CarMax Empowers Customers with Self-Progression Capabilities

At a time when the auto retail market has been getting hammered by rising interest rates and fuel costs, used auto retailer CarMax has put more of the power in the hands of its growing customer base in the first quarter of fiscal 2023, the three months ending May 31.

CarMax has enabled online self-progression capabilities for all retail customers, a move that helped to bring the Q1 net revenues to $9.3 billion, a 21% increase from the same period one year earlier. Customers are showing an increased interest in choosing their car’s price, attributes and more.

“While the used vehicle market environment was challenging in the first quarter, we continued to make progress on the key strategic priorities that enable CarMax to grow profitable market share, now and into the future,” said Bill Nash, president and chief executive officer, in the company press release Friday (June 24). “For the past several years, our priorities and investments have focused on building a leading e-commerce platform that integrates buying and selling cars with our best-in-class store experience.

“All of our retail customers are now able to transact online on their own. We will now turn our efforts to further improving the experience for customers and associates by focusing on the seamlessness of our online and in-store offerings,” he said.

Wholesale unit sales were up 2.7% to 186,307 vehicles, while retail used unit sales were down 11% to 240,950 vehicles. Comparable store used unit sales dropped 12.7% year-over-year in Q1.

In total, CarMax sold 427,257 cars through its retail and wholesale channels, down 5.5% from Q1 of fiscal 2022, and bought 362,280 vehicles from consumers and dealers, up 6.2% from the same time one year earlier. Consumer-based car buys were 345,216, up 3% from the record results from Q1 of FY22. That includes 17,064 vehicles sold through MaxOffer, the company’s digital appraisal product for dealers, up 183.4% year over year.

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