UX Study: EASYAUTO123.com — easy car buying with a not so easy website
Who is easyauto123?
Easyauto123 is car dealership start-up that wants to deliver a hassle-free experience to buying used-car. They fix their selling price and giving the buyers the absolute best price that they can go with — no more haggling, no more negotiation, no more fear of being ripped off. Their cars are fully checked out and serviced at great prices. What else can buyers ask for?
The company also places high value on customer experience and listening to customer feedback. They receive a whooping 4.5stars out of 169 Google review.
What’s the problem?
I absolutely love easyauto123 business model when I heard of it and saw its Google’s rating.
That is until I visited Easyauto123.com.au website… 😅
The Home page
My first reaction: “WOW, that’s a lot of text.”
With my experience, I started questioning whether people would actually be patient enough to read through that long sentence of the company’s value proposition. (1) our modern attention span is really short and (2) visually speaking, our eyes would be drawn to the more prominent search boxes rather than the value propositions.
Thus, the first questions: Do users actually understand the company’s value proposition? How effective is this website in converting leads?
Moving on to the listing page:
On this listing page, what stood out for me is the shiny vehicles, which are very nice comparing to the usual back-yard background of secondhand car ads. However, to the right is, again, a lot of information. What is VIN? (ok, I realise now that it is Vehicle Identification Number) Do we need to know that? Actually, how do people shop for 2nd hand car? and How is this website performing in helping them complete their task? To create a hassle free experience, we definitely need to answer these questions.
I don’t really know how people buy car; my job is to shop for the best loan, but it is my partner job to find the best car. But I know how to study people. So let’ do a quick usability study on easyauto123.com!
Research aim:
- To evaluate the usability of easyauto123.com buying interface.
- To evaluate if users understand easyauto123 value proposition.
- To understand how people evaluate second-hand car options.
Research methodology:
Ideal: answering these questions require both quantitative and qualitative data. We can:
- Quantitative: analyse log data and customer feedback to determine the duration of browsing, conversation rate, etc.
- Qualitative: diary study or structured interview on how people buy second hand cars
Challenge: I don’t have access to data, nor users, nor budget
Resolution: Intercept interviews, i.e. asking random people on the street and focus on the website experience
What actually happened?
Participants: 11 people were asked, 4 people participated
- Michael @ coffee shop: purchased a used-truck at easyauto123 warehouse for work.
- Jeremy @ coffee shop: did not buy used cars before but purchased a brand new car through a dealership
- Cameron @ a meet-up: purchased used cars before, even had carsales app
- Daniel (a friend): purchased used cars before through carsales
Key questions
- You are buying a second hand car, and you found this website (hand them a mobile phone). Please show me how you used this.
- What information did you look at? and why?
- What do you think is the difference between easyauto123 and other dealers?
- Other questions about their actions and the live-chat.
Observations
- Intercept interviews are challenging because you don’t know who you will get. But at the same time, it gives you unexpected findings.
Overall experience and value proposition
While the purchasing experience was good, other touch points might be causing a drop in overall experience. 1 user (Michael) purchased a truck from easyauto123 for work as he drove past Joondalup warehouse. However, he found out that the interest rate was not great. Though easytauto123 matched the interest rate for this loan after he called customer services, he said he felt cheated and would never go back. [Insight: There is a potential disparity between the expected experience, i.e. hassle free and no negotiations, and the actual experience, e.g. having to contact customer service and negotiate.]
The company’s value proposition on their website was not clear. No users were able to point out how the company was different from other dealership.
When asked, users did not understand the value of fixed price.
- Cameron said “I don’t know what fixed-price means, I think the “Search our fixed-price cars” should just be “Search our cars”. Maybe “fixed-price” is an industry terminology. I don’t care if it is fixed or variable, I just want to see the cars” (NOTE: he might have associated with fixed vs variable rate loan).
- Daniel said “I care about the car quality, and value for money. Used cars are not like new cars, where they are all standard in quality and I could compare price so the fixed price helps. For used car, even if they fix the price, it might not be good for that quality. I also can’t compare between different dealers.” and “If they fixed the price but I can’t judge the quality or whether the car fits my needs, then there is not much benefit.”
Car listing:
Users had troubles finding the search box. When they couldn’t find it, they clicked on Menu button to find a way to access the car-listing. 2 users repeatedly scrolling the screen to find the search box. Unable to see it as they scrolled past, they clicked on the Menu > Buy > Search our fixed-price car to find the car listing.
One user expected to see the listing straight away when he clicked on Buy > Search our fixed-price car. He felt annoyed when he actually had to click another button to get this listing.
Life style, transmission type (auto vs manual), body type, Km vs. cost and age, fuel efficiency are the main selection criteria, according to 3 users. Other information about the vehicles were redundant.
Specific search did not have the right criteria. One participant wasn’t able to drive manual but he wasn’t able to filter for auto transmission.
Live chat
3 users said the live chat was not useful for them if they don’t see anything that match their interests. They think that they will make an enquiry and have a chat if they see something that they are interested in. (Note: if this is one of their differentiating factors, easyauto123 should review their analytics surrounding the use of live-chat and optimise this experience.)
Limitation
- This is a relatively small sample size, which means conclusion should be used with caution. Nevertheless, as a reliable sample size is 5 people, observations made from multiple users should be considered carefully.
- The setting was in public and users might not have been as involved as real purchasers.
Recommendations
Given such findings, I suspect that Easyauto123’s conversion rate for their website is not as good as it could be. In light of the stated limitation, I would make a number of recommendations to Easyauto123.
Re-design the website to fit user behaviours and habits
Home page:
- Reduce value proposition text to 3 key items. Such as: Best Price, Fully Serviced, No Haggling Required.
- Make search box prominent on the banner with a clear call to action
- Change search criteria to include transmission type and make. Model can be included under “advanced search”
- Show a sample journey on the front page that explains the value of “fixed-price”
Listing page:
- Reduce information to the minimum, and include life-style information. e.g. “Suitable for— Family with children, Outdoor Adventure, Urban, etc”. These categories should be established via research (e.g. Survey)
- Have the full listing showed-up immediate as users click on “Buy” or “Buy a car”
- Change “search our fixed-price” car to “search our cars”.
Strategy
Easyauto123 should create a coherent end-to-end service that serves the company’s value proposition — a Hassle free experience — at every single touch point.
Easyauto123 Google review indicates that they are already quite responsive to their customer feedback. The company will be further benefited from a proactive approach, using Quantitative Data to understand what is happening, and then Qualitative research to understand both what and why something is happening. Some recommended actions:
- Establish a complete service blueprint that covers all touch-points of the full service cycles (e.g. from awareness, visit, buy, finance, leave, referral, car-services.) Are all of these touch-points working together to deliver a complete and wonderful experience?
- Identify the current drop-off points along the service
- Conduct research to understand what is going on? what is their buyer’s frustration in buying a secondhand car? what do they consider when making decisions? and how can they make the overall experience better?
