People Still Aren’t Into Buying Cars Online

In the US, cars follow only housing as the most expensive purchase consumers make. So it makes a lot of sense that, according to recent buyer surveys, very few of them want an Amazon-style, one-click approach to getting a new set of wheels.

“People want to see, feel, and touch the car,” says Erin Lomax, the vice president of consumer marketing at Cox Automotive, a research firm that also makes digital auto sales products that allow dealers to initiate transactions online. (This gives Cox a lot of insight into buying patterns, but it also has a stake here.)

Not to mention test-driving the expensive thing they’ll probably use every day. Data released by Cox this month shows that while 28 percent of car buyers go into the transaction thinking they want to do the whole thing online, just 7 percent end up pulling it off. More than half of buyers conduct their purchases entirely in person.

Another consumer survey, published in the fall, found that just over half of car buyers wanted to physically sign paper copies of important documents. In yet another, released in December, 86 percent of surveyed buyers said ​​they wanted to see a car in person before finalizing their purchase.

That’s despite what looks like a full-scale industry push to bring car-buying online, one that began out of necessity when the Covid-19 pandemic and related shutdowns limited in-person interactions. The direct-sales success of automakers including Tesla and Rivian, and online-first used-car merchants including CarMax and Carvana, have also given the practice some momentum. Dealerships and used-car sites have rolled out waves of technology in recent years—including crucial backend connections between financial institutions—allowing more and more of the transaction to happen with a series of clicks or taps.

This past summer, Hertz launched a fully online car buying platform, letting customers get prequalified for loans, evaluate trade-ins, choose warranties, and eventually arrange pickups on the internet.

It turns out, though, that the whole online car-buying thing is nuanced. It’s not that people are eschewing the internet altogether. In interviews, purchasers told Cox that they were pleased that they could do lots of the process—especially applying for and receiving loan approvals—online. One described a “seamless” transition between researching and selecting a car online, then going into the dealership to finalize the deal.

Lomax says Cox finds that internet-enthusiastic buyers tend to make their way to brick-and-mortar dealerships when they hit the financing part of the transaction. “They really figured out viewing inventory online,” she says. “The steps relating to money and financing—that’s where the anxiety comes in.”

The auto industry sees big potential upsides in calming that anxiety, especially for Americans who aren’t comfortable with the wheeling and dealing that goes down at some dealerships. Amazon’s Autos division, launched in 2024, lets consumers research and sometimes finance vehicles online, then passes them on to local dealerships to finish up the work. The company declined to share numbers, but spokesperson Jessyka Faison says in a written statement that Amazon is “very encouraged by the strong positive response.” (The company notes that customers often browse Amazon Autos during evening hours, when dealers might be closed.)

Automakers are getting in on the internet, too. In the fall, Ford joined Hyundai in allowing car buyers in select US cities to buy certified pre-owned vehicles on Amazon’s giant online sales platform. Ford CEO Jim Farley vocally coveted Tesla’s direct sales approach, which skips the middle-man dealership altogether. “We’ve got to go to non-negotiated price. We’ve got to go to 100 percent online,” he said at a 2022 event, referring to EV sales strategies specifically.