People are spending more time researching upcoming car purchases on the Internet and less time negotiating with a dealer, a multi-university research team study has found. In fact, the total time a buyer spends searching for a car has increased with Internet research.

Consumers, researchers say, are showing up at dealerships armed with better information gleaned from the Internet. All of this results in buyers who are ready to negotiate a better buy. The study found that the Internet is having a huge impact on how people are buying cars, and that buyers who used the Internet for research spent an average of 80 minutes less at car dealerships during their search for a car. Buyers who used the Internet also spent an average of 25 minutes less negotiating prices and going on test-drives.

The study was published in The Journal of Consumer Research.