Use coin slot, buy car like candy bar
Carvana’s giant vending machine delivers vehicles
People buying a used car or truck through Carvana can have a vehicle delivered straight to their driveway, but roughly half of buyers choose to go get it themselves.
And why not? Self-pickup through Carvana means heading to one of the company’s special “vending machine” parking structures, dropping a commemorative coin into a slot and watching as electric motors whirl, pulleys spin and chains whizz into motion.
Coin activation propels a special elevator platform that retrieves the designated vehicle from its slot — possibly eight or nine stories up the structure — then delivers it down into a bay for waiting buyers in a matter of minutes.
“Whole families come and watch,” said Ryan Keeton, Carvana’s co-founder and chief brand officer. “It’s a unique pickup experience.”
Carvana’s first Arizona vending machine, and 12th nationally ,opened this week in north Tempe to serve customers in the Phoenix metro area. As of Wednesday, the day the service debuted, no customers had yet to pick up a car there.
More than just a gimmick, the unusual nine-story-tall, glass-enclosed parking structure with nine electric motors provides marketing visibility for Carvana to the thousands of drivers who pass each day on Loop 202 at Scottsdale Road.
It also provides an efficient way to get autos into the hands of new buyers, Keeton said.
The facility, on roughly an acre of land, is highly automated and requires only a few people to operate it, with up to 34 vehicles stacked inside (Chevrolet Tahoe trucks are the largest that will fit).
He contrasts that with a typical auto dealership that takes up several acres, displaying hundreds of cars and trucks and staffed with dozens of people.
Through the company’s website, carvana.com, people can shop for used cars and trucks from among the roughly 12,000 vehicles currently in inventory. Customers then can purchase vehicles, secure loans if needed and arrange delivery options — all online.
The company pulls the vehicle a customer selects out of its inventory and ships it to their city. Carvana operates four national distribution facilities, including a new one in Tolleson, but a car or truck could be shipped from any-
where in the country, Keeton said.
Customers can choose driveway delivery or head down to a vending machine in the 12 cities where they’re available, at no additional cost. Either way, buyers then have seven days to decide if they want to keep their new purchase.
Carvana has grown rapidly since its launch in 2012, with revenue more than doubling in the latest quarter to $334 million, from $148 million one year earlier. The company’s quarterly loss narrowed to $7 million from $38 million over that stretch.
Keeton said the vending machines are one more way to provide new and better experiences for used-car buyers — a message the company has repeated in billboards and TV commercials critical of traditional auto salespeople and haggling.
“Most people have been buying cars the same way for the past 75 years,” he said. “We have a range of new ideas.”