Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the third quarter fiscal year 2026 Cormax earnings release conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, David Lowenstein, Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Nikki. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining our fiscal 2026 third quarter earnings conference call. I'm here today with Tom Foleyard, Interim Executive Chair of the Board, David McCrate, Interim President and CEO, Enrique Mayor Mora, Executive Vice President and CFO, and John Daniels, Executive Vice President, Carmack. Let me remind you, our statements today that are not statements of historical fact, including but not limited to statements regarding the company's future business plan or performance, are forward-looking statements we make pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are based on our current knowledge, expectations, and assumptions and are subject to substantial risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from our expectations. In providing projections and other forward-looking statements, we disclaim any intent or obligation to update them. For additional information on important factors and risks that could affect these expectations. Please see our Form 8K filed with the SEC this morning, our annual report on Form 10K for fiscal year 2025, and our quarterly report. Please note, in addition to our earnings release, we have also prepared a quarterly investor presentation, and both documents are available on the investor relations section of our website. Should you have any follow-up questions after the call, please feel free to contact our Investor Relations Department at 804-747-0422, extension 7865. Lastly, let me thank you in advance for asking only one question and getting back in the queue for more follow-ups.
Thank you, David, and good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us. Today, I'm going to provide some perspective on our leadership changes and CEO search. I'll then turn the call over to David, who will review our initial observations and the actions we are taking in response. After that, Enrique and John will speak to our third quarter results before we open the line for your questions. As many of you know, I've been part of CarMax for more than 30 years. Over that time, we've developed a beloved brand with national-scale, unmatched physical and digital infrastructure and an award-winning culture. However, recent results have been unacceptable and do not reflect the company's potential. As a result, even though the Board was already working on a succession plan, we determined that more immediate change was required and that direct involvement from David and myself was the best approach to strengthen the business in the near term. The Board has been searching for a permanent CEO with urgency. We are seeking a proven leader who can drive sales, maximize the benefits of our omni-channel experience, strengthen our brand, improve operations, and champion our culture. conversations are underway and we have some promising candidates what is most important is that the next ceo captures the tremendous opportunity executive chair of the board i'm focused on supporting david and the leadership team david is in richmond five days a week and i'm spending a significant significant amount of time here myself we are operating with a renewed sense of urgency to drive the business forward i want to thank david for stepping into the interim president and CEO role. As you know, he has served on our board since 2018. David has more than 20 years of executive leadership experience at prominent retail brands in highly competitive and fast-paced markets. He has led several successful brand transformations, new omnichannel strategies, and growth initiatives for digitally native brands. What made him a great addition to our board has also been a tremendous asset in this transition. And before I turn it over to But David, I also want to thank Bill Nash for his more than 30 years of service.
Thanks, Tom, and good morning, everyone. I'm honored to serve as the interim president and CEO at this important juncture in CarMax's history. While our top priority is to find a terrific next leader, in the interim, Tom and I are committed to lead and take the steps needed to set up the next CEO for success. After three decades in the retail industry and having led multiple companies through turnarounds, I am familiar with the rigor and critical thinking required to succeed. The good news is CarMax already possesses many of the vital attributes needed to turn the business and regain momentum for growth, including a well-known and trusted brand, a strong culture supported by a base of 28,000 talented associates, and an expansive digital and physical infrastructure, including over 250 premium locations that put us near 85% of the U.S. population. Despite these advantages, and after decades of industry leadership, based on recent results, it is clear CarMax needs change. And while it has been only a few weeks in our interim roles, here are some of our observations. Our average selling prices have drifted upward and appear to be less attractive to customers. To ensure that CarMax is a preferred choice, we will work to shrink the gap between our offering and the marketplace. We are lowering margins and supporting this action with marketing spend, while also building out more effective ways to communicate our value to the consumer. We are also comprehensively