• by Tanya Gazdik , Staff Writer, December 20, 2016

It’s the time of the year for reflection and learning, and that applies to business dealings. 

With auto sales rising higher than expected in November, the industry could be on track for a second straight year of record sales. After three months of dips, that took some by surprise. 

Dealer.com, a Cox Automotive brand operating websites of 62% U.S. franchise car dealerships, has insights from its digital advertising network that provide a closer at the behavior of vehicle shoppers in 2016.

First off, there were no summer doldrums in auto sales. Summer shopping brought the year’s top traffic. The busiest day for car shopping (measured by vehicle detail page views on the Dealer.com network) was July 24, followed by Aug. 25, 26 and 29. Automakers should make note of that for next year.

Consumers aren’t just dreaming of the weekend on Fridays; they are also thinking about buying a new vehicle. Car shoppers visited Dealer.com websites most often on Fridays throughout 2016. Fridays, however, had the smallest ratio of forms-to-visits, leaving room for improvement in terms of dealerships closing out the deal.

"Friday afternoons were seen as days for shoppers to develop their ‘game plans’ and do their automotive homework before hitting one or two dealerships for test drives over the weekend,” said James Grace, senior director of analytics products, Cox Automotive Media Solutions Group. “Our data shows that high traffic quantity doesn’t always correlate to high quality, and there is significant room for improvement in terms of giving consumers more online deal-making tools that can close the gaps in engagement and conversion to sales.”

It’s old-school, but maybe Sunday really is a day of rest, including shopping. There was a definite slowdown, with Sunday, May 8, registering as the slowest day of the year. Nine out of the top 10 slowest car shopping days of the year took place on a Sunday. On the flip side, Sundays also had a higher tendency for engagement on vehicle pages.

If you want to get really specific, afternoons seemed to be the preferred time for vehicle shopping year-round.  According to dealer.com, 2 p.m. Eastern was the most frequent timestamp throughout the year when it came to shoppers starting the car buying experience online.

A final “fun” fact: Everything truly is bigger in Texas. The Lone Star State had the highest aggregate traffic across the network, followed by California, Florida, New York, and Pennsylvania.

It’s anyone’s guess what 2017 will set up to be. 

“The bottom line is, sales [rates] are still pretty high, but they are plateauing and it is taking more effort in terms of promotion and incentives to keep sales higher. And we expect that will be more of the same next year,” said Michele Krebs, senior analyst for automotive website Autotrader.