They want to start and stop, revisit it later, bring in their spouse. And more and more, they also want to do much of the purchase journey online at their own pace. They want to do that at the kitchen table when they have a little bit of time and can access their computer. Nobody wants to sit in a dealership and try to remember all their income data, their tax returns, their credit history, all with somebody breathing down your neck trying to sell you a car. What customers do want is the ability to complete parts of the process online, said Lyski, “for example, applying for financing. In reality, most consumers don’t actually want to shop for their car wholly online, said Lyski, and in fact, the portion of completely online sales CarMax makes are still relatively low (14% in the most recent Q4 earnings, up from 11% in the prior year). Now, every step of buying or selling a car at CarMax can be done online or in-person - including many processes that most other retailers never had to worry about digitizing such as buying back products and financing purchases. So Lyski and his team set out to give it to them. Automotive retail was slower to the party, but once the consumer starts getting into that mindset, they start thinking, ‘If I can get a personalized experience for a $5 cup of coffee, I better be able to get a personalized experience for a $20,000 vehicle.’ And they’re right.” “The result was that instead of just comparing things within each category, they started saying, ‘Well, if I can have it here, I want it over there too,’ and we saw that sweep through retail. “Five, six years ago the consumer was in most aspects of their life getting a better level of service - they were getting personalized experiences at Starbucks, they could buy online and pick up at the store at Target,” said Jim Lyski, EVP of Strategy and Product and Chief Marketing Officer at CarMax in an interview with Retail TouchPoints. So in 2018 the retailer embarked on a five-year digital transformation journey aimed at making every stage of the car-buying journey omnichannel. Thirty years on, CarMax has become the largest used car retailer in the U.S., with 240 locations across the country and more than 800,000 cars sold in its last fiscal year.īut the rise of online-only used car dealers like Carvana and Vroom - which also set out to evolve the car-buying process albeit through digital solutions - threatened to chip away at CarMax’s dominance. From the moment it debuted in 1993, CarMax set out to change that with a focus on honest sales interactions and simplified processes. A car is one of the biggest purchases most consumers make, but the process of buying one, especially used, has long been one of consumers’ most dreaded retail experiences.
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