National Numbers has been around for 35 years and in that time we have to admit a lot of things have changed. Long gone are the days when our business model was little more than buy an old banger with a good number plate and hope we could shift it.
Recently National Numbers surveyed thousands of customers who have previously bought a private number plate from us. We were trying to find out a little more about what our customers look for when purchasing a number plate, as well as finding out why they were interested in a number plate in the first place.
Customers were able to give multiple answers and from that we received a wide range of responses.
Unsurprisingly the most popular reasons given to why our customers were interested in their choice of number plate was that it personalises their car (42%) and it looks good on the car (37%). This shows that one thing that certainly hasn't changed about the number plate industry is that customers want something that is personal to them.
Some customers chose to elaborate the the reasons why it was important that the number plate personalises the car. A common reason was that a personalised number plate was easier to remember than the original number plate. Another reason was that a personalised number plate and one that looks good on the car makes the vehicle feel less like a mass produced vehicle. This tells us that customers strive for individuality, just as they always have.
Customers buying number plates as an investment was a lot lower than expected (12%). This could be down to how the number plate has changed as a whole, as there are less number plates around in general that can be bought cheap and sold high, but there are still some out there that are still doing so.
A third of the customers taking the survey (33%) actually bought a registration as a gift for someone else, a lot higher than expected. It shows how popular registration marks have become as presents. As the old saying goes, what to you get the man who has everything?
We also asked on the survey how many number plates people have an unsurprisingly most customers own just one number plate, however over quarter (27%) own two number plates and a further 14% own three. 7% of customers have four or more, and these typically also said they bought number plates as an investment.
11% of respondents said they bought a number plate because it was to be part of a fleet of vehicles, or to match their family's other vehicles, which explains why others may own more than one number plate.
Very few customers (1%) bought their registration because it is funny - which begs the question why National Numbers still have this section of the website.
Another low answer was customers saying they specifically bought a registration to show support for a cause (3%), but of those answering many of them specified they were supporting their football team - specifically Leicester City who of course are the current Premier League champions.
We hope everything we learned from this survey can be used to improve how we continue to market number plates and do more to make purchasing easier.
Thank you to all who responded to the survey.
