# AFR: Car buyers spending more time researching



## Jack Malarkey (Jan 11, 2016)

_Australian Financial Review_

*Car buyers spending more time researching*

Miranda Ward Media writer

Nov 24, 2021 – 5.00am

Car buyers are spending more time researching and are more willing to buy a car online than before the COVID-19 pandemic, research from automotive classifieds business Carsales suggests.

According to the study, conducted by Ipsos for Carsales, 73 per cent of new car buyers are more likely to consider buying entirely online, up from 57 per cent when the study was last conducted in 2017.









_Carsales research suggests car buyers are happier to do all their research online and are even starting to be ready to purchase a car online rather than via a dealership._

Buyers are spending more time researching their options, spending on average seven months compared to 2.7 months in 2017.

“What’s very clear is through the pandemic people have had a lot of time on their hands and traffic to our websites has increased. According to the study, 26 per cent of people identified as car enthusiasts in 2017, that number is now up to 40 per cent. People are falling in love with their cars more than ever,” said Carsalesmanaging director Australia, Ajay Bhatia.

“And not only are they falling in love with their cars, they are also dreaming about buying their next car.

“The journey of buying a car has gone up from what used to be two and-a-half months in 2017 to over seven months in 2021. Consumers are very well researched, they’re doing all their research online, seven months of research, when they finally contact a dealer, they know everything about the car, they know everything about what other cars are in the market.”

Mr Bhatia believes these trends are here to stay, accelerated by COVID-19 and related lockdowns rather than created by it.

“Consumers have discovered that they can do so much of the shopping online and one of the stats in the study was the satisfaction with dealership experience is down from 2017 to 2021,” he said.

“It’s not just the pandemic feeding into it. Consumers are genuinely more excited about doing the majority of the research online because the experience in the dealership is not something that they necessarily look forward to.”

Mr Bhatia said for car dealerships, the clear lesson is the need to innovate their sales process and improve their digital experience.

While nearly two-thirds of _The_ _Australian Financial Review_ readers say they would consider buying an electric car as their next vehicle, Carsales’ research says 42 per cent of car buyers are likely to purchase an electric vehicle, up 26 per cent in 2017.


“We’ve seen a significant uptick in consumer openness to this, however, there’s a large knowledge gap,” Mr Bhatia said.

Carsales has launched a dedicated electric vehicle hub on its website to help educate consumers and help satisfy customer demand.

However, Mr Bhatia said the conditions for Australia’s electric car market are still not right.
“Not many electric vehicles are coming into the market, at the moment Australia’s getting less than European markets. That is largely to do with the fact that EVs are very expensive and charging infrastructure is still lagging behind,” he said.

Mr Bahtia welcomed the federal government’s new electric vehicle policy but said there is still more that could be done.

“And one of the ways that’s going to happen is EVs will continue to become cheaper and cheaper,” he said. “So, the slow lane is let’s just wait for EVs to become cheaper and then the uptake will increase and the federal government’s doing something about charging infrastructure, the fast lane is to offer more subsidies.”


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