BREAKING news! Carvana & Vroom is bleeding cash. Is Ecommerce in auto DOA?

[Cullen C]

Just my opinion ---

This is a company chasing customer/unit growth at the exspense of profit, so they can shell game wallstreet. "Hey guys, look over here... we are growing units sold --- dont worry about all that red stuff on the financial"

Could not disagree more. It is Carvana taking a run at becoming a marketplace. If dealers acquiesce and decide to simply leverage Carvana's reach by listing cars on their site then they can slowly pull back their own inventory bought at auctions, only selling high margin inventory bought directly from customers.

 

[joe.pistell]

Sell a cheap printer so ppl will buy their ink....
Carvana shows us where the real money is in selling cars these days... F&I and Trade-ins. IOW, sell the car for zero profit to get the backend and the trade.

 

[jscole86]

Sell a cheap printer so ppl will buy their ink....
Carvana shows us where the real money is in selling cars these days... F&I and Trade-ins. IOW, sell the car for zero profit to get the backend and the trade.

Which is why it makes zero business sense for a dealer to partner with them. not to mention, you don't have a customer or relationship, you don't have a very good chance at retention, you don't have any reviews or word of mouth advertising from that customer. I'm sure there are more I'm missing..

all you have is a wholesale unit and *hopefully some* gross.

 

[Cullen C]

Sell a cheap printer so ppl will buy their ink....
Carvana shows us where the real money is in selling cars these days... F&I and Trade-ins. IOW, sell the car for zero profit to get the backend and the trade.

I actually think most dealers have moved to a model of accepting lessor and lessor front end grosses over time, moving to a "total gross" model as you describe.

This is a move further down the path, this is Amazon. Manage the customer experience on the front end, manage the seller relationship on the back end, collect massive amounts of data, sell your own product(and most likely promote it) when you source it from customers and can guarantee great returns. Oh and they still haven't cracked the wholesale game yet.

 

[Alexander Lau]

Carvana May Go Bankrupt During This Downturn (NYSE:CVNA)

COVID-19 is getting worse and is most likely to lead to a major decline in auto demand in the US.

seekingalpha.com

 

[Alexander Lau]

Vroom secures $450M in floorplan funding from Ally

Ally Financial is continuing to expand its commitments to online-only vehicle retailers as the coronavirus pandemic cripples the economy.

www.autoremarketing.com

 

[Alexander Lau]

Hertz begins offloading fleet starting with ZO6 vettes
https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a32586203/hertz-chevy-corvette-z06-for-sale/ I'll give'em $20 for one...it's a buyers market

 

[Rick Buffkin]

Well this is interesting! Curious what the angle is here?

CarvanaACCESS Unlocks a Whole New Way to Wholesale

CarvanaACCESS, Carvana's direct-purchase platform, gives wholesale buyers the exclusive opportunity to buy recent Carvana trade-ins from consumers.

www.businesswire.com

“Wholesale has been an important part of our business from the beginning, and much like consumer interest in The New Way to Buy a Car™ has quickly grown over time, so has interest in what we offer to industry customers with our wholesale inventory,” said Scott Wood, senior director of wholesale operations at Carvana. “This direct purchase platform unlocks the full potential of Carvana’s capabilities matched with technology modules from Manheim Digital, creating a whole new way to buy wholesale, directly from Carvana. We look forward to working with even more wholesale customers to provide them with our incredibly diverse inventory and national network.”

ADESA Clear

Purchase Carvana’s wholesale inventory, available every day on our new, simpler than ever auction experience.

www.carvanaaccess.com

 

[craigh]

The login page goes straight into Manheim. I'm not up to speed enough on the situation to know the significance of that.
Maybe they just need to physically move more metal to get more data, etc to keep investors happy?

 

[Rick Buffkin]

They have been marketing and running a massive Trade-In program for the better part of this year. From what I hear though, they over pay for vehicles at the auctions. Maybe you're right @craigh. Maybe they just need to keep circulating and moving metal.