黑色星期五 網上購車者增加

With bellies full of turkey and hearts full of mirth, millions of Americans will head to the mall this extended weekend — to buy Ugg Boots, Xboxes and Frozen dolls for themselves and for loved ones.

數百萬吃飽了火雞、滿心歡笑的美國人將會在這個大週末來到商場，爲自己和親朋好友購買UGG雪地靴、Xbox遊戲機和冰雪娃娃。

Increasingly, another industry is cashing in on Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and it’s not one you usually associate with teeming crowds and slashed prices — autos.

另一個行業也逐漸開始利用黑色星期五和網絡星期一的商機，而通常情況下，這裏看不到熱鬧的人羣和跳水的價格，這個行業就是汽車業。

Car shoppers are visiting car dealers in greater numbers around the Thanksgiving holiday. Alex Gutierrez, an analyst at Kelly Blue Book, said that while Black Friday hasn’t yet reached the level of Memorial Day or Labor Day for car sales, it’s quickly becoming one of the bigger weekends of the year for dealers.

感恩節前後，大量購車者會光顧汽車店。Kelly Blue Book的分析師亞歷克斯o古鐵雷斯表示，儘管黑色星期五的汽車銷量目前尚未達到美國陣亡將士紀念日和勞動節的水平，但對汽車經銷商而言，它已迅速成爲一年中最重要的週末之一。

Granted, the deals offered on car lots aren’t always short-term, he noted. Many manufacturers are “running their Black Friday specials throughout the month of December,” he said.

然而，古鐵雷斯稱，汽車打折並非都是短期活動，許多汽車廠商的“打折活動會從黑色星期五一直持續到12月底。”

So what is driving this increase in Black Friday car shopping? Some of it, surely, is just the growing focus on the weekend as a time for all things consumerist, with cars dragged along for the ride. Gutierrez also notes that for the past year or so, the auto industry has been recovering from a historic low point that came during 2009 and 2010 in the aftermath of the credit crisis.

那麼，是什麼推動了汽車銷量在黑色星期五實現增長？毫無疑問，部分原因只是更多人將這個週末當作購買一切商品的好時機，而汽車業只是搭了個順風車。不過古鐵雷斯也表示，在2009年至2010年的金融危機過後，汽車業的表現跌至歷史最低，如今已經開始恢復生氣。

The other thing driving auto sales on Black Friday and Cyber Monday is the increasing importance of online shopping to the car buying process. , a Dealertrack TRAK 2.02% company that sells shopping tools to auto dealers, saw a 7% increase in the total traffic during the two weeks leading up to Black Friday in 2013 compared to 2012.

而另一個促使汽車銷量在黑色星期五和網絡星期一攀升的因素，是網購在購車過程中的重要性日益增加。是Dealertrack旗下一家爲汽車經銷商提供購買工具的網站。該網站在2013年黑色星期五前兩週的訪問量同比提高了7%。

“We are seeing a major surge in traffic, and we saw it last year too,” said Dave Winslow, Dealertrack’s vice president of digital strategy. Winslow pointed out that, with customers going online to shop, it doesn’t really matter if they are actually heading to the lots this weekend, because most of the decision-making happens before they actually go to buy a car.

Dealertrack的數碼戰略副總裁戴夫o溫斯洛表示：“我們發現，這段時間的網站訪問量大幅增加，去年也有這個情況。”溫斯洛指出，隨着顧客們開始網購，他們是否在這個週末光臨了汽車店並不重要，因爲他們在買車之前已經做出了大部分決策。

One online auto company is taking things a step further in its appeals to Black Friday shoppers by offering a flat discount of $1,000 on all cars. That would be Carvana, a startup that calls itself the “Amazon of cars,” in that the cars — all used — are sold entirely online, including financing, and delivered the next day with no test drive. (The company does offer a no questions asked, full refund return within seven days of delivery.) Carvana currently operates in Atlanta, Nashville and Charlotte.

一家汽車網購公司在吸引黑色星期五的顧客上更進一步，公司對所有車輛都提供1,000美元的折扣。這家初創公司名爲Carvana，它自稱是“汽車業的亞馬遜（Amazon）”。Carvana只賣二手車，所有的購買手續，包括付款在內，都在網上進行，汽車將於次日送至客戶處，其中沒有試駕過程。（不過公司提供送達七日內無條件全額退款。）目前，Carvana只爲亞特蘭大、納什維爾和夏洛特三座城市提供服務。

Carvana CEO Ernie Garcia stressed that Carvana wasn’t raising prices for two weeks before Black Friday and then cutting prices back down to what they were originally. With so many of their competitors taking that tack, Garcia said the company was stressing the promotion too much.

Carvana的首席執行官歐尼o加西亞強調，他們沒有在黑色星期五之前兩週提價，然後再在活動期間降回原價。加西亞表示，許多競爭對手都會玩弄這種伎倆，但他們公司非常重視這次促銷。

“Every automotive retailer out there is going to have some crazy Black Friday thing,” he said. “That’s because they’re playing games. That’s really hard for us to really get through to customers.”

他說：“外面每家汽車經銷商都會在黑色星期五打出一些瘋狂的活動，因爲他們只是玩玩。讓顧客聽到我們的聲音真的十分困難。”

Is Black Friday really a great time to buy a car? Larry Dominique, an executive vice president at Truecar TRUE -2.00% , a service that tracks car prices, said that while it may be a good time, but shoppers can do even better.

黑色星期五真的是買車的好時機嗎？提供汽車價格追蹤服務的Truecar的執行副總裁拉里o多米尼克表示，這也許是個不錯的時機，但顧客可以有更好的選擇。

He said that while discounts are very good on Black Friday, they actually improve at the end of the month. This is because car makers and dealers are looking to move as many vehicles off the lot as possible before the end of the year — manufacturers so they can report the best yearly sales they can, and dealers to reach the sales goals set by the manufacturers.

他表示，儘管黑色星期五的折扣不錯，但月底實際上會有更加優厚的讓利活動。因爲汽車製造商和經銷商都希望在年底之前儘可能多地把車賣出去——如此一來，汽車廠家就能報出更多的年銷量，而經銷商也更容易達成廠家設定的銷售目標。（財富中文網）