• by February 15, 2006

It's not a new thing that consumers are researching auto purchases online, but they're also turning research behavior into actual purchases, as a new study from Experian Automotive reveals.

The study shows that more than 61 percent of shoppers who contacted a seller on cars.com ultimately purchased a vehicle. Of those buyers, 79 percent purchased within 90 days. The study analyzed a sample of one million phone calls and e-mail leads, from cars.com shoppers to dealerships advertising on the site over a one-year period between September 2004 and August 2005.

According to the Experian study, as many as 41 percent of all cars.com phone and e-mail lead senders purchased a vehicle within 30 days of their inquiry.

Experian Automotive's Auto Leads Analysis service matches leads submitted by consumers on Web sites such as cars.com against Experian's National Vehicle Database, which offers registration and title data on more than 500 million vehicles.

Cars.com offers more than 1.4 million vehicle listings from 10,000 dealer customers; the site, with its partners, reaches 65 percent of all online used car shoppers. It was recently named a Best of the Web site for car shopping by Forbes.com.