What time of day and week are mobile shoppers flocking to dealerships’ lots?
To find the answer, Cars.com has examined the peak shopping hours and days of the week for mobile shoppers (based on shoppers who use their mobile phones to visit Cars.com). In January, we created a baseline report (using our patented Lot Insights technology) that showed that Saturday afternoon is a peak time for mobile shoppers – and that Sundays and Thursdays are the least popular days. Here’s what we found for February:
- Shoppers visit dealerships more often: we tracked 444,973 visits to dealership lots during February, a 3 percent increase over the 432,250 visits we tracked for January.
- Shoppers live for the weekend: Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays saw a total increase of 13 percent in visits from January to February.
- Afternoon is crucial. As with our January report, the afternoon remains an especially popular time for consumers to shop for cars.
Why the uptick in traffic for the month? Here are a few possible reasons – and the following consists of speculation on my part:
- Presidents’ Day sales may have boosted traffic especially in the run-up to the weekend, as such sales typically occur the weekend before Presidents’ Day. Shoppers might have been using Cars.com to look at sales prices while on the lot
- Unseasonably warm weather might have played a role as well.
As I noted when I discussed our January On the Lot report, franchise dealers and independents should prepare their salespeople to be ready to engage with mobile shoppers, especially during the afternoon hours when their visits peak. Assume that mobile shoppers are comparing your vehicles with your competitors’ inventory and have Cars.com’s mobile app loaded on your device so that you are ready to review the same inventory your customers are probably reviewing.
For more detail on our February On-the-Lot report, check out the following report. And, check out all of our monthly reports here.
