Automotive Market Research Articles

Auto industry market research, auto industry trends & analysis, market research in automotive industry, vehicle registration data.

Cyber Season Online Shopping Stats

As the 2014 holiday shopping season is underway let’s look at online sales vs. brick and mortar sales. “Black Friday” and “Cyber Monday” are on a lot of people’s minds so we’ll break down the stats for you with some quick facts: Black Friday brick & mortar sales down In general, consumers are continuing the shift from brick and mortar to online. That’s obvious. Although Black Friday is still a big day for brick and mortar store sales, actual sales from Black Friday are dropping. The National Retail Federation reports 55% of holiday shoppers were in stores and shopping online...

(Editor’s note: this article was originally published in November 2014, for an updated forecast, click here for a more current article. Aftermarket auto parts online continues to grow as a sales channel, and online sales will break the $6 billion mark in 2015. It’s an amazing online shopping growth statistic for our industry and auto parts market size is an aftermarket industry trend that we follow closely. Online sales of new auto parts, excluding online auctions, broke $5 billion for the first time in 2014 and will increase over 17% to hit $6 billion in 2015. That trend will...

We looked at our US vehicle registration database of 246.9 million vehicles to see who’s winning the new vehicle registration statistics for 2014. The results of our Big Data Shootout looking at new Vehicles in Operation (VIO) were a little surprising. We took registration data for new 2014 Chevrolet Camaros, Ford Mustangs and Dodge Challengers and pitted these late model muscle cars head-to-head for our first Big Data Shootout. We wanted to see which car had the most total registrations, as well as the biggest increase or decrease from last year. We analyzed year-to-date registrations through May 2014 and...

We get a lot of questions on US vehicle registration data and the vehicle registration database, like “how many cars are in the U.S.?” so here are some important things you need to know about buying and using automotive registration data. Original sources for VIO vehicle registration data The original sources for all vehicle registration data we use for analysis are state Departments of Motor Vehicles (DMVs), the OEMs (Ford, FCA US LLC, General Motors, Toyota, etc.) and the OEM captive finance companies (an example is Ford Motor Credit Company, LLC, commonly just called “Ford Credit”). Note that registration...

If you sell auto parts online, then your website needs to make a great first impression because online shoppers are fleeting. This is good information to keep in mind if you’re marketing your online parts store with an automotive paid search or SEO campaign. In a recent study published by Google, it was revealed that auto parts buyers visit a lot of sites, tend to not come back much, and make fairly quick decisions. Here are some highlights of the Google online shopping study. 3 out of 4 shoppers visit several auto parts sites before buying online Most auto parts...

auto parts and tire stores retail sales april 2014

Automotive parts and tire stores are showing a sales increase over last year, in one of the important automotive industry trends for 2014. Brick and mortar auto parts, auto accessory and tire stores showed a 3.7% sales increase in April 2014, over April 2013 (see chart at left). That’s a strong follow up to a 4.0% increase in March, compared to one year ago in March 2013. Aftermarket car parts sales YTD: auto parts retail sales up 3.1% January 2014 showed a 2.5% increase and February had a 2.1% increase, over one year ago. That puts 2014 auto parts...

A promising second quarter of 2014 for auto parts and tire sales may be on the way, based off data from Google Trends. The ability to use Google Trends to forecast certain things such as flu outbreaks is well documented. We used data from Google to plot changes in search volume for the Vehicle Parts & Accessories search category (blue line), against changes in retail sales of auto parts, accessories and tires (red). The correlation is stunning. This chart shows changes in search volume for all searches in the US in the Vehicle Parts & Accessories category. This is plotted against against changes...

Note: this article was originally published in April 2014, for an updated forecast, click here for a more current article. If you’re marketing automotive parts online, parts and accessories once again showed a significant sales increase over traditional brick and mortar retail sales in 2013. The dramatic transition in the automotive industry from brick and mortar to online continues to be one of the important auto parts industry trends to watch. This year will be our industry’s first year over $5 billion in online auto parts sales. Online sales in 2013 (excluding auctions) showed nearly a 16% increase over 2012 and online sales...

New vehicle registrations grew 7.2% in 2013 and here are some of the important automotive industry trends that “drove” growth, which makes them important trends for 2014. Over 15.2 million vehicles were registered in 2013 so let’s jump into the registration records and examine the hot trends shaping the automotive industry. Electric and hybrid vehicles provide a spark for auto sales It’s no secret, it seems like everyone’s talking about Tesla. Registrations for electric vehicles (EVs) and hybrids that run on both gas and electric power, are way up. In 2013, registration records of hybrid vehicles including the Toyota...

