Offering a monthly payments search has become the key trend for used car web sites in 2015, says dealer technology specialist iVendi.
The company says that finance sales penetration can increase by 50% on dealer web sites and car portals that provide this facility.
James Tew, CEO at iVendi, said: “Monthly payment search is not a new idea and some dealer web sites have offered it for several years but we are now reaching a point where customers are starting to expect it to be available.
“Certainly, when we compare web sites of all kinds that offer a pay monthly option to those that don’t using visitors to conversion as a measure, the difference is marked.”
Underlying this trend was the ongoing move towards consumers preferring all major purchases to become part of their monthly expenses, he explained.
“We very much live in a pay monthly consumer culture and it is not an exaggeration to say that the majority of customers now only use the car purchase price as a general guide towards affordability. They are much more interested in the monthly cost, as we are seeing in the new car PCP sales explosion.
“The same applies to used cars. Customers want to be able to ‘play’ with different finance products, deposits and terms to arrive at the outcome they want.
“Where the monthly payments search is an option, the vast majority of customers opt to use it. Any kind of used car online sales portal without payments search is becoming seriously compromised in its ability to convert customers into sales.”