There are numerous ways to buy and sell used cars, be they used car dealerships or private sellers on car trading apps and platforms like Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace. One that has risen to prominence in recent years is Carvana, which was founded in 2012 as an online platform to help customers buy cars and make sales. The brand has grown in the years since, to the point that it’s started setting its sights on expanding into brick-and-mortar dealership efforts.
As reported by The Dallas Morning News on September 22, Carvana purchased the Park Cities Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep-Ram (CDJR) dealership in Dallas for an undisclosed sum. This comes after the company purchased Jerry Seiner Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep-Ram of Casa Grande, Arizona, in February, which proved another notable move in its recent dealership aspirations. ​​”We are in the very early days of testing as a franchise dealer — first at a CDJR dealership outside of Phoenix and now at one in Dallas,” Carvana told the publication, adding that the company hopes to learn while simultaneously meeting customer expectations.
The Park Cities dealership is expected to be renamed Carvana Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep-Ram-Fiat of Park Cities, per Automotive News. Carvana’s move into establishing a physical presence in the used car game is nothing new, though. It has spent years now pushing beyond the digital space.
Carvana’s purchase of the Park Cities CDJR dealership in Texas is just the latest move in the company’s push for more physical business. As mentioned, it runs a dealership in Casa Grande, Arizona, and it previously made waves with its signature car vending machines. These massive towers full of used cars are located throughout the United States, with almost 40 in total serving potential customers. The first opened for business in 2015 in Nashville, Tennessee, paving the way for the numerous others that have sprung up over the past decade.
In addition to its dealership purchases and vending machines, Carvana has made some big moves in the car auction world as well. The company purchased the ADESA car auction business, formerly owned by parent company KAR Global, for a staggering $2.2 billion in 2022. This not only gave Carvana access to ADESA’s website, allowing it to oversee its many car auctions, but also gave it access to ADESA’s 56 physical locations nationwide. Time will tell whether any of its sales will equal the most expensive junk cars ever sold at auction, or the many other rarities that have gone for big money at auction over the years.
Though it’s still primarily known as an online entity, Carvana is going all-in on breaking free of the online world. One can only hope for all parties involved that Carvana’s purchase of its second CDJR dealership, and any other big buys the company is considering, will pay off in the long run.