Car buyers ready to spend

More than a third of visitors to Auto Trader’s marketplace said they intended to buy a car within three months. Nearly one in five said they would buy a car within a fortnight.

It found that 35% of the 6,300 surveyed said they planned to buy a car inside three months.

Auto Trader receives an average of 2.1 million visits to its marketplace every day.

Its latest customer survey also assessed how comfortable car buyers were in visiting a dealership in person. While more than half (53%) said they would either be likely (38%) or very likely (15%) to visit, over a third (37%) were unlikely (24%) or very unlikely (13%) to visit.

Meanwhile, 36% of consumers want to complete an off-site transaction with home delivery.

Auto Trader’s commercial product director, Karolina Edwards-Smajda said: “While it may not remain at the record levels we’re currently observing on our marketplace, it is extremely reassuring to see that a high level of consumer demand is set to continue.

“The key outtake for us is that whilst demand is high, retailers can’t lose sight of the fact that today’s retail landscape is not the same as it was pre-lockdown – showrooms may have reopened, but that doesn’t mean car buyers want to visit them. There’s been a seismic rebalance of the retail model over the last 11 weeks and the digital forecourt has never been more influential in the car buying journey.”