Vic KolencEl Paso Times
CarMax, which bills itself as the nation’s largest used vehicles retailer, has opened a second store in El Paso, eight years after opening the first one here.
The new store is located along Interstate 10 in West El Paso at 6101 S. Desert Blvd., between Redd Road and Artcraft Road (Paseo del Norte Boulevard). Its other store is also located along I-10 in East El Paso, at 1300 Pendale Road, between Lee Trevino and George Dieter drives.
CarMax officials have been pleased with the East El Paso store’s performance, but getting a new store open often takes years of planning, Jennifer Bartusiak, public relations manager for CarMax, based in Richmond, Virginia, said in an email.
The company does not divulge sales by individual locations.
The West Side store is one of five new locations CarMax plans to open nationwide in its current fiscal year.
It currently has 245 locations, including 25 in Texas and two in New Mexico (Albuquerque and Santa Fe). The East El Paso store was its 161st location.
Used-car prices skyrocket
Much has changed in the auto-selling world since the first CarMax store opened in El Paso in June 2016. Some of the changes came out of the COVID-19 pandemic.
One of the bigger changes is used car prices.
The average price of a used vehicle sold by CarMax was $26,526 in its first quarter (March through May) of this year. That's 33.5% more than the $19,858 average price in its first quarter 2016, CarMax financial data show.
Prices for vehicles available through the West El Paso store on July 29 ranged from $13,998 for a 2013 Honda Civic with 108,000 miles to $50,998 for a 2022 Toyota Tundra pickup truck with 23,000 miles, according to the store’s online listings.
Even though used-vehicle prices increased in the first quarter, as is the historical norm, prices began to stabilize at the end of 2023, CarMax CEO Bill Nash told Wall Street analysts during the company’s first-quarter earnings call in June.
In the last two years, used car prices had wide price fluctuation, up and down, Nash noted.
CarMax sales decline
The company sold just over 1.3 million used cars in its 2024 fiscal year, ending Feb. 28. That included 765,572 used vehicles sold for almost $21 million to consumers via its car stores and online, and 546,331 used vehicles sold for almost $5 million to car dealers at wholesale auctions.
Sales decreased from its 2023 fiscal year because of inflation, higher interest rates, and low consumer confidence, according to CarMax's financial report.
The CarMax goal is to sell more than 2 million used vehicles annually to consumers and through its auctions by 2030, or possibly sooner, company officials have reported.
CarMax niche: Vehicles aged zero to 10
CarMax has only a small portion of the used-vehicle market.
An estimated 37 million used vehicles were sold nationwide in 2023, most of those through thousands of franchised dealerships that sell both new and used vehicles, according to CarMax's fiscal year 2024 annual report.
About 19 million of those vehicles were models aged between zero to 10 ‒ CarMax’s target niche. CarMax sold almost 4% of the used vehicles in that age group in the United States in 2023.
'No-haggle' sales formula
The company differentiates itself from competitors through its “no-haggle” sales formula, meaning its vehicles sell at sticker prices, and other selling features.
Customers can sell their used vehicles to CarMax even if a customer does not buy a vehicle from the company. It doesn’t use trade-ins for vehicle sales as done by most car dealers.
The company reconditions each vehicle sold to consumers to meet its certified standards. It offers a 10-day, or 1,500-mile, money-back guarantee. In May, it lowered the number of days in the guarantee from 30 to 10.
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Smaller West Side store reflects changes
The new West Side store is 8,000 square feet with room for up to 200 vehicles on its lot. It’s much smaller than the East Side’s 39,000 square-foot facility because the company is using a more streamlined operational and facility design for its newest locations, said Bartusiak, the CarMax spokesperson.
Company officials declined to divulge the number of employees at its two El Paso stores.
Brad Benson, a Colorado resident for 40 years, is the new store’s general manager. He was a manager-in-training at CarMax’s store in Parker, Colorado, a Denver suburb, before moving to El Paso.
“CarMax customers tell me they are glad we opened a second location,” Benson said in a statement.
Vic Kolenc may be reached at 915-546-6421;vkolenc@elpasotimes.com;@vickolencon Twitter, now known as X.
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