In September 2026, the best-selling car in the UK was a JAECOO 7. New-entrant brands now take a record 15.8% of the new car market, and dealer groups are adding them to their line-ups quickly.
Buyers are clearly open to them. But open isn't the same as sold, and the questions they bring with them are ones your website should already be answering.
Brand loyalty is loosening
Autotrader surveyed more than 2,000 UK drivers in June. Preference for brands with a long automotive history fell from 70% in 2024 to 55%. Only one in seven said European origin was important, half the level of two years ago.
Younger buyers are moving fastest. Among under-30s, 40% would consider a Chinese brand if the price was right, compared with 11% of drivers aged 75 and over.
The badge on the bonnet matters less than it did.
Price gets attention. Reassurance closes the sale.
Competitive pricing was the biggest reason to consider a Chinese brand, ranked first by half of respondents. Next came safety ratings, longer warranties and good aftersales service. And 23% said concerns about data security and customer service would put them off.
Those aren't objections to the car. They're questions about what happens after you buy it: who fixes it, how long it's covered, and who you call when something goes wrong.
The badge is new. The dealer isn't.
This is where the dealer group comes in. Autotrader's chief customer officer, Ian Plummer, put the brands pulling ahead down to "two or three brands that have invested seriously in dealer networks, product and visibility".
Research from Quintegia, which studied more than 4,700 car buyers this year, points the same way. 74% of buyers see themselves as customers of the dealership, compared with 60% who see themselves as customers of the brand. Among people considering a new brand, trust in the brand was the biggest barrier, cited by 59%, and 57% said dealing with the dealer improved how they saw the brand.
So a buyer who isn't sure about an unfamiliar name can lean on one they already know: the group with the workshop down the road, the reviews and the track record.
Buyers might not know the brand yet. They can know you.
What your website should answer
After price, buyers said they wanted safety ratings, a longer warranty and decent aftersales. And 23% said worries about data security and customer service would put them off. A good brand page can deal with most of that before anyone comes in, but on most dealer sites the answers are buried in a FAQ or left for the salesperson to explain on the forecourt.
Start with the warranty. If it's a long one, it's one of the best things you've got to sell, so put it on the vehicle page near the price, along with what it covers and whether it passes to the next owner.
Then servicing. Someone buying a brand they hadn't heard of two years ago wants to know who'll look after the car. That's your workshop and your technicians, so show them, and let people book a service on the new brand the same way they would on any other.
Safety ratings need a source. Say who tested the car and link to the result.
On data, a link to the privacy policy won't settle anyone's nerves. Two or three plain sentences on the brand page will: what's collected, who holds it and who to ask.
And make it obvious who to talk to. A name and a number for the person who looks after the brand is worth more than a general contact form.
Your group's track record is the strongest thing you have here, so put your reviews and your history on the new brand's pages, not just the homepage.
Adding a new brand on Autonomy
When a group signs a new franchise, the website often adds to the stress. You wait for a quote, then for developers to find time to do the work, and it can be weeks or even months before the brand is live on your site.
Autonomy lets you do it yourself. You add the franchise in the admin, with its name, manufacturer, logo, brand colours and SEO, and it sits on your existing site next to your other brands, under your group's name. There's no extra cost on your licence fee and no waiting for developers to build a new section. You're in control of it from start to finish.
Groups already run JAECOO, OMODA and Chery on Autonomy, next to brands their customers have bought from for years.
The takeaway
New brands are winning attention on price. Whether they win the sale often comes down to the dealer.
If you're adding a brand to your line-up and want to see how it would sit on your site, speak to the team.
