Your market is bigger than you think

After four consecutive years of growth, SAAR is projected to decline by 2% in 2026.¹ For many dealers, that number is adding fuel to an already anxious market. And for some, that anxiety is already showing up in the building — in tighter budgets, quieter showroom floors, and Monday morning sales meetings where everyone’s waiting for someone else to explain the numbers. 

But we’ve been navigating challenging economic conditions since 2020, and despite supply shocks, rate hikes, and inventory swings, consumers kept buying cars. Dealers who thrived during this period found ways to expand their market and meet customers where they are. Others are still waiting for conditions to improve.

Here’s what those growth-minded dealers understood early: the market didn’t get smaller. It moved. And as a result, more in-market shoppers are within your reach than your current strategy is capturing. 

The market didn’t shrink, it moved 

Two forces have permanently reshaped how consumers shop for vehicles, and both of them create real opportunity if you’re positioned to take advantage. 

The first is AI-powered search. Nearly half of all car buyers now use AI-powered search tools during their shopping journey, and 97% are influenced by AI at some point before they buy.² 

Shoppers are no longer typing short keywords into a search bar and scrolling through results. Instead, they’re getting direct answers to detailed questions like: 

• “Best family SUV for long highway drives with third-row seating”
• “Reliable used truck with good towing under $35k” 
• “Which dealers near me have certified pre-owned Accords in stock?” 

By the time many of them contact a dealer, they’ve already narrowed their options significantly. Your job is to be part of that research conversation early, and that starts with how your inventory is presented and how easily it can be found. 

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The second force is geography. Non-traditional retailers spent years and billions of dollars convincing consumers that a car doesn’t need to be around the corner to be worth buying. It worked: 82% of shoppers are now willing to buy outside their local market, and more than half already have.³ Today’s buyers are open to purchasing from a store outside their immediate area, as long as the dealer makes it easy and earns their trust online first. 

93% of engaged car buyers use auto marketplaces during their path to purchase — more than any other channel, including search.⁴ Your market is larger than your primary market area (PMA), and the dealers who act on that will grow while others wait for conditions that may not arrive.

Give shoppers exactly what they’re searching for

In a softening market, total volume doesn’t disappear — it redistributes. The most direct way to reach more shoppers is already built into Cars.com. 

Carson™ is Cars.com’s AI-powered, open-text search experience. Instead of navigating rigid filters, shoppers can search the way they actually think. Queries like “good first car for a teen driver” or “used truck that can tow and has good resale value” surface relevant inventory instantly, matching buyers to vehicles based on intent rather than just specs. 

Carson™ assists about 15% of Cars.com web and mobile searches,⁵ and the engagement data shows a clear difference. Shoppers who use it: 

• Return twice as often as standard search users.⁵
• Save three times as many vehicles.⁵
• Convert from search results to vehicle detail pages at nearly 30% higher rates.⁵
• ● Generate twice as many leads compared to shoppers who don’t use open-text search.⁵

Carson™ rewards listings that give shoppers what they need to make a confident decision. How you present your inventory determines whether shoppers even notice it. The dealers who get that right are reaching higher-intent buyers earlier in the research process. The ones who don’t are less likely to show up when it matters most. When a shopper narrows down to a shortlist, their inventory doesn’t make the cut.

Grow your customer base without growing your physical footprint 

Most dealers define their market by their primary market area. It’s a reasonable starting point, but in today’s environment, it’s also a ceiling that doesn’t need to exist. 

Market Area Expansion on Cars.com extends your listings beyond your PMA to reach in-market shoppers actively searching for a vehicle like yours — just not necessarily near you. Consider what that means: buyers outside your PMA were looking for exactly what you had and never found you. 

82% of Cars.com shoppers plan to purchase within six months.⁶ These aren’t casual browsers. Cars.com’s audience is validated daily, drawn from millions of real marketplace shoppers actively researching their next vehicle. Market Area Expansion puts your inventory in front of that audience at a wider radius, giving you access to buyers your competitors aren’t reaching. Dealers who stay inside their PMA risk missing buyers who are already shopping for vehicles like theirs elsewhere. 

For dealers building a delivery capability, pairing broader digital visibility with a frictionless purchase process is one of the most direct paths to new customers in a flat market — new customers, new geography, no new rooftop required.

Making your dealership hard to miss 

Growth in a challenging market comes down to choices. The dealers making the right ones are: 

• Investing in merchandising that performs in AI-driven search 
• Building delivery capabilities that turn geographic reach into real transactions
• Competing for shoppers outside their immediate area instead of waiting for them to show up 

Market conditions are the same for everyone. Execution is what separates the dealers who are growing from the ones who are waiting. 

Tomorrow morning, your inventory is either showing up for ready-to-buy shoppers — or it isn’t. The question is whether you’re set up to capture it. 

Ready to maximize your visibility on Cars.com?