Sonic Automotive, CBI, and WD Partners redesigned used-car dealerships as "anti-car" stores with consultants instead of salespeople, electronic window stickers, and free car washes for life. They cut construction costs from $12 million to $9 million and reduced footprint from 15,000 square feet to 10,000 while keeping profits steady.
Hello, little lady. Have you come to buy yourself a car? Is your husband with you?
I hate going to car dealers because, you know, they play that whole game with you and you have to talk to their manager and all that, and I can't deal with it.
We knew that there absolutely had to be a better way to buy used cars, so we went, we did the research, and we developed a retail environment that provided them with everything that they needed and eliminated the pain points.
So what we tried to do is create something that was anti-car. All of, you know, the comfortable seating areas, the warm woods, the rich tones, those were all designed around making people feel comfortable to be here.
Oh my gosh, the Imagine Bar. So think about it, all of a sudden you come into an environment, you can search 1,192 cars looking for happy homes right now, right? So we're all about finding a happy home for our cars and allowing you to do the research to compare vehicles. Actually have electronic window stickers, which is wonderful too, so all the pricing is very easy very visual to see. There's key boxes on the cars, so we're not out running around looking for keys.
I think they act more like a consultant as opposed to a salesperson. They're not pushing you to buy a car, they're helping you find it.
Customers see people-friendly signs and community involvement. They also enjoy free car washes for as long as they own the car.
After we built our first 3 stores, senior management of the company came to me and said, hey, we need to build these faster and cheaper, and with a higher degree of reliability. And so that was the open-ended challenge that was thrown out. And with that, we started to embark on a journey of really analyzing the metrics by which these stores are measured. How many cars a month does this facility need to sell? How many associates inside the facility do you need to sell that number of cars? And so we sort of designed the second generation of stores from the inside out rather than the outside in.
It was a journey.
It was a journey that started with an idea, a visual rendering, and then working that using easily available materials to really mock up the interior environment and allowed Sonic and WD partners to assess the interior environment before the final product was built. It was huge. It allowed us to test and basically we like to use the term fail fast. So we were able to evaluate materials and products and the overall design of the space before actually rolling it out.
Construction, design, workplace is behavioral science. I mean, it's really about people working together, and if you're working independently and in silos and not together collectively, you can't be as effective.
So we went from basically $12 million down to $9 million on the first whack on— from Generation 1 to Generation 2 in our neighborhood stores. And we went down to about a 10,000-square-foot facility from about 15,000 to 17,000 square feet.
There was cost savings, but no drop in profit, and the team is now looking toward generation 3 and even more pleased customers.
Looks like we could make a deal.
Congratulations, Sonic Automotive Real Estate and Facilities Team, CBI, and WD Partners, 2016 Program of the Year Award winners.
