- Carvana has spent more than $160M snapping up Stellantis dealers in the US.
- The dealership doesn’t have traditional sales offices, but rather lounge areas.
- Retailer says it wants to overhaul the car dealership experience.
If the thought of walking into a dealership and dealing with a salesperson makes your skin crawl, Carvana may have something for you. The company has opened a store in Dallas without traditional salespeople, though staff remains on hand if customers ask for help. It is a radical rethink of the whole car-buying experience.
Over the past year, Carvana has spent more than $160 million buying dealerships from Stellantis around the country. One of them, formerly Park Cities Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, Ram in Dallas, Texas, was acquired around September last year, renovated, and reopened under the new format in June. Buyers can place an order at their own pace without an employee hovering nearby, eager for commission. Pricing is transparent and no-haggle.
Read: Carvana’s Stellantis Buying Spree Has Dealers On Edge
Gone are the sales offices you’d ordinarily find in a car dealership, and instead, the showroom is more open and even has an area to play cornhole. Sitting in the center of the site is a large cube covered with screens and displaying a QR code which visitors can scan to get information about any vehicle they’re interested in. Selections made on a phone show up on the cube’s screens too, so choosing between a hatch and an SUV plays out in public.
Buying From Your Phone
In addition, the cars at the dealer sit unlocked, making it easier for shoppers to get up close with a vehicle’s cabin. To arrange a test drive, customers simply need to tap an option on the Carvana website, and an employee will bring an identical vehicle out into the parking lot. The worker also doesn’t need to ride shotgun, so you won’t have to deal with a salesperson chewing your ear off talking about a car’s features while you’re busy trying to feel comfortable behind the wheel.
“Our goal with this is to really meaningfully evolve what the in-dealership experience looks like,” Carvana executive vice president of strategy Christina Keiser told The Detroit News. “This is a really big step in a new direction.”
“This is a self-directed experience,” Keiser added. “We’re here to guide you, we’re here to welcome you, but ultimately you don’t need us following alongside you.” She likened it to browsing a retail store and picking up the merchandise, saying Carvana wants buyers to feel that same ease with a purchase many times the size.
Placing an order can also be done on a smartphone or one of the devices within the dealership. It all sounds rather fascinating, but only time will tell if it works better than a normal dealership setup.
For now, Keiser says early customer behavior has been encouraging, with some shoppers coming back more than once, though Carvana is still treating the Dallas site as a place to learn how the format holds up.
Opening image Park Cities Chrysler Jeep Dodge Ram FIAT/Facebook
