His or hers? Women are in driver's seat when it comes to car sales
By Cosby Woodruff
Montgomery Advertiser
November 19, 2007
The following story was also posted online at www.leasetrader.com.
Women may be calling most of the shots when it comes to buying a car and know what features they want in a vehicle, but automotive officials say they aren't building cars just to sell to them.
Dean Vette, dealer operator at Capitol Chevrolet, said women make up to 80 percent of the decisions on whether or not a sale goes through at his dealership.
That includes women who may only approve the payment on a husband's purchase all the way to women who come in car-shopping alone.
Vette said some women may just come along to approve the purchase price and end up influence things like color, features and model.
Yet, car makers say they try hard to avoid getting one of their makes labeled a "chick car." That tag, they say, means it is almost impossible to convince a man to buy or drive the vehicle.
Chris Martin, a spokesman for Honda, said the marketing audience and the vehicle's buyer could be two entirely different groups.
"Sometimes a vehicle has two different targets," he said. "It has a design target and a sales target.
"The design target is like an image," he said.
He pointed to the Element, a Honda SUV that allows a number of seat configurations and other utility features.
Most of its advertisements feature young men using the vehicle for doing fun things, but many of its buyers are young women looking for a practical vehicle.
Honda wants most of its vehicles to be seen as gender-neutral, Martin said. That allows the dealership to market its vehicles to women, who don't mind driving a car seen as a bit masculine, but also allows the company to avoid being labeled as cars for women.
"A lot of the design in vehicles is masculine," he said.
Honda made at least a slight deviation from that in its recent redesign of the CR-V. Honda learned that young women, what Martin called "cool moms," were the main buyers of the CR-V.
When Honda rolled out the redesigned model about a year ago, it used a lot of feedback from women, Martin said.
Still, the company aims to please as many customers as it can with its vehicles.
"Most of our models are actually very close to 50-50 in sales," he said of the gender breakdown.
John Henson, a sales manager at McConnell Honda, declined to release what cars, or even what features on certain cars, women prefer. He did say women are the majority of the dealership's customer base.
"Right now 63 percent of all sales are females," he said. "It increases every year."
That growing 63 percent is dwarfed by the female-driven sales at Capitol Chevrolet.
"In at least 75 to 85 percent of our car purchases, the decision-maker is a woman," Vette said.
All of Chevrolet's current product line has at least some appeal to both men and women, he said.
A survey by Leasetrader.com found that many women start car buying with a list of features the car must or must not have.
The top must-have item on the list, selected by 62 percent of those taking the survey, was fold-down rear seats that give cars more storage.
Sergio Stiberman, Leasetrader.com CEO, said the results show women are looking for practicality.
"Although the results covered a wide variety of car features, it's interesting to note that women want functionality over technology in their cars," he said.
Vette agreed that some features once preferred by more women are now take-it-or-leave-it selections.
"Some people love sunroofs, and some hate it," he said. "Some like navigation (systems), while other people are intimidated."
The Capitol sales staff does notice one must-have among the bulk of female customers, Vette said. On-Star, the General Motors feature that allows a driver to push a button to connect to an operator for assistance, is commonly requested.
"There have been two or three cases in the last month where we have had to trade one of our vehicles for one with On-star," he said.
This story posted by LeaseTrader.com, the automotive service company that lets people transfer out of their Car Leases early. If you're looking to swap a lease or transfer out of your car lease, please visit www.leasetrader.com