Carvana flips Stellantis stores into online test-drive “playgrounds,” selling all vehicles online

Carvana’s new vehicle strategy is simple to state and a lot harder to execute in practice: don’t expect to buy from a dealership counter. Instead, Carvana is using seven Stellantis stores as a test-drive “playground,” while the sales process stays all online. That single design choice is the story here, because it separates the physical experience from the transaction, and it does so in a way that looks intentionally different from typical franchised dealers.

In other words, you will not walk into one of those seven Stellantis stores and leave with a car contract like you might at a conventional franchise. The physical location is there to handle one of the most stubborn parts of buying a vehicle sight unseen: the human need to see, touch, sit in, and test drive. But Carvana’s message is that once you are at that moment of decision, the company still wants the buying experience to happen online, not through the in-store sales process you associate with franchised dealerships. The result is a split-brain model: offline test drive, online close.

To understand why this matters, you have to zoom out to how dealerships are structured. Traditional franchised dealerships are built around a brick-and-mortar sales funnel, inventory turnover, and sales staff who guide negotiations in person. Carvana, by contrast, has built much of its brand around online ordering and a smoother path to purchase, plus logistics that reduce the need for persistent showroom inventory. Bringing that model into Stellantis store locations is basically Carvana borrowing distribution infrastructure while trying not to adopt the operational DNA of franchising.

There is also a competitive subtext. Dealers have long marketed the immediacy and trust of in-person buying. Customers can inspect a vehicle, ask questions, and negotiate on the spot. Carvana’s approach tries to keep the best parts of the in-person experience, at least on the surface, by giving people a place to test drive. But Carvana is refusing to let the dealership become the main sales channel. That is a big deal because the sales channel is where margins get defended and where incentive structures live. If a vehicle sale happens online, the dealership model loses some leverage, even if the store still draws foot traffic.

Now add the franchised-dealer reality that sits behind the scenes: franchising is not just a location strategy, it is a regulated and contractual system. While the source does not spell out any specific regulatory mechanism here, the broader reason this is sensitive is that dealer networks exist within state-by-state rules and franchise agreements that shape who can sell, how vehicles can be distributed, and what role dealers play. When Carvana partners with branded retail space like Stellantis stores, it is effectively testing how much overlap is possible between a digitally native buying experience and a franchised footprint. That can be constructive if it expands the available customer funnel. It can also create friction if it threatens the dealership economics partners rely on.

From a board and executive perspective, the strategic stake is not the novelty of a test-drive location. The stake is whether this hybrid model improves conversion without undermining Carvana’s core advantage. Carvana’s “playground” concept is essentially a bet on customer behavior: that people will commit to an online purchase after an offline experience. If the model increases test-drive attendance and leads to higher online sales completion rates, the company improves unit economics without having to fully rebuild a traditional dealership sales force. If it does not, Carvana has still created a physical expense and operational complexity layer.

For other operators, especially those running online-first retail models, the second-order implication is that physical assets may be moving from “transaction centers” to “experience centers.” That sounds like a branding shift, but it is really a profit-and-loss shift. Experience centers can be designed to be faster, leaner, and more standardized. Transaction centers often require negotiation bandwidth, sales staffing, and inventory-related processes that are expensive and slow. If Carvana can keep the transaction online, it is trying to capture the trust benefits of physical access without absorbing all of the inefficiencies that come with traditional in-store selling.

Bottom line: Carvana is not just adding locations. It is reassigning roles. The company uses seven Stellantis stores for test drives, but it keeps sales all online, creating a contrast with typical franchised dealers. That hybrid architecture could become a template for how digital retailers and legacy retail infrastructure coexist. Executives at competitors should care because it challenges the assumption that dealership space must be the primary sales channel, and it raises the question of where the money will flow if the customer journey keeps splitting into offline experience and online close.