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John Calcott of NewMexicoAutosDirect.com freely admits his new usedauto store that has been open about a month is not really an original idea. “I copied, but there’s no one formula,” he said. “Some folks do things one way and other folks do things another. It’s as helterskelter as the internet. It’s changing and evolving.”
With inner-city lots becoming ever-more expensive, particularly in the larger metro areas, used-car lots are being phased out of existence.
“What’s happening is that around the country, all the used-car lots have been replaced by high rises,” Calcott said. “The dirt in cities like Los Angeles, Dallas, New York City, it doesn’t matter, Chicago, there’s no more used-car lots. They’ve either gone into warehouses, industrial warehouses and/or shopping centers like this.”
Calcott’s store operates out of a strip mall just south of the Renaissance Center collection of big box warehouse stores near Montaño and I-25. It’s clean and indoors so the cars and customers are protected from the elements.
And while walk-in business is part of the concept, gaining notice over the internet is the big draw.
“Stores are closing so this is the next step because people are buying on the internet,” he said. “It reaches out and there have been some folks who have been doing this for 20, 30 years. Not many, a few. It’s a different way to do business because of the way the market is changing.”
What it does is give the customer the opportunity to surf for a specific car.
“Everybody has a dream car and it kind of changes,” Calcott said. “Everybody has a dream car as a kid. Maybe you get it, maybe you don’t. But maybe 20 years later you have another dream car and you can get it. A lot of people when they go to buy a car, they go the internet looking for that particular car. Car X. So with the internet, they don’t have to go from block to block. With the internet they can find whatever that car is and how many of them there are and then they can go and look at them and drive them.”
Calcott has come out of retirement — again — to pursue this venture. He used to own another dealership in Albuquerque and before that he owned new-car dealerships in the Midwest.
“It’s like the fourth time I retired,” he said. “You can only play so much golf. I’m not a sit-at-home guy.”