The weekend Hurricane Matthew traveled up the East Coast, and that is the reason why vehicle online shopping traffic plummeted nearly 60%. The online advertising company compared traffic patterns of certain automotive websites from Oct. 7-9, when the hurricane hit the U.S., to the four weekends prior. The study found Savannah area shopping activity dropped 57%. In Charleston, online shopping traffic fell 55%.
The cities of Florence and Myrtle Beach in South Carolina each saw a 41% decrease in traffic. Some residents in Savannah and Charleston were still returning home Sunday, Oct. 9. In South Carolina, the governor’s evacuation order for Charleston County was lifted that morning. The evacuation order for Chatham County in Georgia, where Savannah is located, wasn’t lifted until Sunday evening. Horry County, where Myrtle Beach is, did not receive orders to lift evacuation until the following Monday, while Florence County had no evacuation orders but was later approved for disaster declaration and federal assistance. The city of Jacksonville in Florida had the next largest drop in online traffic at 37%, followed by Wilmington, N.C. at 30%. West Palm Beach, Fla., saw a 21% decrease in traffic the weekend of the hurricane.
Dealerships can expect slowed vehicle sales in the 30 days following the onset of Hurricane Matthew. Consumer demand - which the study says shifts from small cars to pickups - will then increase to a peak selling period in the 60 to 120 days after the storm.
