According to new data from Burst! Media, gathered from an online survey of more than 6,700 US adult Web users in the last half of 2005, approximately one in every four users researched cars, SUVs, vans or pickup trucks online.
Broken down by gender, however, men are significantly more likely than women to use the Internet to gather information about cars, with 29% of male respondents having done so, compared with 19% of the females in the survey.
Burst! found that men over the age of 35 are more likely to turn to the Internet to gather automotive information. More than 60% of the males who looked for car-related information were in that age bracket.
Internet users from higher-income households were also more avid readers of online automotive research.
While a relatively small proportion of vehicles are sold online, a great many buyers now go online to do research before they buy. As a result, the Internet is becoming a very important channel for automotive companies.
For more in-depth information on this subject, read the new eMarketer report, Automotive Online: Gearing Up for Greater Spending.