Honda Hangs On: Chrome Top 10 Most Popular Vehicles, October YTD
16 November 2000
Honda Hangs On: Chrome Top 10 Most Popular Vehicles, October YTD
PORTLAND, Ore.--Nov. 16, 2000--Chrome Data Corporation, the automotive industry's most accurate independent business-to-business provider of data and configuration technology and software for pricing and specifying cars on the Web and on the lot, today announced the latest Chrome Top 10(TM), national and regional rankings of the most popular vehicles researched by the nation's online shoppers year-to-date through October 2000.
The regions include the metropolitan areas of Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas/Fort Worth, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis/St. Paul, New York City, Orlando, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Portland, Sacramento, San Francisco, Seattle/Tacoma, Tampa and Washington, D.C. For a complete list of regional rankings visit www.chrome.com.
"Regional automobile information is critically important to auto dealers and manufacturers," said Bob Navarre, CEO of Chrome. "Dealers can forecast near-term demand for their specific area and manufacturers can shorten their lead times to build. Both ultimately benefit the consumer."
The Chrome Top 10 rankings are compiled from online car shoppers' requests for price quotes (RFQ's) from dealers made through Chrome's Web-based pricing and configuration tool, Chrome Carbook(TM), accessible from more than 1,000 Web sites. It's just one example of the data mining that could be performed on this database of hundreds of thousands of RFQ's aggregated by zip code. What we report here is a partial predictor of future purchase; in other words, it partially predicts what consumers are looking for, where.
"If they're looking at price data, they're probably less than a month away from actually buying a car," said Art Spinella, vice president of CNW Marketing/Research. "If they're focusing more on the models available and the styling features within models, then they're likely two to four months from making a purchase."
Chrome's experience shows that consumers specify more than 14 vehicles for every one for which they request a price quote from a dealer. In other words, consumers reaching the point in the buying process where they request a price quote are serious shoppers.
| -- | Auto manufacturers could use this information to match current regional supply with expected regional demand -- are there enough Ford Tauruses in Denver? Too many Honda Civics in Detroit? This isn't quite build-to-demand nor locate-to-order; call it match-to-demand: matching supply to expected regional demand. |
| -- | Auto dealers could use this information to influence their ordering decision from their manufacturers. It's not just a matter of what dealers are selling; it's also a matter of what consumers are requesting. Do the two match? |
| -- | Manufacturer brand managers could use this information to assist in their competitive comparisons. Again, it's not just a matter of what's selling where; it's also a matter of what's requested where. |
| -- | Since this information is partially predictive in nature, all parties in the retail supply chain have a window of opportunity to react to the information to meet consumer demand that won't actually develop until later. |
| -- | Consumers could see the benefit immediately upon their eventual order: the car they requested will already be where they request it. Locate-to-order should be a simpler step because the retail supply chain will have had a week or more to locate the car and move it to where it will be needed before the consumer even orders it. |
All this is based on simple rankings of configurations of year/make/model/style aggregated by zip code. Consider what could be done when more style information and all the specific options and trim packages are thrown into the research mix. What option packages are most popular on the Ford Taurus? Not what consumers end up buying -- but what they originally requested. How close a match are those two pieces of information? What colors are consumers requesting in specific models, versus what they're buying (because, presumably, that was all they could find in a reasonable time frame upon ordering?)
"Manufacturers could use the knowledge of the gap between consumer request and consumer purchase to better meet consumer desires," Navarre said. "And in the act, manufacturers will enjoy greater economies of scale and dealers will provide greater satisfaction to their customers. Everybody wins."
Chrome: Most Accurate Data Provider
In a recent independent study CNW Marketing/Research compared the pricing data of the major online automotive data sources by configuring 86 different vehicles at eight different Web sites (see Chrome Data Named Most Accurate Data Provider for Automotive e-Commerce, June 27, 2000). Chrome ranked first in data accuracy with an average price accuracy of 99.64%.
National Chrome Top 10, October 2000 YTD Rank Year Make Model SUV? 1 2000 Honda Accord 2 2000 Honda Civic 3 2000 Honda Odyssey 4 2000 Volkswagen Jetta 5 2000 BMW 323 6 2001 Chrysler PT Cruiser 7 2000 Nissan Xterra SUV 8 2000 Volkswagen Passat 9 2000 Ford Focus 10 2000 Ford Mustang Online Shoppers' Most Popular Vehicle by Region, October 2000 YTD Region Year Make Model SUV? Pickup? Atlanta, GA 2000 Honda Accord Boston, MA 2000 Honda Civic Chicago, IL 2000 Honda Accord Cleveland, OH 2000 Volkswagen Jetta Dallas/Ft. Worth, TX 2000 Honda Accord Denver, CO 2000 Honda Accord Detroit, MI 2000 Ford Focus Houston, TX 2000 Honda Accord Lansing, MI 2000 Ford Mustang Las Vegas, NV 2000 Honda Civic Los Angeles, CA 2000 Honda Accord Miami/Ft. Lauderdale, FL 2000 Honda Civic Minneapolis/ St. Paul, MN 2000 Honda Civic New York, NY 2000 Honda Accord Orlando/Daytona Beach, FL 2000 Honda Civic Philadelphia, PA 2000 Honda Accord Phoenix, AZ 2000 Honda Accord Pittsburgh, PA 2000 Honda Accord Portland, OR/ Vancouver, WA 2000 Volkswagen Jetta Sacramento/ Stockton/ Modesto, CA 2000 Honda Civic San Francisco/ San Jose, CA 2000 Honda Civic Seattle/Tacoma, WA 2000 Honda Civic Tampa/St. Petersburg/ Sarasota, FL 2000 Nissan Xterra SUV Washington, D.C. 2000 Honda Civic Online Shoppers' Most Popular Manufacturers, October 2000 YTD Rank Manufacturer % 1 Ford 14.6% 2 Honda 11.5% 3 Chevrolet 9.0% 4 Toyota 8.7% 5 Nissan 6.5% 6 Volkswagen 6.0% 7 Dodge 4.9% 8 BMW 4.0% 9 Chrysler 3.3% 10 Pontiac 2.6%
