Consumers found it easier to purchase a vehicle in March compared to February but expect that to change in April due to tariffs, David Thomas, director of content marketing and automotive industry analyst at CDK Global says.

“The thing going forward with tariffs is no matter what is revealed (about the tariffs), inventory is going to go down,” Thomas tells WardsAuto.  “Automakers aren’t going to ship as many cars to dealers.”

Each month, CDK surveys 350-400 consumers who have recently purchased a vehicle to determine an Ease of Purchase Scorecard – how easy a consumer found it to buy that vehicle.

In March, 89% said it was easy to purchase a vehicle, up from 87% in February.

Eighty percent found the vehicle they “hoped” to purchase, up from 79% in February. Of those, 56% were in stock, up from 49% in February. The majority of the remainder were in transit or factory ordered.  

Consumers who want to find the vehicle they hope to purchase in stock is about to change, however.

Last week, President Trump imposed wide-ranging tariffs on imports, including vehicles. The global fallout from the move was almost immediate.

“If there is one thing we have learned, it is if more people find the car they want, the higher the ease of purchase score goes,” Thomas says. “It is tied together with the customer experience.”

Buyers now will almost certainly have to visit more dealerships to find the vehicle they want.

And more consumers already had to visit more dealerships in March, when 24% of shoppers had to visit three or more dealerships to find the vehicle they wanted, up from 20% in February, according to the Ease of Purchase Scorecard.

“I expect that to be a trend we keep seeing,” Thomas says.

Pandemic Learnings Come in Handy

Dealers and consumers have already rehearsed living through a period of low inventory and higher prices during the COVID-19 pandemic, Thomas says. Dealers are more prepared operationally to adjust prices more frequently and watch inventories more closely, he says.

On the flip side, however, there will be more friction with consumers because of the inevitable price increases, Thomas says.

At least “consumers were trained by COVID to pay more and not be able to find the car they want,” he says.

One pandemic adaptation that may be useful to deal with the impact of tariffs is ordering from the factory. That could alleviate consumer anxiety.

“Maybe a dealer could make someone more at ease ordering from the factory now,” Thomas says.

On the March scorecard, 17% of consumers ordered their vehicle from the factory, unchanged from February.

Bright Spot

No one surveyed in March bought a vehicle entirely online, proving dealerships are still a crucial part of the car-buying process. While the percentage of people buying entirely online is always very low, zero is rare, Thomas says. That proves purchasing entirely online isn’t really what people want, he says.

“The Carvanas of the world are an anomaly,” Thomas says. “The more questions that car shoppers have, the more they want (the transaction) to be in person.”

Carvana recently opened its first brick-and-mortar dealership in Casa Grande, AZ, though company officials decline to offer specifics about it.