Car buying considerations in the digital age
Despite living in the digital age, mobility remains one of the most important aspects of our day-to-day lives as we need to travel to work, to appointments, to family engagements.
However, with the higher costs of living, many people are selling their cars in favour of alternate modes of transport. But what is the best option for someone who needs mobility in today’s digital and connected age?
Do you even need to travel?
Many jobs require people to be onsite due to having access to various resources. Today, with the arrival of the internet and instant communication, many of those kinds of factors are eliminated: resources can be accessed as quickly as consultation with colleagues or managers. Many people do work from home, perhaps switching between onsite office engagements and offsite, at home, work.
Of course, work is not the only reason to travel. Friends, loved ones, emergencies, shopping and so on, are all sometimes necessary. Yet, many of these can be mitigated: for example, online shopping is booming – even for grocery products.
As Retail Customer Experience notes:
“According to a new consumer survey commissioned by digital marketing company SmartFocus, while the majority of consumers prefer to shop and spend their money in brick-and-mortar retail stores, more than 60 percent are increasing their online shopping activities. This trend is most prevalent among women (71 percent) and millennials.”
However, locally, things are slightly different. According to Broll Property Group’s Retail Consumer Survey 2014, 95% of South African shoppers still prefer to visit an actual store when buying products.
One of the reasons cited for this trend is that fresher produce is available at retail outlets.
The point is that South Africans do care about physical shopping and thus will require mobility. After all, one in five South Africans own a car.
Which car to buy
Of course mobility doesn’t have to mean purchasing a car. Taxi services are a big player in the South African example, thus even those shoppers who prefer onsite shopping are using taxi services of various kinds, too. Recently, the highly popular Uber taxi service has taken off in South Africa, to resounding success.
Thus, even if you do need a car, you don’t actually need a car: you need a car to transport you. And that doesn’t necessarily mean purchasing a whole vehicle.
However, it could be the case that you are so mobile you might as well acquire your own vehicle. Yet this again is not straight forward: it doesn’t mean, for example, buying a brand new car when second-hand vehicle are available . It could mean purchasing one from car auctions. Whatever the case, there is variety to your choices that doesn’t mean dropping an exorbitant amount to simply get from A to B.
Think about the options and recognise that even within certain options could be further options to consider.