GfK Automotive Shopping Study

The Most Comprehensive Instrument in the Automotive Category for Measuring and Understanding Actual Retail Behavior and Shopping Patterns

The GfK Automotive Shopping Study is a monthly and quarterly tracking study that looks at new car and truck shopping patterns (both at the dealership and on the Internet) in the US market. The study is conducted concurrently with the same sample that receives the GfK Automotive Intentions and Purchases Study (AIP). For twenty years, this survey has generated the most comprehensive and actionable shopping metrics in the automotive category.

The GfK Automotive Shopping Study provides insight into retail activity, the mix of vehicles shopped, the demographic makeup of new vehicle shoppers—by make and by model—and the composition of consumers’ cross-shopping sets. Importantly, results are linked to intentions and purchases to facilitate analysis of the transformation of demand into sales. It is a valuable look into the dynamics of actual shopping behavior by new vehicle intenders and can serve as the backdrop for the analysis of Purchase Funnel interaction.

A Powerful and Unique Research Design

The Automotive Shopping Study is continuously in the field, using Internet sample sources. GfK receives approximately 200,000 completed surveys each quarter and all fieldwork is balanced according to geography, socioeconomic characteristics and household composition to assure representativeness and reproducibility of results. Information is delivered monthly in virtual real time—within ten days of the close of the month.

Key elements of the shopping database include:

Segment, make and model shares of new vehicle shoppers
Share of shoppers segmented by Internet and dealership shopping
Shares based to total and segment shopping activity ("shops”)
Cross-shopping of other makes or models
Purchaser closing rates (i.e., for a specific make or model, closing rates among purchasers who shopped that make/model)
Shopper closing rates (i.e., make/model closing rates among shoppers whether or not they have purchased yet)
Lost sales (i.e., make/model purchased against makes/model shopped)
Extensive demographic and geographic data

There is no other resource in the automotive category that provides the depth of information, the compelling insights and the ability to analyze shopping data and retail interaction with a track of almost twenty years of history.

For more information about the GfK Automotive Shopping Study, or any other GfK Automotive product, contact us today.