• June 4, 2010

Ford is killing Mercury, but who will benefit? While nobody knows for sure, most say Ford won't lose buyers. AutoTrader.com says that more than a quarter of new Mercury shoppers on the shopping site also looked at new Ford vehicles, and more than 7% of new Mercury shoppers on AutoTrader.com also looked at new Lincoln vehicles.

The company says it is listing about 9,100 new Mercs for sale on its site -- and that among the top 10 new-car brands cross-shopped by new Mercury shoppers, 28.8% of Mercury buyers looked at Ford vehicles; 11.3% looked at Chevys; 8.2% looked at Hyundai cars and trucks; 7.8% looked at Honda and Toyota and 7.5% looked at Lincoln. Other vehicles that were cross-shopped were Nissan, Mazda, GMC and Kia.

"With the Ford-Lincoln combo, if the Mercury brand closes as planned, marketing and outreach to the new Mercury buyers who also looked at Fords and Lincolns could go a long way to keeping those buyers in the Ford family," said AutoTrader.com President and CEO Chip Perry. "But with many other popular brands represented in our cross-shopping list, a lot of these new-car buyers could be up for grabs from other brands that want to be creative and aggressive in marketing to and attracting these buyers."