With all the talk lately of buying cars completely online — and an apparent willingness from consumers to take this leap — shoppers low in the sale funnel, or early in their vehicle consideration process, still seem to favor dealerships.

An Autolist survey, the results of which were released in conjunction with the recent NADA Show 2018, found that the majority of consumers aren’t ready to move the entire car-buying process online.

In fact, 66 percent of respondents to the survey — which polled 1,095 car shoppers in March who are in the market for new and used vehicles — said they are “unlikely” or “very unlikely” to purchase a vehicle completely online without ever seeing it in person. 

So what’s keeping consumers coming to dealerships? According to the survey results, that answer is test drives.

In fact, 63 percent of respondents said the primary reason they would visit a dealership was to test drive a vehicle.

And that’s apparently where customer satisfaction with the dealer experience is highest, as well.

On the other hand, one of the least enjoyable parts of visiting a dealership for new-car customers? You guessed it — the financing process.

Interestingly, this ranked even lower than the process of negotiating a vehicle price.

And consumers want to speed up the transaction process, as well. According to the Autolist poll, the part of the buying process that consumers wanted to see improved upon the most was the time it took to complete the transaction.

A third of survey respondents said it was the No. 1 area where dealers could improve.

Consumers also noted dealerships could serve to improve “the helpfulness of their salespeople and the vehicle information provided during the browsing process,” according to Autolist.

Perhaps one element not often thought of in consideration with consumer expectations is dealership size, but according to the Autolist servey, it certainly plays a role.

“While consolidation and corporate groups are quickly overtaking what was largely a family-run business network, buying from a national chain isn’t important to a majority of shoppers,” Autolist analysts reported.

Specifically, 63 percent of respondents said it wasn’t important to them that the store be part of a national chain.