Living in Vancouver all my life, it’s hard to imagine purchasing a car through e-commerce. When I came across the article of “Why People Actually Buy Cars Online in China“, I was intrigued.
One of the key things that the article outlined was that articles on VW are shared via. WeChat. This is interesting because WeChat’s main demographic are Chinese. WeChat is an app for communication where you can also share articles to your friends and family, thus, it is quite personal. More than 90% use the online community (weibo) to research on cars. This emphasizes the importance of understanding the online community that your target market is in and how they behave on these online platforms.
As outlined in by Accenture in China’s automotive market report, research has been done to confirm that people in China rely on friends, family, social media and manufacturer’s website to make purchase decisions on cars. I imagine the automobile behaviour is quite different in North America, where I would rely on dealership visits and test drives. I began wondering where the difference lies between North America vs. China. One possibility may be that the Chinese spend more time on their mobile devices during their commute to and from work, relating to the point of “meet consumers where they are, not where you think they should be”. In the fast-paced lifestyle in China, it may be more convenient to just see an online video of vehicles, read friends and family reviews and recommendations, and refer to social media channels to influence purchase behaviour.
I cannot imagine myself purchasing a car without physically touching, feeling, and driving the vehicle before purchase. However, it will be interesting to see how consumer behaviour changes in North America over time. Will we end up trusting brands enough to make a big hefty purchase online?