eBay Survey on Car Shopping Perceptions
I received a marketing e-mail from eBay today about car shopping
perceptions. It asked me to take a survey. Here are the questions it
asked. I love marketing surveys because it gives you clues towards
where companies are thinking. Here are the major questions they asked
- Are you currently in the market for a used car?
- Do you intend to buyer a used car in the next 6 months?
- Do you use the Internet to shop for a used car? (is there any other way?)
- From which source would you not buy a used car?
- classified ads in the paper
- any online site (like cars.com)
- from a dealer
- from a private party
- would buy from all of the above
- Give us your general perception of car selling, both on and
offline. (Strongly agree/disagree type question to a variety of
statements) - When purchasing a used car, what is your preferred method for agreeing on the final price? (tolerance for haggling)
- Enter the year of your most recent used car purchase.
- How many used cars or trucks have you purchased since 2001?
- For your most recent used car purchase, how far away was the seller? < 50 mi, < 500mi, > 500 mi.
- For your most recent used car purchase, what was the age of the car?
- For your most recent used car purchase, how did you find out about it (friends, online, classifieds, ebay, dealer, etc)
- For your most recent used car purchase, what was the purchase price?
- For your NEXT used car purchase, … all of the last 4 questions again ….
- For your most recent used car purchase, how satisifed were you?
- How do you use the Internet when looking for a used car?
- How do you START looking for a used car online? (search, online
car sites, ebay motors, dealer site, classifieds site, car research
site (edmunds etc), manufacturer, etc) - What is your favorite way to look for cars online?
- Which of the following online car sites have you visited in the
last 6 months or expect to visit in the next 6 months? (please tell us
all our viable competitors) - What types of information is very important to you when doing car research? [tons of different factors listed]
- How often do you visit online car sites in the average week?
- What is your opinion of buying a used car online over the Internet?
- How likely are you to buy your next car over the Internet?
- How often per week do you shop at eBay motors?
- What is your opinion of ebay motors?
- How do you think eBay motors compares to other online car sites [tons of factors listed]?
- How interested are you in using eBay motors for researching your next car or truck?
- Give us feedback about a better local search option for eBay
Motors. The new online shopping site will offer (lots of cool hints
here!!!):
- Access eBay user generated and 3rd party content - get the lowdown about vehicles and prices in your area
- Come back to eBay Motors and leave feedback about the seller and your experience
- Getting information on local dealers/individual sellers using eBay feedback
- Search for local dealers and individual sellers in your area to find the vehicle you want
- Protection against fraud or misrepresentation - by eBay Motors’ free Vehicle Purchase Protection
- Only use the local function if you want - you would still have access to all vehicles across the country
- Take advantage of the online "Best Offer" option - make an offer and negotiate without having to visit the seller
- Restrict your search to local vehicles - if you want to find a vehicle nearby
- See the car and go for a test drive - before you sign the paperwork
- Negotiate the deal online - reach an agreement online then see the dealer just to sign the paperwork
- Access eBay user generated and 3rd party content - get the lowdown about vehicles and prices in your area
- If you assume our site now looks like what we described in the
last question, how do you think about us now? [it goes through and
re-asks almost every question] - Why are you likely to exchange and receive feedback? Are you
more likely to give positive or negative feedback on a used car
purchase? What kind of rating would you like to give? Numeric (+1, -1,
etc) versus a short review of the experience, etc. If we gave you some
kind of monetary incentive to leave feedback on a purchase, what kind
of incentive would work best? - Standard demographic data collection
There were some other questions as well, but this is the gist of things. Here are some of the questions I think eBay is looking to answer with this survey:
- How is the overall online car market doing. Is it trending up or down?
- Who are our major competitors and how do we compare?
- Which buying/selling formats are useful for cars.
- Should we introduce more car-specific data on our sites like edmunds, etc. does with reviews.
- How are we at shopping versus buying? What are you really wanting to do?
- We think what you want is this new local shopping service. Are we on target? [Probably they are already building this]
- Should we extend Best Offer functionality for eBay Motors?
- Help us improve the feedback system for Motors.