4:07 pm, February 3, 2023
How much of the buying journey are car buyers prepared to do online and in physical dealerships, is a question Cox Automotive will be hoping to answer at Car Dealer Live.
Experts at the firm are currently surveying both consumers and car dealers to ask their opinions on what they want from online and physical car purchasing.
While it’s clear consumers are happy to carry out a large proportion of their research online, what isn’t so well known is how much of the buying process they want to complete from home.
Cox Automotive will be delving into this and carrying out extensive research, the findings of which will be presented at the Car Dealer Live conference – sponsored by Auto Trader – being held at the British Motor Museum in Gaydon on March 9.
Cox Automotive insight and strategy director Phil Nothard will be joining the Car Dealer team on the live stage with two special guests.
Michael Bell, CEO of Available Car, and Stephanie Muzzall, digital project manager for consumer digital at Volvo Car UK, will join Nothard to discuss the findings of the survey.
Nothard has explained what he and his guests will be chatting about at our event in a special video preview which you can watch at the top of this post.
In it, he says: ‘We’re conducting research at the moment with both dealers and consumers to understand how they are navigating today’s digital space.
‘We’ll explore how retailers are connecting their digital and physical environments in today’s marketplace.’
The research survey is live now and car dealers can take part and have their say. They’ll find out the results at Car Dealer Live. Tickets can be booked here.
Nothard said his special guests will ‘give a retailer and OEM perspective’ on some of the findings of their exclusive research being carried out for the event.
He added: ‘Our research will really try to find out what barriers the retailers are seeing in terms of the full omnichannel experience, what solutions are they offering in that digital space and what, from a consumer perspective, they like around what’s available on retailer websites.
‘Will they be looking to buy a car fully online without any interaction with a retailer in the future or are they doing it already?
‘We really want to see where consumers and retailers are aligning in the digital space.’
Nothard said dealers face a growing number of challenges in the coming years with the move to electrification, agency sales and more digital disruptors arriving on the scene.
He added: ‘There’s still an element of in-person interaction between the buyer and sellers and the numbers we expect of consumers who are prepared to do a full end-to-end online purchase with no interaction with the retailer at all will still be fairly minimal.
‘However we are in a space now where there is an expectation from the consumer that they can go and do part of their journey online and then switch to a physical environment and continue the journey in a physical space.
‘Dealers will need to navigate a lot of changes.’
Cox Automotive’s session will feature on a day that includes research presentations from Google, Auto Trader and Close Brothers Motor Finance.
Car dealers from the franchised and independent worlds, as well as car manufacturer bosses from Polestar, Suzuki and MG will also join panels to discuss the future of the car dealer.
The full agenda and tickets can be found at the dedicated CarDealerLive.co.uk website.
