Dongchedi: Analysis report on car users' purchasing behavior in November 2019

On January 2, the China Automobile Dealers Association and Autohome jointly released the "Analysis Report on Automobile Users' Purchase and Purchase Behavior in November 2019" (hereinafter referred to as the "Report"), which analyzes the thoughts of Chinese automobile consumers in the three different stages of "viewing", "selecting" and "buying" from the perspectives of content, brand and model. What type of content is likely to attract users' attention? What are the key factors that affect users' decision-making? Which category is more preferred by users: German, Japanese or domestic brands? The "Report" provides detailed interpretations.

Generally speaking, when users purchase products, they will go through three stages: viewing (interest), selecting (intention), and buying (decision-making). For large consumer goods such as cars, users will carefully screen information at each stage in order to obtain a more comprehensive understanding to make purchase decisions. The Report follows the consumption path of viewing, selecting, and buying, abstracting the user's access path and conversion rate from the two dimensions of user active search and advertising media communication, so as to fully understand the user's consumption path for car purchases.

Video format is popular, and car reviews are more popular

The report shows that the popularity of interest communication has been rising steadily from June to November this year, with a total growth of 6% in the past six months. From the perspective of users' attention to information, video is still the most popular content type for users, and long and short videos often account for more than half of the content themes of the month. Obviously, compared with text reading, video can reach the core of the content, and users can understand more comprehensive information more intuitively, which is in line with the current fast-paced living standards. In addition, during the Guangzhou Auto Show in October, due to the concentrated debut of new models and the concentrated outbreak of automobile information, it is necessary to quickly and effectively convey information to the audience, which has an impact on the distribution of reading content themes.

The report shows that the reading volume of picture sets increased by 85% in November, and the reading content was more concentrated on types such as auto exhibitions and auto designs. On the one hand, this is because the cost of creating picture set content is significantly lower than that of videos and articles. On the other hand, auto exhibitions, auto designs and other content can convey information to the audience faster and more effectively in the form of picture sets, meeting their needs for understanding auto show and car model information.

From the perspective of the types of content that users actively search for, the proportion of evaluation programs has increased significantly, and users are more concerned about modification, test driving, testing, etc. It can be seen that in addition to understanding the appearance, functions and market information of the vehicle, users also want to see professionals' in-depth interpretation of the vehicle's performance, actual use, etc., to help them obtain more three-dimensional and comprehensive information.

Users are highly price sensitive and pay more attention to the model level and configuration when choosing a car

When users move from the "viewing" stage to the "selecting" stage, they will pay more attention to the model level, price and detailed model parameter information, and tend to ask interactive questions online.

Buying a car is often the second largest consumer expenditure after buying a house. Model grade and price are the two factors that users consider first, accounting for more than 70%. In addition, users pay attention to factors such as transmission and fuel, and only 27% of users pay attention to transmission.

In terms of product configuration, users in different fields focus on different things. The report shows that reversing image and ESP function are the two most important safety configurations for users, and more than half of users pay attention to the above two when considering vehicle safety. Among the importance of various comfort configurations to users, keyless start, panoramic sunroof, and multi-function steering wheel rank in the top three. It can be seen that with the rise of the younger generation of consumer groups, their requirements for technological configurations are getting higher and higher. Consumers who often have high requirements for quality of life will ask for as many comfort configurations as possible, such as seat heating, cruise control, etc.

In the "car selection" stage, the usage rate of the car model library function and the functions visited for the first time can well reflect the user's inclination. In terms of function usage rate, the content details, gallery and car model list of the car model library are the three most used categories by users. In addition, interactive behavior is conducive to strengthening users' understanding of car models. Users will also interact during the car selection process. For most users, if they interact under a certain topic, it means that this user pays more attention to the content.

Models priced under 200,000 yuan are still the mainstream choice for "buying a car"

When users have a certain understanding of car models, they will have one or more models in mind, and will actively compare prices and inquire about discounts, and are about to make a purchase decision. According to user purchase intentions, German, domestic and Japanese brands are still the three major players, accounting for more than 80% in total. In terms of the price retention trend of subdivided models, models within 200,000 yuan are still the mainstream choice for "buying a car". In November, affected by the Guangzhou Auto Show, the proportion of high-end models above 500,000 yuan increased significantly.

From the report, we can see that users’ interest, intention and decision-making before purchasing a car are affected by media content, industry activities and even holidays, and users’ different brand selection and product emphasis will affect all links of the automotive industry chain. In this context, Dongchedi, as the vice president unit of the China Automobile Dealers Association, has formed complementary advantages with the China Automobile Dealers Association by virtue of its inherent traffic advantages and data operation advantages of Internet attributes, and regularly outputs insight content for the industry based on data and industry observations, providing useful references for the marketing, sales, service and other links of the automotive industry.