Our readers are on the top of their game. We asked them to vote for the best car buying/selling web or mobile experience and they voted Cars.com to first place. Kelley Blue Book came in second place in the Tech CARS Awards this year, from AUTO Connected Car News. J.D. Power research shows a similar trend with Cars.com and Kelley Blue Book ranking on the top of list of the J.D. Power 2017 U.S. Automotive Website Evaluation Study Cross-Device.
J.D. Power notes that Cars.com and Kelley Blue Book, which are the top-ranking brands in desktop and mobile satisfaction, offer a great experiences.
For best Automotive websites Cars.com is followed by Edmunds.com, Carfax, KBB, CarsDirect.com, Motor Trend, The Car Connection, NADAguides, Autobytel, Autotrader, Car.com, TrueCar, CarGurus, U.S. News Best Cars, Autoblog, Carsforsale.com and eBay Motors . For mobile ranking Kelley Blue Book is folowed by CarGurus, The Car Connection, U.S. News Best Cars, Car and Driver, Cars.com, MotorTrend, TrueCar, Edmunds.com and Autobytel. eBay Motors comes in last in both categories.
J.D.Power reported that Cars.com offers a wealth of tools to help shoppers choose the right vehicle, including multiple financial calculators, inventory search and consumer/expert and dealer reviews. Cars.com gives shoppers very detailed vehicle feature and specification information in an intuitive way to access information.
Kelley Blue Book provides an intuitive dealer locator and inventory search tools that are critical to mobile shoppers, particularly those who are actively shopping. It also shows mobile content such as 360 exterior/interior viewers to help shoppers understand the vehicles inside and out.
Cars.com scored highest in overall satisfaction with automotive third-party desktop websites (798), followed by Edmunds.com (797) and Carfax (785).
Kelly Blue Book was rated highest in overall satisfaction with automotive third-party mobile websites (794), followed by CarGurus (790), The Car Connection (782) and U.S. News Best Cars (782).
The study also noted:
- The study finds that 76% of highly satisfied shoppers (overall satisfaction scores of 901 or higher) using third-party websites say they “definitely will” return to the website in the future, and 75% say they “definitely will” recommend the site, while only 3% of displeased shoppers (scores of 500 or less) say they “definitely will” return and only 2% say they “definitely will” recommend.
- Among the four main measures (navigation, appearance, information/content, speed), website satisfaction is lowest for navigation. Shoppers using a desktop computer (762) have a significantly better experience when navigating automotive websites, compared to mobile users (754)
- Across all measure and attributes, those shopping for new vehicles have a more satisfying experience than used/certified pre-owned vehicle shoppers (773 vs. 755, respectively). The largest gap is for vehicle pricing information (754 vs. 726, respectively).
Desktop and mobile rankings (separately awarded) are based on the combined index scores of the four measures that comprise the overall website experience: navigation; appearance; information/content; and speed. Satisfaction is based on a 1,000-point scale.
