Buying Trends to Know & Adapt to for Greater Sales
It may be a “chicken and egg” dilemma — is the Internet changing the way people shop for cars, or are shopping habits driving Internet trends?
The point automotive marketers need to keep in mind is that consumer preferences for social and mobile media is driving changes to the Internet, and technology is making the Internet a more useful (and more used) interface for shopping.
While the questions surrounding consumer habits haven’t changed drastically, (where, how, when and why do customers shop and buy) the answers are always shifting. So marketers must continually be monitoring these questions for changes of habit that can allow for new opportunities and make last year’s marketing model obsolete.
Consumer habits are changing in sync with these new ways to shop. So the age-old questions of where people look for information before purchasing a car, how long they search, how many different vehicles they view, how many dealers they interact with online, and the distance from their home to the dealership are all variables affected by social and mobile media becoming the most common information platforms consumers use before actually stepping on to a showroom floor, if at all.
And just as consumer shopping trends and Internet technology continue to affect one another, these global issues affect which cars will be the biggest sellers in 2014/15. Will gas prices continue to rise and affect consumer preferences? Are Americans buying big or small models? How long are people holding on to their cars before trading? Which brands are selling? Is leasing still hot? What features are driving new car sales? How will interest rates affect financing options?
As a dealer professional you may feel powerless over these trends. And while you may not be able to change the price of oil, improve the economy, or alter the exchange rate, it is imperative to know the direction of trends and most importantly, how to adapt to them with pricing, inventory, sales strategy and other tools, to stay profitable.
One of the leading forecasting experts in the auto industry today, Scott Pechstein combines decades of industry experience, several years with industry leader Autobytel, and the data-mining power of R.L. Polk research, to bring clarity to these changing trends. In his session at the 16th Digital Dealer Conference & Exposition, May 6-8 in Atlantic City, New Jersey, Pechstein will analyze buying behaviors and what dealers can do in order to capitalize on these latest trends.
Scott Pechstein joined Autobytel in May 2000 and was appointed to head of sales in 2011. Scott manages in-house and field sales of Autobytel’s broad range of industry-leading products, and serves as an automotive industry spokesperson, a company news media spokesperson, and lead trainer of the Autobytel Dealer Insight series.
