IHS Automotive Report: Autotrader 2014 Vehicle Purchase Study

Oct. 17, 2014 1 min Read

In this intensely competitive market, it is critically important for automotive marketers to understand how new vehicle buyers shop for their vehicles. The 2014 Automotive Buyer Influence Study, commissioned by Autotrader through IHS Automotive, provides insight into consumer behaviors for vehicle shopping. Its findings highlight the importance of reaching shoppers before they reach the dealer’s lot, Internet and smartphone use during the shopping process, and more.

About Cox Automotive

Cox Automotive is the world’s largest automotive services and technology provider. Fueled by the largest breadth of first- and third-party data fed by 2.3 billion online interactions a year, Cox Automotive tailors leading solutions for car shoppers, auto manufacturers, dealers, lenders and fleets. The company has 29,000+ employees on five continents and a portfolio of industry-leading brands that include Autotrader®, Kelley Blue Book®, Manheim®, vAuto®, Dealertrack®, NextGear Capital™, CentralDispatch® and Cox Fleet®. Cox Automotive is a subsidiary of Cox Enterprises Inc., a privately owned, Atlanta-based company with $23 billion in annual revenue. Cox Automotive has been included on Glassdoor’s Best Companies in Tech & AI 2026 and Best Place to Work in 2026 lists. Visit coxautoinc.com or connect via @CoxAutomotive on X, CoxAutoInc on Facebook or Cox-Automotive-Inc on LinkedIn.

Article Highlights

Roughly one out of three new vehicle buyers (36 percent) intend to purchase a specific make and model when they begin researching their new vehicle purchase. However, by the time they start visiting dealerships, most had narrowed their choice with less than one in four (24 percent) switching to a model other than the one they intended. Given this insight, OEMs and dealers need to ensure they are focusing resources on the initial shopping portion of the purchase funnel, prior to consumers visiting their showrooms.
Nearly 80 percent of new car buyers use the Internet to shop for their vehicles and this number swells to 94 percent for the Millennial generation. This makes up the majority of the 16 hours in total they spend shopping for their car.
New vehicle buyers use a variety of types of websites when shopping, including OEM, dealer, search, and third party auto shopping sites. Of these, third party sites play a key role in the auto shopping process as they are the most prevalent in terms of use among shoppers.

IHS Automotive Report: Autotrader 2014 Vehicle Purchase Study

About Cox Automotive

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