subject: Toyota Staten Island dealers may win over Gen Y with model lineup [print this page] Toyota Staten Island dealers may win over Gen Y with model lineup
The results from the third edition of an annual study about consumers of the auto industry show that Generation Y is only becoming more powerful in the market. Gen Y is not only buying vehicles to drive themselves, but 61 percent of them also have a large say in their parent's final decision when purchasing a vehicle.
In addition, Jim Lentz, president and COO of Toyota Motor Sales USA Inc., predicts that 12.5 million new vehicles will be sold in the next year. This knowledge, in combination with the knowledge of Gen Y's power in the automobile market, prompted Lentz to give Toyota dealerships, like local Toyota Staten Island dealers, the following advice: "be flexible and be prepared to do business in non-traditional ways, including beefing up the internet side of the business."
The survey has left Staten Island dealerships selling Toyotaswith some ideas for implementing such "non-traditional ways" that would please Gen Y members. For example, 82% of survey respondents said they'd appreciate 24-hour-long test drives. This would truly allow consumers to get a sense of what it would be like to drive a certain model around Staten Island. Cars are hard to judge in the traditional twenty-minute test drives, so 24-hour test drives could result in more fitting vehicles for consumers' individual needs.
Additionally, Gen Y consumers would like to cut out some of the face-to-face time between consumer and salesman that is currently involved in the car buying process. Gen Y members are used to accomplishing tasks via the Internet and they feel at least part of the car buying experience should be no different. 57 percent go so far as to say that they'd prefer to cut out the face-to-face time with car salesmen altogether.
