South West is UK car shopping hot spot

A new survey has revealed that car shopping is more popular in the South West than in any other region.

Across the UK, 75 per cent of people said that they had been car shopping in a car dealership or showroom. This figure rocketed to 85 per cent in the South West - in stark contrast to regions like London, where only 56 per cent of people have visited car retailers.

Despite this passion for car shopping, however, consumers in the South West don’t have an allegiance to any specific dealership brands - three quarters (75 per cent) are dealership neutral.

The research, which was commissioned by digital signage consultancy, Saturn Visual Solutions, and carried out by market research company, OnePoll, asked 2000 UK-based, adult full-time and part-time workers about their experiences of car shopping.

Its findings come against a backdrop of waning private consumer demand for new cars across Great Britain. Earlier this month, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) published figures showing that registrations by private buyers fell by -8.7% in 2024.

Matthew Drury, Director and co-owner of Saturn Visual Solutions said: “The South West’s enthusiasm for car shopping can be taken as a positive indication for the regional automotive sector. However, it is concerning that the vast majority of people in the South West couldn’t name a dealership or car showroom that they preferred.

“The automotive industry is having a tough time at the moment. Demand from private car buyers has weakened, particularly in the EV market. The rising cost of living means that car purchases represent a significant investment. As such, the industry can’t ignore things like delivering a positive, memorable customer experience which enthuses car buyers.”

On a national basis, the research found that women are much less likely to enjoy the process of car shopping, with 93 per cent of female respondents indicating that they didn’t like learning about different types of car technology. Almost all females (95%) felt they were given too much information by car dealership sales staff.

The research also looked at the experiences of people in different age groups and found that middle-aged people (35-54 yrs) are the most likely to think car shopping is ‘boring’ (27%), the least likely to enjoy learning about car technology (11%), and the most likely to be dealership neutral (74%).

Younger people (18-34 yrs) are the most likely to likely to enjoy learning about different cars (29%), but the most likely to feel overloaded with information (16%). They are the most likely to feel self-conscious if they don’t understand terminology used by salespeople (23%).

Matthew Drury added; “The experience of going car shopping at a dealership or showroom has hardly changed in the last 50 years. So, there’s certainly room for them to work harder at differentiating themselves by delivering a better customer experience.

“Our research shows that everyone has different preferences when it comes to car buying. Younger people tend to want more information, middle-aged people tend to want less. The more digital natives that join the UK’s car owners/buyers, the more out of date the current process of car buying at a showroom/dealership is going to feel very soon.”

Saturn Visual Solutions is a digital signage consultancy and works with automotive retail businesses to help them make their on-site shopping experience more engaging and positive to increase profitability.

Saturn has used the research to produce a white paper called ‘The Showroom Redemption’ ( https://saturnvisual.com/car-sales-industry-white-paper-the-showroom-redemption/) for car sales businesses.