Sonic Automotive, Inc. (NYSE:SAH) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

And there’s not — even with their best efforts I don’t think they can really do much about it. So, I mean, can you make it more flexible over time so that you’re not running into these issues?

Jeff Dyke: It’s a great question. We have the conversation here all the time. Yes, we can. Certainly, we can adjust and move our margins up. We would build stores differently going forward because our stores are built for high volume. If you remember pre-pandemic, we were averaging 550 units a store rooftop, right? Now that number is in the 300 range and we’re on our way back to the 500. But, yes, we would build — we’re not structured for that type of lower volume. We’re structured for the big heavy volume. But 100% if we — in market — like I said earlier it’s going to be topsy-turvy for the next 18 months to 24 months. There’s no question about that but new inventory is going to grow and electric vehicles are going to come into the market which we’ll start selling.

And that’s going to bolster the used vehicle volume, but we’re not going to get fooled by that. And so as we move forward and build stores we’ll take into consideration the flexibility that you’re talking about. We’ve pared down the stores now to where we know we can get that EBITDA positive moving forward and making good money. Our Denver store for example our Thornton store is back up making $800,000 a month and it’s back in the upper rational end of our profits stores across the entire company. And we see that coming back, but it’s a real good thought and it’s a conversation we have around here all the time. It’s hey do we need to expand the range so that we don’t get hit in case there is another trough that you’re talking about. And that will happen as we contemplate building or renovating stores in the future.

David Smith: And John, this is David Smith. Something to keep in mind is we have evolved the EchoPark brand and model over the years it’s been 10 years and a lot of R&D. And one of the things as you look down the road and Jeff mentioned that the Colorado market, the brand awareness in the Colorado market because we’ve been there longer than anywhere else it’s far greater than anywhere else in the country. And we’ve got our Chief Marketing Officer, Dino Bernacchi here and he may want to chime in. But I believe if you look down the road our brand awareness for EchoPark is going to be far greater. That’s going to help us get into a lot of more areas and drive our revenue if we do hit one of those air pockets you talked about.

Jeff Dyke: And we started branding in Houston in March of this year and our brand awareness there is growing like wildfire. So that’s great. But we haven’t been unwilling given the current economic circumstances to push that beyond the Houston market. But as we get better and stronger from a P&L perspective you’re certainly going to find us expand that throughout all of Texas and then the rest of the country. So there’s a lot of levers John that we can still pull. But we are very focused in that one to five-year-old category. We will build stores in the future that will give us the flexibility to do it in different ways if we need to.

John Murphy: I’m sorry. Can I sneak in one last one on the inventory side? I mean some of your brands are still pretty inventory constrained operating in I guess maybe mid to mid-single to maybe mid-teens day supply. I’m just curious how much of an impact do you think that’s having on your new vehicle sales here in the short run? And do you see any relief on the horizon?