Know your European auto buyers better. Sell better.
Why the competitive edge in today’s auto sales doesn't lie with Marketplaces or Dealers, but somewhere in between.
A big bumpy picture
The Automotive Dealership industry across Europe varies significantly due to diverse market conditions, regulatory environments, and cultural factors. These differences are particularly evident in areas, such as aftersales, labour costs, brand loyalty and stock levels. Dealers can also be affected differently by evolving megatrends such as electrification, digitalisation, and agency models.
Whilst it is generally true that aftersales performance is important to overall dealer profitability, what European dealerships have in common is the enormous contribution made by new and used car sales. But the market is turbulent, and dealers need new approaches to tap into the vastly competitive lead pool more effectively.
Buyer predictability revealed
European auto marketplaces are well-placed to gather data, but how can they share and interpret detailed buyer intent with dealers?
Kaisa conducted a large-scale analysis of second-hand car consumer behaviour in Europe, based on data from 3 million experiences, 100,000 dealers, and over a million unique consumers. It became clear that, although there is no such thing as a typical buyer, customer behaviours can be predicted, and specific personas identified and managed.
Buying Personas
Amongst the study’s suggestions, consumers can be split initially into three main categories: comparison buyers (32%), returning buyers (20%), and one-time buyers (48%).
Comparison buyers for example represent 75% of all high-intent engagements and engage in an average of 6.5 high-intent engagements and compare between 4.2 different cars.
Buyers can be further categorised based on their engagement timeline, price sensitivity brand loyalty, EV and ICE. preferences and more. The list becomes ever more granular.
Shared insights, shared value.
When marketplaces share consumer insights with dealers they help convert leads more effectively. Gathering more buying persona insights, helping to build customised and personalised automation, and creating more precisely targeted marketing.
If a dealer, for example, knows a buyer is price-sensitive they can initiate workflows that line up discounts or alternative vehicles in that price range. If they are looking at both EVs and ICE vehicles, dealers could for instance, automatically email links articles or resources to help consumers make informed decisions about their purchase.
Marketplaces can also play a role in assisting consumers throughout the buying journey, by providing guidance and follow-up surveys to understand the outcome of the purchase decision and rate the relative performance of dealers. These insights also provide dealers with valuable agent performance and marketing efficacy data.
Patterns of Success.
Whilst it’s true that there is no typical European used car buyer, certain behaviour patterns and personas can be identified and predicted. This helps marketplaces and dealers deliver better customer journeys, providing data insights and enabling the personalized engagement today’s consumers demand. It is key to creating the successful Marketplace- Dealership partnerships of the future.