How are Italian and Spanish Buyers Reacting to the Economic Crisis?
With a troubled economic situation across Europe, car buyers on the Continent are favouring affordable and reliable alternatives to more expensive shiny new alternatives. Even Italy, home of Ferrari and Lamborghini, is now changing its car buying habits and moving towards more sustainable practical models.
Increasingly thriftier Italians are now resorting to fuel efficient makes and models. Japanese cars like Toyota Prius, Toyota iQ, Nissan Pixo and Honda Civic, have become typical picks for Italians wanting to save some money on petrol. But choosing a green Toyota or Nissan is not the only change in buying habits since the downturn. Italy’s drivers are not only changing what they buy but also how they buy.
Change In Italian Choices?
Online platforms such as eBay Annunci are increasingly popular ways to buy and sell cars – there are 8.4m unique users on that website alone. These websites exclude intermediaries from the buying process reducing costs. Cars can be compared with thousands of similar ones for sale all around the country, making it possible to easily compare prices and find the car with the right mix of features.
Another effect Italy’s weak economy is the increasing export of used luxury cars: 200 second-hand Porsches are now crossing Italy’s borders every week, while in the first five months of 2012, 424 used Ferraris and Maseratis were exported abroad, up from 142 in the same period of 2011.
Elsewhere in the Mediterranea region the story is similar. Spain is another country going through troubled times and Spanish drivers are turning to second-hand vehicles: over the last year its used cars sales have increased by 22.7 per cent, while the average prices have dropped by 3.1 per cent.
