Runts and 25-cent rings be damned – Carvana’s latest vending machine lets adults have all the fun while also sidestepping the dreaded car salesman altogether. The first iteration of Carvana’s online and automated vending machine concept started right here in Atlanta. Since its inception, Carvana has become one of the region’s largest car retailers, ranking 2nd only to Carmax. After a successful launch in Atlanta, Carvana opened up shop in Austin, Birmingham, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Charlotte, and Raleigh, with their latest vending machine design hitting the country music capital of the world, Nashville, TN.
Interacting with a car salesman sounds like a great way to spoil a Saturday, so when Carvana unveiled their latest vision we had to know more. We got the chance to catch up with Co-Founder & Chief Brand Officer, Ryan Keeton, who gave us the 411 on Carvana’s latest launch and how they are disrupting the car-selling market.
“It’s been a great year for us,” said Keeton. “Being identified by Forbes as the 5th most promising company in 2015 is exciting.” Not to mention Carvana’s recent listing as one of the next emerging unicorn companies by Crunchbase.
The once archaic model of car purchasing is being disrupted by the ease of online shopping and automated vending machines. From financing to down payments and purchases, Carvana’s process is all possible with the click of a button (with help available on the site if needed). Once the process is complete you choose whether you want your new ride delivered to your door or issued through the ultimate vending machine.
While Keeton couldn’t name drop the impressive investors behind Carvana’s recent funding, he did tell us that they successfully secured 300 million to implement their expansion plans. And expand they will: “Our market growth has been rapid, and it’s at a pace we will continue to keep. We are finding that demand in our newer markets is expanding at a much faster rate then when we first launched in Atlanta.”
To Carvana’s credit, it seems like their customer satisfaction may have a little something to do with their rapid growth. “Customers are definitely having positive experiences buying a car through Carvana. Of the 1300+ reviews on our site, the average rating from our customers is 4.9 out of 5 stars. Time and time again, people are enjoying the process, and the best part is that we get to offer them a lower rate because we’ve cut out the middle man.”
Price, variety and customer experience are the main areas of focus for their future expansion. Over the next two years, Carvana plans to offer 1600 different cars on their site and look to increase the number of cars to 5-10 thousand. While car dealerships won’t be picketing anytime soon, we expect to see Carvana continue to challenge the status quo of car buying from here on out.
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