CARY, N.C. -

Madison Gross, who is director of customer insights at CarGurus, describes a recent purchase of a puzzle.

The sales associate texted her photos of the puzzles that were in stock. Gross paid for the puzzle over the phone, and the sales associate left the puzzle in a bag for her outside the store.

Many of us have had experiences similar to Gross’ in recent weeks, whether we’re buying coffee, groceries or household goods.

More and more of that is trickling into automotive, as well.

“In some cases, we’re buying things in ways we never really expected to right now,” Gross said in a phone interview Thursday. “And so that is causing us to be willing to buy other things or bigger things in ways that we never expected to.”

Bigger things like cars.

According to research from CarGurus, roughly a third of car buyers (32%) were open to purchasing vehicles online before the pandemic. That has since jumped to 61%. 

About a fifth (19%) of car buyers preferred the online route to purchase a car before the pandemic. That has since jumped to 39%.

“Both the portion of shoppers who were open to and the portion of shoppers who prefer purchasing online has roughly doubled since before the pandemic. And we expected to see some increase, but we were surprised by the magnitude of the increase,” Gross said.

“If I had to guess, I would say that when things return to normal, we may see some moderation of those increases, but that they would still be significantly higher than they were before the pandemic,” she said.

And the appetite or willingness to buy online appears to now be relatively even between new and used, Gross said.

“Interestingly, what we saw is, before the pandemic, new intenders had higher openness to purchase online. But since then, used intenders are more likely to have switched from 'I wasn't open' to 'Now I am open,’” she said. “So, at this point, total openness between new and used is pretty similar.”

And while openness and appetite have increased, certainly many dealers had digital retailing capabilities before the pandemic. However, such capability “wasn’t being promoted en masse like it is right now,” says Michelle Denogean, who is chief marketing officer at Roadster, a company that offers dealers digital retailing services.

“Dealers have had to put the word out that (consumers) have the capability to buy online and that's fundamentally changing consumer awareness around these capabilities," Denogean said in an April interview. “I think the expectation is going to be that I can still do as much of this as I want from the comfort of home, even post-COVID-19, and be able to have an efficient experience.”

Efficient is a key word there, particularly as it relates to time. Roadster surveys many consumers after they purchase via Roadster-equipped platforms. The company will ask the shopper how long the transaction took.

“They’re experiencing 30- to 60-minute transactions now, and they're really liking it and they're telling us that,” said Roadster chief operating officer Rudy Thun, during the same interview.

“They're telling us that this process was amazing and that the salesperson that was helping me through the experience was amazing,” Thun said. “And so, it's really exceeding expectations for shoppers and I think once you've experienced, it's going to be hard to go back to spending four hours in a dealership. If you've gone through this experience this time, I think you're going to be changed forever going forward.”

Citing 2019 survey data from parent company Cox Automotive, Noah Lee of Dealer.com said consumers spent an average of 180 minutes in a dealership to complete a vehicle transaction. The “acceptable” amount of time, consumers said, was 90 minutes.

Before COVID-19, dealerships were “behind the curve” in this regard, Lee said.

"Now, they're forced to move into this new sales environment. And now that consumers are exposed to it, they're not going to want to go back,” said Lee, who is head of product consulting at Dealer.com

“My advice (for dealers) is to look at your sales processes, utilize these and set up your salespeople to kind of change their mindsets,” he said. “It is going to be a culture change.”

Going back to the CarGurus data, one caveat to bear in mind: a majority still want to make the purchase in person, though the preference for online has climbed substantially.

“When I look at our data, one thing I see is that there's still a difference between openness and preference. And the fact that still, more than half of shoppers prefer to purchase in person says to me that a lot of people right now value and miss the in-store experience that they can usually have when they're shopping for a car,” Gross said.

“So, in the meantime, dealers are offering a variety of contactless services to fill that gap,” she said. “And some of those services will continue, particularly I think we've gone past the point where we expect the virus to be like an off-switch and we're all back to normal. 

"We'll be wearing masks and socially distancing for some time when we visit car dealerships. That will become a more normal part of the experience,” Gross said.

She said dealers are likely to continue offering contactless services like virtual video walkarounds and test drives without sales associates.

“I think some of those things are likely to stick around for a while,” Gross said.

Meantime, the dealers who had digital capabilities before the pandemic are faring better, says Lee of Dealer.com.

“The dealerships who chose to invest in a digital retailing solution prior to all this, we're finding are able to weather this storm in a better way. They're working through this more favorably,” he said. “They're able to work their deals remotely, they're seeing engagement with those digital retailing tools and they're able to continue to sell cars right now without having to bring that consumer into the dealership.”

Citing Cox data from before the pandemic, Lee noted that 85% of shoppers wanted to begin putting the transaction together remotely and have everything lined up before going to the store. And these days, spending three hours at a dealership is not an option, he said.

“The dealerships that have already taken those steps to take the in-person element out of the equation are faring better,” Lee said.