Online buying spreads north

Manchester, Sheffield and Glasgow have overtaken London as hotspots for online car buying.

According to BuyaCar.co.uk, the top 10 postcode locations based on sales per thousand residents were all in London and the neighbouring counties of Kent, Surrey and Essex during 2020.

But so far this year that pattern has been replaced by a surge in demand as far afield as north Wales, Shropshire, West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, the North West, County Durham and Scotland.

Compared with the same period last year, enquiries in Manchester so far in 2021 have increased by 15.7%, those in Sheffield are up by 9.5% and in Glasgow by a whopping 22.2%. Meanwhile, sales to customers in London are unchanged.

Christofer Lloyd, editor of BuyaCar.co.uk, said: “We are seeing a very different pattern in sales and enquiries compared to the pre-Covid years, doubtless driven at least partly by changes to the car market caused by anti-coronavirus measures. Historically, we always saw deliveries concentrated in and around the capital and across more far-flung rural areas, where physically shopping for cars is less convenient than in urban areas. But that is certainly changing as sales growth is distributed more widely across the north of Britain.

“Another interesting change so far this year, is that the average distance across which we are delivering cars to customers is significantly smaller. In the first three weeks of last year the average delivery distance was 243 miles, but that has reduced by 67% this year to 164 miles.”