Could right now be an opportunity to delight buyers of brand new cars?

By Rebecca Feeney, new car brand director

Monday 1st June was the first day that showrooms in England could reopen after shutting their doors for 2 months. During that time, the industry once again proved just how robust and adaptable it is when presented with significant challenges. With showrooms closed, it meant bringing as much of the industry as possible online. For some, that was a straightforward process, for others, a very difficult challenge.  

Many retailers will have become accustomed to working in a physical space, where much of the customers’ research is done online, and therefore resulted in most buyers simply walking into the showroom without making any prior contact. COVID-19 flipped that on its head and has created a huge change in the way people buy cars, at least for the short to medium term.  

But that doesn’t mean people aren’t still in-market for a new car. Of the consumers we surveyed, only 3% said they were no longer looking to buy as a result of COVID-19. What about their ability to research and find their new car though? We asked consumers how long they’d expect to wait to receive their brand new car. 30% said they had no idea, whilst 1 in 5 said they’d expect to wait more than 6 weeks. 

But conservative estimates suggest there are over 100,000 brand new physically available cars in the UK at any one time. So, could this be an opportunity to delight car buyers? If they’re expecting to wait 6+ weeks for their new car but instead find their ideal car advertised online and readily available in stock from their local retailer, then that’s a win-win situation for everyone involved. 

At Auto Trader, we’ve been speaking with more franchise retailers during lockdown about how we can help them sell brand new vehicles. And as a result, there are now over 50,000 brand new cars advertised to the millions of buyers who visit Auto Trader every month. It's a 49% increase in stock that was advertised before lockdown, demonstrating a much greater appetite from retailers to bring their stock online. With 9 out of 10 buyers wanting to see new and used cars online on one website, it's a milestone not only for Auto Trader, but also for the industry in its quest to remove consumer pain point and improve the buying experience. 

To coincide with that increase in retailers advertising brand new cars online, the week commencing 1st June was also the busiest week on record for consumers sending enquiries to retailers for new cars, suggesting a healthy level of consumer confidence and willingness to purchase. 

Much of this growth in stock advertised online has been accelerated by improved integrations with OEM’s. We’re now working with ~20 marques who have agreed to share their new car stock data and new car finance information. These marques make up ~50% of the new car market, and we anticipate more marques will share this information over the next few months. Some of these integrations have gone live already, and we are working on getting the others live over the next few weeks and months.  

Auto Trader gets 33x more visits than all OEM websites combined, so these partnerships are giving the brands significantly more opportunities to get their vehicles in front of buyers to view, enquire and ultimately buy these new cars. 

One of the unique components of the way new cars are presented on Auto Trader is by prioritising physical stock that’s available locally to the consumer, rather than factory orders. This is not only better for the consumer, but better for the retailer and helps to liquidate aging / fully paid stock.  

Providing a rich experience for the consumer online is also providing great results for retailers. Adverts with 10 or more photos generate a 7x greater response than those with configurator imagery, so quality advertising is the biggest lever retailers can pull on to drive sales. 

Based on our analysis, the top performing retailers on Auto Trader influence 50% of their new car sales advertised on Auto Trader. If you’re a franchise retailer and you’re not yet advertising your brand new vehicles with us and you’d like to find out more contact us via brandnew@autotrader.co.uk – we’re currently offering a two month free trial and dedicated support to help get you up and running.