Study Finds Internet First Stop for Oz Car Shoppers

The Internet is increasingly dominating the Australian new-vehicle market.

National research finds 67.7% of Aussies planning to buy a new vehicle in the next four years say the Internet is the most useful medium for helping them decide on their new wheels.

Roy Morgan researchers say 45% consider search engines such as Google the most valuable source of information, followed by specific websites at 24.9%.

This is well ahead of newspapers (10.7%), television (5.4%) and magazines (4.1%).

The Internet not only dominates among new-vehicle intenders but also is the only medium to have made gains over the past four years.

Since 2013, the Internet has increased its relevance as Australians’ most useful source of information by 10.1 percentage points. In the same period, newspapers suffered the biggest loss with a fall of 6.3 points, followed by magazines off 2.1 points and television down 1.9 points.

Roy Morgan says in a statement that although all generations’ greatest preference for new-vehicle information is the Internet, there are some differences across other media.

The older generations, including pre-Baby Boomers (age 72+) and Baby Boomers (age 57-71) still consider newspapers to be relevant.

And while the overall market preference for newspapers as the most useful source of information is only 10.7%, for pre-Boomers this rises to 23.2% and Baby Boomers also are above average with 17.7%.

By contrast, Millennials – those born between 1983 and 2000 – have the lowest preference for newspapers with only 3.3% compared with 74.6% for the Internet.

Television has a low overall average as an information source with only 5.4% and has its highest score among Generation Z (19 years and under) with 8.3%.

Magazines remain relevant to pre-Boomers with 8.8% against a market average of 4.1%.

“The widespread use of the Internet to provide detailed information to intending car buyers gives them unprecedented ability to make-well informed decisions, particularly when negotiating with dealers,” Norman Morris, director-industry communications for Roy Morgan.