Study: What colour helps sell a car most?

“So many houses, so many habits” is a popular expression that makes a fundamental point – different people prefer different things. Equally true in the used car market when it comes to customer preferences on body colour and how they influence how quickly a car sells. While tastes differ strongly there are also general trends. carVertical has produced a study on how car colour directly influences how fast or how slow a second-hand vehicle sells.

Perhaps the most unexpected result of the analysis is their first on the list of colours that help sell a car the most, and that is yellow. With an average time on the market of just 20.8 days, it turns out that second-hand cars with yellow exteriors sell the fastest. This is probably due in part to rarity as well as the sex appeal quotient that a yellow car inherently possesses.

Second place, on the other hand, goes to silver, a colour we’d all expect. Averaging extremely close to first place, silver cars sell out after about 21.6 days. Not surprising given the versatility of the colour which can be used in a business environment as well as for a family car. Just look down the street and you’ll immediately notice how often you come across a silver car. The reason is simple – silver is in demand.

Third place is occupied by the black non-circulation. Equally easy to match to any taste, the versatility of black makes cars wearing this hue highly desirable, averaging just 22.9 days on sale.

In order to get a closer look at how much colour influences the selling time of a car, the survey also followed the evolution of a popular model both worldwide and in Romania – the VW Golf.

Enjoying an enormous range of interested buyers, from families to businesses to students, the VW Golf sells best, surprisingly, in brown. With an average of just 18.6 days on sale, it’s difficult to explain why this colour has caught on so well on this model. What is certain is that buyer preference is clear, a brown VW Golf sells on average 35% faster than a white VW Golf, the least desirable colour.

Second place averages 20.8 days on sale and is occupied by silver, as in the overall ranking. Third place also confirms the general trend with yellow with an average of 22.6 days on sale.

“We clearly see that yellow is the exception for Romania in the region. Even compared to neighbouring countries like Hungary, yellow cars are clearly more sold in Romania. It takes about 3 weeks to sell a yellow vehicle in Romania and although it takes almost the same amount of time to sell such a car in Hungary, yellow is the slowest selling colour there. This shows how different neighbouring markets can be,” – says Matas Buzelis, carVertical Communications Director.

Cars with this colour sell the hardest

If yellow cars are disappearing fastest from the market, at the other end of the spectrum, the colour that sells hardest on a car is beige. Although beige is a popular neutral choice when it comes to interior design, it seems that in the automotive world drivers shy away from it. With an average of 26.2 days on sale beige isn’t a catastrophe though, with the difference between beige and the top colour being just over 5 days. In percentages, however, we can say that the differences are significant – it takes on average 26% longer to sell a beige car than a yellow one.

White and green cars are also hard to sell with an average of 24.8 and 24.7 days on sale respectively. White cars are probably associated with company car fleets and in addition white tends to hide body lines making any model look more mundane than if it had colour.

“Beige vehicles are usually more difficult to sell because they are not as conservative as some conventional shades such as black, white, silver or grey. Being slightly more subtle and understated, beige is often the choice of people with more refined taste. This explains why it takes longer to sell such vehicles” – explains Matas Buzelis.

Romanians’ tastes when it comes to the colour of their car are very different

As yellow is the most sought-after colour among Romanians, we are apart both in the region and in Europe where the most sought-after colours are black (23.5% of the entire European car fleet), white (21.1%) and silver (17.6%).

On the other hand, looking at the second and third most sold colours for a second-hand car in Romania, namely silver and black, we fit very well in the European market. Therefore, with small exceptions, our trends overlap with European trends.