searches. Other tools that car shoppers are using include build-a-vehicle configurators (31 percent), dealer locators (25 percent) and deal offers (25 percent). And with the popularity of online videos, 63 percent of shoppers say they were more interested in a vehicle after seeing a video of it.

[Source: Wards Auto]