Mar 5, 2025

WHITEPAPER – Insights to the Automotive Changeover Journey

MEDIA RELEASE

Wednesday 5 March 2025

AUTOGRAB – Insights to the Automotive Changeover Journey

AutoGrab, Australia’s leading Automotive Intelligence Platform, has released a study highlighting the significant impact of consumer understanding and trust during an automotive changeover journey. The research focused on the changeover process—selling an existing car while buying a new one—examining consumer perceptions, hesitations, and satisfaction levels before and after the transaction.

Key Findings:

Consumer Sentiment Improves Over Time:

Initially, only 56% of buyers felt calm, but this increased to 87% by the end of the process.
Confidence levels rose from 64% to 87%, and excitement grew from 68% to 82%.
Buyers who expected to be “in control” of the process increased from 63% to 82%.

Dealership Preference Increases Post-Purchase:

At the start, 47% intended to buy/sell through a dealer, but this rose to 51% by the end.
7% initially planned to buy and sell privately, but none actually followed through.
36% intended to sell privately and buy from a dealer, and 34% did so.
9% planned to sell to a dealer and buy privately, but 15% ultimately did so.

Consumer Priorities & Satisfaction Gaps:
Buyers ranked factors in order of importance but showed lower satisfaction in key areas:

Test drive (89% importance, 78% satisfaction)
Accredited dealer (88%, 81%)
Simple paperwork (88%, 68%)
Lowest purchase price (87%, 63%)
Accurate trade-in valuation (87%, 57%)
Highest trade-in price (85%, 56%)
Best net changeover price (84%, 59%)

Major gaps were found in cost-related areas, including trade-in valuation (-30%), net changeover (-25%), and lowest purchase price (-24%).

Implications for Dealerships:

Consumer Education & Transparency:

Customers need a clearer understanding of trade-in valuations and how pricing is determined.
AutoGrab’s tools help explain factors like vehicle depreciation, market supply, and pricing calculations.

Enhancing Customer Experience:

Dealers should leverage their first-touchpoint advantage, certified pre-owned vehicles, and customer service focus.
The study found dealer-coordinated factors—test drives, in-person inspections, and easy paperwork—were the most valued aspects.

Digital Integration & Market Adaptation:

With branded dealerships websites, marketplaces, and brand websites being the top search channels, dealers must strengthen online presence and data-driven customer engagement tools.

Quotes attributable to AutoGrab’s Chief Commercial Officer, Saxon Odgers

We commissioned this research give us some insights into what’s important to buyers. What are the buyers’ hesitations?

What are the dealers doing well to give them some insights into their practices and, of course, to look at where the suite of AutoGrab’s products can potentially address some of the hesitations that may have been identified.

And we did identify some, particularly on the selling end of the transaction in terms of transparency on cost and value of vehicles.

AutoGrab’s Realtime Pricing application can help educate customers on what drives vehicle valuations.

It is very transparent in the sense that it provides context of why a car is worth what it is, and dealers often use it to educate customers about the market.

For example, a car might be worth X amount of dollars now, however, in the next 60 days, we anticipate that the car will depreciate a further 18 per cent. This can be used to encourage the customer to consider a trade-in as part of that total transaction, instead of going into a heavily competitive market and advertising their car privately.