Down the road

Millennials may love things like Uber and public transportation, but they still buy cars. J.D Power and Associates, for example, found millennials accounted for 27% of new car sales in the U.S. in 2014. That's the second-largest group of new car buyers behind the baby boomers.

Yet how this generation buys cars differs from their boomer and even Gen X counterparts. By the time millennials step foot in the dealership, they've already done lots of online research and had plenty of conversations (usually by email or text) with a dealer's sales team. “They're more informed than any other group has been,” says Ken Caraglio, digital marketing manager at Naples Nissan.
Informed, and determined.

“They do not like to negotiate, so they do most of the work before they come into the store,” says Bill Finocchiaro, general manager of Gettel Toyota of Lakewood in east Manatee County. “They've found the vehicle in stock, already negotiated the price where they want to be, and they come in basically to test drive it and pick it up.”