Online and Offline Experience of Car Shopping
Lucretia and I are in the market for buying another car, but we’re not ready to “buy” it online. Over the years, the internet has proven to be a great platform for people who want to research about cars, so they can go into the dealer fully prepared with all the information. We are no exception, so we have been frequenting the dealer sites and various auto-shopping sites out there. I hope to do reviews of some of these sites soon.
But there’s nothing like the real thing, so we visited a local dealership to do a test drive. Maybe it was just the one guy that was helping us, but I think the attitude of the car salespeople have shifted to reflect the shift in the consumers’ attitude because of the internet. We felt confident knowing all the facts about the car, so we were ready to deflect any sales talk coming remotely close to BS. But we were almost disappointed when the sales guy took a REALLY laid back approach. He didn’t even come on the test drive with us! Is this normal? (We hadn’t visited a dealer since 2001.) It was almost like he knew not to BS people anymore, that he knew that would be a waste of time. We haven’t tried other dealers, so it’s hard to say for sure — but I felt liberated, like I would get what I wanted for a reasonable price, as long as I researched properly. If the dealer respects my space and my ability as a consumer, I respect their product, and grow to believe that I’m getting a good value. Honesty, building trust, and folksy attitude — it feels very Web 2.0!
On the other hand, the online experience is getting harder and harder to enjoy. The so-called consumer sites are riddled with ads and promotions by the dealers, I don’t know what information to trust anymore — unless I look at everything very carefully. It’s almost like the online and the offline experiences swapped places….
I’ll post more updates as we continue our car shopping. But so far going to the dealer has proven to be more efficient and productive than researching online, when considering the amount of time spent on both.
