Your nearby grocery store or big-box retailer might be bustling for the next several weeks as people get holiday gifts and meal ingredients.

The scene at your favorite auto auction might be much less active, based on the projections Black Book shared on Tuesday through its latest installment of Market Insights.

The foundation for that forecast came as analysts said the estimated average weekly sales rate continues to drop, sliding to 51% last week.

“As expected, lanes are slow, and we do not expect them to pick up too much for the rest of the year,” Black Book said in the report. “With Thanksgiving this week and Christmas around the corner, there is not much movement in the auction lanes. Although buyers are still showing up, they are holding on to what they want to pay. Sales rates continue to fall as sellers are still holding tight to their floors.

“Vehicles running through the lanes are not up for negotiation and the lack of ‘if’ sales reinforces that,” analysts continued. “Rental companies made more of an appearance last week and were very competitive among each other. Large independent dealers appeared to be less active, along with the franchise dealers.

“Inventory is overall still down, but we are seeing more model year 2022 vehicles coming through the lanes. Diesel has gone up and is at its highest since mid-July. Gas, on the other hand, is slowly coming back down. Overall, the wholesale market has not changed much and is still following the downward trend,” Black Book went on to say.

With that summation in mind, perhaps it’s not surprising that wholesale prices didn’t soften as much last week as they did during the prior week. Black Book pegged the latest overall value decline at 0.89%.

Looking closer at cars, analysts determined that, on a volume-weighted basis, overall car segment prices decreased 0.94% with all nine car segments softening.

Black Book computed that values among the car segments have declined on average by 1.12% per week over the past six weeks.

Analysts added that mid-size cars sustained the largest price decline last week, dropping by 1.28%. They said the segment now has had an average weekly depreciation rate of 1.70% during the past four weeks.

Black Book mentioned values for full-size cars also have been on a downward slide, dropping another 1.14% last week and pushing the average decline to 1.53% over the past three weeks.

All 13 truck segments dropped in value last week, too, as the overall volume-weighted movement nearly mirrored the total market since truck values decreased 0.87%.

Subcompact crossovers paced the truck price declines, dropping by 1.34% last week and pushing the average drop to 1.54% per week for the past four weeks.

Analysts noted minivan values slid another 1.10% lower, as prices for family haulers now have declined by 1.90% on average during the past three weeks.

“The market continued to decline last week, but the rate of depreciation slightly slowed down,” Black Book said. “However, the declines are still outpacing what is typically experienced this time of year. Sales rates at the auctions are weak as sellers continue to hold firm on floors and buyers remain selective.”