44 - North Shore News — Friday, November 24, 2000

Tony Whitney
Contributing Writer
THE ups and downs of
the dotcom world are
familiar territory to any
regular reader of news-
Paper business pages,
but despite these tra-
vails, the Internet is -
. playing an increasingly
- important role in our
_ Not surprisingly, the Web is
~ having a significant effect on
* the way we buy our cars, but
perhaps not in the way many .
/ analysts expected. :
One fact that seems to have
emerged is that
~° rushing to buy their new cazs
:; on the Internet. It seems that
‘buyers still prefer to meet a

‘real person with whom to dis-
= cuss their Next set of wheels.

le are not”

The Web and car buyi

Pye seen Internet new car
purchase figures of between
three and five per cent, but
never much higher. This is not
surprising when considering,
that for most of us, our aute-
mobile is the second-most
costly purchase we ever make
behind a home. Few people
would plunk down their cash
on a home without seeing the
bricks and mortar and the
same proviso seems to apply to
cars.

According to David Riedel,
vice president of equity
research for U.S. consultant
Salomon Smith Barney, the
internet models which tried to
circumvent the franchised
dealers are quickly fading.

Used vehicles are, perhaps,
a different story and it s clearly
useful for bargain hunters to
scan the used car Internet sites
for the vehicle they’re hunting
for.

What consumers are doing

‘is carefully researching planned

purchases on the Internet
using information-based auto-
move sites. Some upscale
automakers are claiming that
as many as 75 per cent of their

.. customers first research their
- purchase on the Web. Huge

numbers of buyers are brows-

ing the .Web for pricing infor-
“mation, road test re}

and
technical details before visiting
their dealer. -

Perhaps it’s also no surprise

that the world of automotive
Web sites is something ofa a

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minefield. Part of the problem
is that any savvy 10-year-old
can set up a Web site of sorts
these days. The simplicity of
the process has meant that all
kinds of less-than-experienced
car nuts are out there pro-
claiming their communications
prowess and audience figures
and demanding, press cars
from automakers’ PR depart-
ments.

There are probably tens of
thousands of Web sites with
motoring themes, most of
them little more than amateur
efforts, but thankfully, there
are a fair number of well-run
automotive sites using sea-

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soned professionals to con-
tribute material. Usually, these
are people already well estab-
lished in more conventional
media.

Also worth a mention are
Web sites operated by the
automakers themselves and by
manufacturers of tires, batter-
ies, fuels and lubricant and
other automotive peripherals.
Some of these are excellent,
though others are not updated
as often as they should be.

It’s always worth remem-
bering too, that automakers
Sites might be a store of speci-

See Researching paye 47

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