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Showrooming Comes To Actual Showrooms, Auto Dealers Brace


NEW ORLEANS -- Consumers are showrooming in auto showrooms. A new study from Cars.com sheds light on how the practice of using mobile devices to cross-shop has become a practice not just in the aisles of conventional consumer retailers, but at automobile dealerships.

We already know that, effectively, there is not a soul who doesn't go online before going on dealer lots. But how is mobile changing this? Well, 54% of the U.S. digital population now uses multiple devices to access the Web. 

Using location-based panels to survey shoppers who were visiting dealer lots, the research, which Cars.com will reveal at NADA here today, says 63% of shoppers researched and shopped online while at dealerships. Fifty-one percent used devices to seek information related to price, payments and offers while almost 30% checked inventory and 17% read vehicle and dealer.

Twenty-five percent compared prices at competing dealers; 22% used them to find vehicles at other dealerships; fifteen percent read vehicle reviews. We will be interview Cars.com president Alex Vetter later today. Stay tuned. 

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