Consumers still enjoy car-shopping experience

Vehicle buyers remain happier with the shopping experience overall than before the onset of the pandemic nearly two years ago, even as a shortage of cars and trucks and higher prices on dealership lots dimmed their satisfaction last year.

Those were among the findings of a Cox Automotive consumer survey released last week. Buyers' satisfaction with the shopping experience from the research stage through delivery dipped to 66 percent in 2021, down from 72 percent in 2020 but an improvement from 60 percent in 2019, according to the survey.

The percentage of online steps in a transaction for a consumer aligned with higher satisfaction levels, Cox Automotive researchers concluded. And buyers' satisfaction with their experience while at a dealership remained above pre-pandemic levels — 75 percent last year, just a slight dip from 77 percent in 2020 but better than 70 percent in 2019, according to the survey.

The findings signal that auto retailers have adjusted their purchase processes during the pandemic in ways that resonate with consumers, even as the market continues to be challenged by shortages of microchips and inventory that have pushed up prices, said Vanessa Ton, senior industry intelligence manager for Cox Automotive.

Ton said she anticipated that consumers would be more discontent with the overall shopping experience with fewer vehicles to choose from and rising prices for those that were available. But the results suggest dealerships have been able to sustain the efficiency of new digital purchase practices they put in place at an accelerated rate starting in 2020, she said.

"I just thought people were so sour on inventory challenges that that's going to sour their experience," Ton said. "But that was not the case at all."

Consumers reported transaction times at dealerships that were similar to those in 2020 and faster than in years past and more satisfaction with digital options, including when applying for financing, the survey found.

Cox surveyed 2,976 U.S. consumers who bought or leased a vehicle, new or used, from September 2020 to August 2021. The survey tracked both buyers' satisfaction with the research and shopping steps of a vehicle purchase, as well as with their dealership experience.

The macro-level constraints dampened consumers' trust in the vehicle deal and how satisfied they were with the amount they paid, according to the survey, but the impact wasn't as steep for buyers who completed more purchase steps online. Seven in 10 consumers who did more than half of their transaction digitally said they trusted that they got the best deal from the dealership, the findings showed, compared with 59 percent of consumers who completed no more than 20 percent of their purchase online.

The fastest-growing source for consumers' vehicle research are the websites of online used-vehicle retailers, such as Carvana and Vroom, according to Cox's survey. In the study, 25 percent of surveyed consumers reported visiting the websites of the new-form online retailers, as Cox refers to them, while vehicle shopping. That's up from 17 percent of consumers surveyed in 2020 and just 3 percent of those surveyed in 2017.

Those visits are still far outnumbered by visits to third-party websites, such as Autotrader or CarGurus, and visits to dealership websites, according to the survey. Visits to third-party listings sites dipped to 75 percent last year from 79 percent in 2020, and dealership websites saw an uptick from 52 percent in 2020 to 56 percent in 2021.

To stay competitive, Ton said, dealerships need to offer online buying and home delivery options on their websites similar to digital used-vehicle retailers — capabilities they're already offering more of than they once did.

"As a dealership, you kind of have that advantage in the sense that, 'Hey, you can come in person, or we can do everything online with you,' " she said. "It gives people options to transact the way that they want to transact."