Even though South Africans are currently facing a national lockdown, they continue to search for their next vehicle and appear to have some interesting behavioral changes online. As many business sectors have seen a decline in online activity and consumers’ priorities have shifted to essential goods and services during the lockdown, searches for non-essential products have shown a decrease. However, many still appear to be searching for their next car.

The used motor vehicle demand seems to be less affected by the national lockdown than the new car industry.

Thousands continue to visit WeBuyCars’ website and spend time browsing through all our available vehicles. WeBuyCars has also noticed some interesting patterns and behavioral changes from our website visitors.

Vehicles people are currently interested in

Previously, there was a more balanced interest towards a wide variety of vehicle makes, models, price ranges and body types, but since the national lockdown has been implemented in South Africa, this has changed.

Not only are more consumers showing interest to purchase pre-owned vehicles, they are also interested in specific pre-owned vehicles. South Africans are showing an increasing interest in smaller and more affordable vehicles as opposed to luxury vehicles.

Spending time differently when browsing vehicles

We have noticed a positive change in the way visitors spend their time on our website. The average time visitors spend on the WeBuyCars website has increased by 57% since the national lockdown has been implemented. This significant increase reveals that with more free time, individuals in-market for second-hand vehicles not only continue searching for their next vehicle, they spend more time doing so.

With up to 3 500 vehicles on our website, visitors finally have the opportunity to carefully browse through all the vehicles and to determine which car would best suit the next chapter in their life.

Not only do visitors have more time to filter specific car models, price ranges and more, they also have the opportunity to browse through our value added services, use our online car finance calculator to see what they can afford, apply for vehicle finance online and much more. In fact, the number of different pages visited on the WeBuyCars website, has increased by 49 % since the national lockdown has been implemented.

Feel free to browse through our website if you are planning to buy or sell a car after the national lockdown has been lifted.