South of the border, and indeed, increasingly here in Canada, November sees the biggest single days in terms of retail sales, those being Black Friday and Cyber Monday thanks to deep discounting incentives provided by merchants.
In the auto industry, while we haven’t seen the dramatic surge in sales witnessed by retailers in shopping malls and other commercial districts, Edmunds.com predicts that auto sales (at least in the U.S.) will show fairly strong overall demand for cars and light trucks compared with last year. Estimates peg a total of 991,296 vehicle sales for the month, which despite representing a 2.8 per cent decrease from October, is still 13.6 per cent up on November last year.
Edmunds.com Senior Analyst Jessica Caldwell stated: “There were positive forces in the auto market in November as more inventory was available and automakers began year-end holiday sales events.” She also added [that while “deal-oriented messages work more effectively than before [and] sales are strong now, we are still witnessing deferred demand from the summer so cannot expect this sales level to be considered normal.”
Another Senior Analyst at the firm, Ray Zhou, added “In the last two years Thanksgiving weekend brought higher auto sales than we typically, probably due to the current economic environment,” and what he called “buyers’ bargain-hunting mentality.”