If you sell automotive parts or services online then you need to know what we discovered in our automotive SEO ranking factors and correlations study. This study evaluated factors that may contribute to a high SEO ranking in Google. This market research should be interesting to SEMA, Auto Care Association, MEMA or AASA members. Only Google knows the actual factors that contribute to high organic rankings and this study doesn’t “prove” these factors will result in a high automotive SEO rankings. But, for organic search results, it does show what highly-ranked automotive web pages have in common. We’re indebted...

Here are our 5 Google automotive SEO and paid search predictions for 2014. Regular readers of this blog may be familiar with our previous Google predictions for the SEMA industry, which we’re proud to say, have mostly been on target. Prediction #1 for 2014: Automotive SEO and paid search continues to be a battle for real estate, not just position We made this prediction a year ago and it’s an even more important auto industry trend SEO efforts, or paid search (PPC) marketing. A few years ago automotive SEO and paid search was all about position—marketers wanted to be...

In SEO or automotive paid search, long tail keywords are the key to gaining more traffic and more sales. This has become even more important with Google’s new Hummingbird algorithm update, signaling huge new opportunity in search engine optimization. This is an important automotive aftermarket trend for 2013 and beyond, if you sell online. Auto SEO and long tail search keywords defined First, let’s define what long tail searches are and why they’re important for automotive SEO and paid search, especially in the aftermarket. Long tail keywords are phrases used in search using three or more words, such as...

We recently participated in a free webinar to help companies in the automotive aftermarket prepare for 2013 online holiday shopping, called “6 Ways to Increase Online Sales This Holiday Season,” along with the web experts at WebShopManager. As the holiday selling season approaches you’ll want to prepare your email marketing plan and work on your search engine optimization (SEO) and pay per click (PPC)/paid search marketing plans, as you plan for this important aftermarket industry trend. Top holiday online sales days: 2012 and 2013 If you sell automotive parts and accessories online and you are planning for the holidays,...

Automobile and truck sales are up this year, so here are the top six auto industry trends and aftermarket trends to watch based on vehicle registrations for the first half of 2013 compared to the same period in 2012. Total vehicle registrations are up +7.6% over last year, with 7,755,110 total new vehicles registered through June 2013. Here are the automotive trends that are really driving sales growth this year: Auto Industry Trend 1: Trucks and SUVs are hot. New car registrations are up 4.9% but light trucks and SUVs, like this Ford F-150 (right), are helping fuel the...

You can improve automotive SEO and Google AdWords paid search results by understanding how automotive parts and accessory customers originally find your website, and how they return to make a purchase. You can discover a lot of information hidden in the Multi-Channel Funnels reporting section of Google Analytics (menu shown at left) so as an automotive aftermarket digital marketing agency we thought we’d pass this along in our blog. As Google puts it, “…these days, the customer journey has grown more complex.” Amen! Customers can come to your site from many marketing channels: social media, email, paid search ads...

November 2012: Monthly Vehicle Sales vs Consumer Confidence

New automotive industry statistics: After a somewhat slow October 2012, the auto industry saw an increase in light vehicle sales for November 2012. October brought somewhat sluggish auto sales, yielding a Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate (SAAR) of 14.23M, November came in strong with 1.14 million units sold, raising the SAAR to 15.48M. Experts are observing that the sales are partly driven by the devastation left behind by Hurricane Sandy. Edmunds.com noted that about 30,000 sales of automobiles were lost or deferred in October due to the superstorm. Also, between 200,000 and 250,000 vehicles were damaged or destroyed by Sandy,...

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Automotive Market Research Articles

Cyber Season Online Shopping Stats

Auto Parts: Online Sales to Break $6 Billion in 2015

Big Data Shootout: Mustang vs Camaro vs Challenger Vehicles in Operation (VIO) Stats

Everything You Need to Know About Using Vehicles in Operation (VIO) Registration Analysis

How Online Auto Parts Buyers Shop for Parts & Accessories

Automotive Industry Trends: Auto Parts & Tire Stores Start 2014 With 3.1% Sales Increase

Auto Parts Sales: Is Google Forecasting a Good 2nd Quarter?

Auto Parts Marketing: Online Sales of Parts & Accessories to Hit $5 Billion in 2014

Top Automobile Industry Trends for 2014

Why Long Tail Search Changed Automotive SEO and Paid Search Forever

Top 5 Aftermarket Online Holiday Sales Days

Top 6 Auto Aftermarket Trends Halfway Through 2013

November 2012: Monthly Vehicle Sales vs Consumer Confidence