Survey: Online trade-in evals curtail haggling

The time-honored tradition of haggling over a trade-in's value at the dealership is going the way of tail fins, thanks to online valuation services, and could mean one barrier to online car sales is falling.

That's one of the conclusions to be drawn from a survey of consumers conducted by DealerRater for Automotive News. The survey, conducted Oct. 25-29, drew 11,968 responses.

The results indicate that determining a trade-in's value, a process still cited by some in the industry as a barrier to online vehicle sales, isn't really an issue for most consumers.

Excluding those who said they did not have a trade-in, only 3 percent of respondents said they did not go online to determine the value of their trade-in before visiting the dealership, and the negotiations over their trade-in were "unpleasant."

Twenty-six percent said they did not determine the value of their trade-in before visiting the dealership, yet the negotiations over their trade-in went "smoothly."

In contrast, 65 percent of all respondents said the figure they had determined online that their trade-in was worth was roughly what the dealership gave them for the vehicle.

The final 6 percent said they had determined the value of the trade-in online before visiting the dealership, but what they got for it was a different amount, whether more or less.

That means that of the respondents with a trade-in, 71 percent went online to determine the value of the vehicle before showing up at the dealership.

The results varied by brand, but excluding brands with fewer than 100 respondents, only BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Kia dealerships saw as many as 4 percent of respondents saying they had not determined the trade-in's value beforehand and the resulting negotiations were "unpleasant."

Meanwhile, 75 percent of consumers who had visited an Acura dealership said the price they got for their trade-in was roughly what they had determined it was worth before visiting the store.