Buyers head back to showrooms as appetite for buying online declines

The number of people planning to buy their next car entirely online has fallen to just 4% in recent weeks, as buying habits shift back towards the traditional showroom model.

In its latest weekly survey, 4.2% of 873 in-market consumers told What Car? they expect to buy their next car entirely online, with delivery to their home address. This is down from 9.7% in June 2022, when What Car? last asked the same question.

IT services provider NTT Data UK&I carried out a similar study, which returned the same conclusion.

The research found that consumers still want a human touch when purchasing a car, with half (50%) having visited a showroom concerning their latest car purchase. It also discovered that when purchasing their next car, more than half of consumers (53%) are planning to purchase cars outright from either main-brand or independent dealership. An additional 30% plan to also purchase their car from either a main brand or independent dealership, but on finance.

While the research demonstrates a return to in-person purchasing, it also outlined the disruption the sector is facing due to the rise of mobility services. The research found that a fifth (20%) of car owners are tempted to consider selling their car, with a further 15% tempted to consider sharing their car for extra income, demonstrating the growing appetite for mobility-as-a-service (MaaS) solutions.

Dominic Rowles, automotive client partner at NTT DATA UK&I, said: "These results show a surprising reduction in pure online D2C, although the exit out of Covid may have caused earlier results to be inflated. There was a sometimes reluctant acceptance from the retailer community that Agency was going to fundamentally change business models, but many may now be considering whether they should invest in a different strategy altogether.

“It’s worth considering that the online customer journey doesn’t have to be 100% digital and the respondents may well have a different view as to what fully online means to the car makers. Several OEMs are developing retailer capability into the online journey, but still involving the retailer in the final part of the journey. It’s not quite an agency model, but it’s moving much more online. For those transitioning to this model, the biggest challenge is how to migrate and share customer data across multiple interested parties, so it’s imperative that the right partners are in place to facilitate this.

“The sharing economy results further reflect ever-changing consumer demands and disruption to the traditional car purchasing market. Dealers and retailers probably won’t welcome these results, but now have to place some bets about what kind of mobility offer they want to make. Whichever route is taken, those in the sector must ensure they’re digitally transforming to respond to changing consumer demands in order to maintain competitive advantage.”

What Car? found that 41.1% of buyers are comfortable with the idea of buying a car online. This has fallen from June 2022, when 49.9% of buyers said they were comfortable with it.

Steve Huntingford, What Car? editor, said: “Despite the growing presence of online-only retailers and a push from manufacturers towards online buying, the share of people set to buy their next car online has fallen over the past nine months.

“What is particularly striking is the disparity between the number of people who say they are comfortable with the idea of buying a car online and the number of buyers actually planning to do so. This suggests manufacturers have a lot of work to do in convincing buyers that they’d be better off buying online.”