Maybe the prevailing opinion among car dealers has been that it’s the man of the house the one who decides which car to buy, but it turns out that women actually have a much bigger say when it comes to car buying than previously thought. C+R Research did a survey that was commissioned by Cars.com recently, and found that women with children play an important role in car purchasing decision making, and husbands are no longer the sole decision makers.
The vast majority of the mothers surveyed by C+R Research said that they are in charge of new vehicle purchasing, and they decide what kind of vehicle the family buys, with 73% of them claiming that they make the final decision. What this finding reveals is that in addition to having a huge influence on car-buying decisions, which has already been confirmed by various studies conducted in the past few years, they are the ones calling the shots, which is a bit of a surprise, considering that the man of the house is usually the one who has a say when it comes to making important purchases.
This is because men have always had a bigger earning power, which has automatically given them the authorization to call the shots when buying an expensive item. But, in recent years, the earning power of women has been increasing significantly, and the average U.S. woman is expected to earn more than the average U.S. man in 15-20 years. Clearly, earning more money translates into more spending power, and that results in bigger decision-making power. There have been several studies lately showing that women buy about 60 percent of all new cars, which is a significant fact that can be very useful to car dealers.
As far as the type of vehicle moms prefer, minivans have been their favorite choice for a very long time, but that has started to change lately. This is because minivans are large, with abundant storage space and a roomy cabin, making them the ideal vehicle for soccer moms. But now, more and more women buy SUVs, which also have storage capacity, and are equally family-friendly, with the added bonus of being more attractive and having better performances.
The C+R Research survey will surely be of great help to car marketers, who can use it to figure out how to reach the decision makers, and attract female car buyers, who make up a significant portion of their target market. They can adjust their marketing strategies and try to appeal to working moms, by focusing on what they want in a car, their preferred financing option etc. They need to do an extensive research about women’s car preferences, which tend to be very different from the car preferences of men. Moms, and women in general, are all about safety and reliability, so in most cases, they choose a car that has lots of sophisticated safety features over a powerful, high-performance car, since their safety and the safety of their children is always a priority for them.