Pre owned car predictions for 2017
Buying a car is one of those big decisions in adult life almost everyone must make.
There’s no escaping it, a car is necessary in order to complete the various tasks required of adult life.
Transporting groceries from the store, getting children to school, arriving on time to work – all these are required activities for many people that can’t be completed without transportation.
While of course people find and use alternatives all the time – from metered taxis, lift clubs and public transport – there’s no escaping that car purchases are a serious aspect for the modern adult. To that end, it’s worth considering what the market holds for pre owned cars and what it means for pre owned car purchases in years to come.
Online changes everything
One of the most important tools of modern, daily life is the internet. It has changed how consumers engage with products and services, like never before. Today, you can find out information on businesses you’ve never heard of. You can even get precise reviews about products you’re considering, before you even buy them.
The online world has changed how people consider their car purchases. In America, you can witness the evolution of the car sales industry, as Digital Trend highlights. CarMax and TrueCar provide a nationwide stock of used cars, informing users how much they can really expect to pay for a new car. But two others worth considering are Beepi and Vroom.
“Each service handles things a little differently. Beepi advertises itself as a peer-to-peer marketplace – essentially acting as a broker for your private party deal, but adding inspections and a warranty to sweeten the pot. In exchange for that, they take the difference between the seller’s price and the buyer’s price – just like a used car dealer. Vroom works a bit more like CarMax – they have the cars, and they’ll sell you a car and take your trade-in. But unlike CarMax, they don’t have a big dealership you can walk through – it’s all online and they deliver the car to you, with the delivery charge baked into the purchase price.”
While South Africa and other countries might not have all of these sorts of companies, there are still used car pages online. For example, major manufacturers like Hyundai offer second hand sales that benefit the customers.
Additionally, you can also find out directly from other users how cars and dealerships work. In this way, consumers are no longer going in blind but can be fully informed. This reduces the chances of consumers being ripped off. It also means car dealers have to be better than ever. The important part is that you are provided better overall service. Even if you are not fully informed, social media and other platforms provide you with a way to make your complaints known to the world. Therefore, it is in a business’ interest to not cheat people out of money or scam them with lies about their products. And cars, more than most items, are the focus of intense interest.
New versus used
One of the biggest trends will be what kind of vehicle people will decide to buy. As Business Tech notes, South Africa will see an increase move toward used cars:
“The weaker Rand has resulted in continued new car price inflation and this has caused consumers to shift to the used car market, Wesbank said. Consequently, demand for used cars – as measured by application volumes – grew 9.5% in May. These supply demand dynamics have subsequently seen used car prices increase and in May the average transaction value for a used car financed through WesBank grew by 7%. WesBank’s forecast for 2016 sees total industry new vehicle sales declining 12% for the year. This will also be fuelled by changes to the interest rate and higher living costs faced by consumers.”
The other factor is that used cars these days can’t be considered as they might have been before. Today, used cars retain a lot of the technology people expect in new vehicles: from central locking to alarms, from Bluetooth support to electric windows. You won’t be buying some kind of vehicle that comes from the Stone Age, powered by steam. It will be a modern vehicle in every sense of the word, only at a lower price and at much better value to you.
Due to rising inflation and other costs, people are radically rethinking what buying a car means these days – that’s why their minds are turning to used cars, if they’re opting for owning a car at all. With the rise of Uber, improved public transport and working from home, there are fewer and fewer reasons to even commit to vehicles. However, cars will always be important to the average person and it’s worth considering just what the future will hold so you can benefit from the upcoming trends.