{"id":2820,"date":"2008-11-28T20:04:00","date_gmt":"2008-11-29T01:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/2008\/11\/blue-friday\/"},"modified":"2010-12-30T12:00:57","modified_gmt":"2010-12-30T17:00:57","slug":"blue-friday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/2008\/11\/blue-friday\/","title":{"rendered":"Blue Friday"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"New<\/a><\/p>\n

The day after Thanksgiving is called “Black Friday.” Reportedly it’s the time when eager pre-Christmas shoppers put merchants’ businesses into the black, or a least they hope so. In any case, Black Friday has become like Punxsutawney Phil<\/a>, a harbinger of things to come. Excellent sales on this one day are considered a portent for a good year.<\/p>\n

Auto dealers are not the principal beneficiaries of holiday shopping. Cars are not exactly giftware, but dealers do watch the fortunes of their retail brethren. A sagging economy affects all merchants. Actually, car dealers were feeling the pinch long before the October stock market crumble and the GM cash crunch. I was taken aback this spring to find that New London Motors<\/a>, our local Lincoln-Mercury-Mazda store, was no longer selling new cars<\/a>. The franchises had been sold to Whaling City Ford<\/a>, diagonally across the corner on “dealers’ row,” which now calls itself Whaling City Ford Lincoln Mercury Mazda<\/a>. New London Motors, we’re told<\/a>, is taking a franchise for Eurospeed scooters<\/a>, their launch scheduled for spring. I wonder how many they’ll sell if gasoline is still below $2.00 per gallon, as it is now.<\/p>\n

This is not the first big change for New London Motors. In the 1960s<\/a>, they were selling Lincolns, Mercurys and Triumphs from a location<\/a> that is now a medical office<\/a>. Nor is the Lincoln-Mercury franchise the only one to change hands. What was once the Buick dealership<\/a> has evolved<\/a> into a Unitarian-Universalist church<\/a>, and the present full-line GM dealer<\/a> M.J. Sullivan (no relation to the former Buick dealer) also handles Hyundai<\/a>. Not everything is cool at M.J. Sullivan<\/a>, however. Rapid expansion a few years back left them with excess showroom space<\/a>. Formerly leased to a discount furniture store, this building is now available<\/a> for your retailing enterprise.<\/p>\n

Reports say that the big box stores made modest gains over last year’s Black Friday sales. For car dealers, though, I expect it was a Blue Friday, with all hints of an approaching Blue, Blue Christmas<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The day after Thanksgiving is called “Black Friday.” Reportedly it’s the time when eager pre-Christmas shoppers put merchants’ businesses into the black, or a least they hope so. In any case, Black Friday has become like Punxsutawney Phil, a harbinger of things to come. Excellent sales on this one day are considered a portent for….<\/span>
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