KANSAS CITY, Mo. — While many people are gearing up for a trip to Walmart or Target for Black Friday deals, a lot of other people are thinking much bigger. Auto dealers say more new vehicles will be sold over the next four days than nearly any other time of the year.
Online sales leads jumped 17 percent on Black Friday last year on Ford dealer websites, compared to other Fridays in November.
And already at 9 a.m. Wednesday morning, more than 30 people were on Gary Crossley Ford’s website checking out the inventory. The most popular vehicle being viewed is Ford’s F-150 pickup truck. Last year on Black Friday, sales leads for F-150s increased by 22 percent. And at Crossley Ford, more people are looking at the trucks than any other model. The dealer says Black Friday and Cyber Monday are the two busiest days on its website.
“It’s huge for new car sales,” Todd Crossley. “Black Friday and this whole weekend is our busiest weekend of the month by far. When it comes to things like servicing your vehicle and stuff like that. Ford, this is their biggest tire sale day by almost double of any other day of the year.”
Now, a lot of this has to do with people actually having some time over the long holiday weekend to research new vehicles or get that service done that they’ve delayed.
But also, Black Friday falls on the last weekend of the month. And that’s always a good time to try to buy a new vehicle.
Dealers don’t want to carry over inventory into a new month. So there are end-of-the-month and end-of-the-year incentives. Ford is even offering a $1,000 prepaid Mastercard to every customer who buys a new vehicle on Black Friday.
Crossley Ford is going to have extra staff on hand beginning Friday morning.