reviewing all the costs associated with bringing a car to market. We're going to find ways to eliminate the unproductive while maintaining our reputation for having a high-quality fleet. around the consumer. We need to bring an even sharper focus on the customer throughout the organization. In guiding decisions, we will reawaken our intellectual curiosity and challenge long-held institutional beliefs as we work to discover the most important elements to the customer in closing the sale. We will emphasize customer-incited decision-making rooted in fact-based consumer research. We have the opportunity to incorporate a clearer and more effective selling voice in our digital experience. While we have spent several years building out capabilities for customers to shop how they want and where they want, we must now focus our energies on making the digital shopping experience easier and shift our digital voice from one that earnestly delivers abundant information to one that focuses on delivering sales. This will drive conversion and further improve customer satisfaction, just as we do so successfully in our stores. SG&A. Similar to our approach in tackling the cost of bringing our cars to market, we believe our expense structure is too high. It is clear that we have the opportunity to leverage our technological platforms and process enhancements to reduce our spend. We are committed to sharpening our business model and eliminating unproductive costs. And in just a moment Enrique will provide a progress update on the decisive actions we're taking to reduce at least 150 million dollars in SG&A. Profitability. We will more aggressively tap into opportunities in the selling experience to enhance our profitability. We're excited about that outstanding growth potential we have across CAF and our ancillary products. You will hear more from John today about our progress in full spectrum lending as well the step as well as the steps we're taking to capture incremental flow through in our extended protection plan business culture we've always been a company intensely focused on operations but with the advent of disruptive technologies we now need to reignite the entrepreneurial spirit that made carmax the industry leader for decades Simply put, we will move faster and operate leaner while taking smart risks. We are optimistic that our immediate pricing and marketing actions will improve our sales performance, but pressure earnings in the near term. As we consider the business model more holistically moving forward, we anticipate that earnings pressure will be offset by unit growth, expanded profitability in CAF, and ancillary products, and through reductions in SG&A and COGS. Tom, the board, and I believe that CarMax has many of the requisite attributes for a successful turnaround. We are confident the actions we are taking will begin to strengthen performance, while the board identifies the right permanent CEO to lead CarMax for the future. Now I'd like to turn the call over to Enrique to discuss our third quarter financial performance in more detail.
Thank you, David. During the quarter, we delivered total sales of $5.8 billion, down 6.9% compared to last year. reflecting lower volume. In our retail business, total unit sales declined 8% and use unit comps were down 9%. Pressure performance across our age 0-5 inventory was partially offset by increased sales of older, higher mileage vehicles, which represented over 40% of our sales for the quarter, an increase of approximately 5 percentage points compared to the second quarter and last year's third quarter. Average selling price was $26,400. A year-over-year increase of $230 per unit. The increase was due to higher acquisition costs, driven by year-over-year increase in market prices, partially offset by the increase toward older, higher mileage vehicles. Wholesale unit sales were down 6.2% versus the third quarter last year. Average wholesale selling price declined by $40 per unit to $8,100. We bought approximately 238,000 vehicles during the quarter, down 12% from last year. We purchased approximately 208,000 vehicles from our consumers, with more than half of those buys coming through our online instant appraisal experience. With the support of our Edmunds sales team, we sourced the remaining approximately 30,000 vehicles through dealers, which is down 9% from last year. Third quarter net earnings per diluted share was 43 cents versus 81 cents a year ago. This quarter was impacted by eight cents of restructuring expenses related primarily to our CEO change and the workforce reductions in our customer experience centers. Total gross profit was $590 million, down 13% from last year's third quarter. Used retail margin of $379 million decreased by 11%, driven by lower volume and profit per use unit of $2,235, in line with historical averages, go down approximately $70 per unit from last year's record high. Wholesale vehicle margin of $115 million decreased by 17% from a year ago, with lower volume and wholesale gross profit per unit of $899, a decline of approximately $120 year-over-year. Both wholesale volume and margin were impacted by steep depreciation. Other gross profit was $96 million, down 16% from a year ago. This was driven primarily by the impact of lower retail unit volume on EPP. CarMax Auto Finance income was $175 million, up 9% over last year. John will provide detail on CAP's growth in a few moments. On the SG&A front, expenses for the third quarter were $581 million, up 1% from the prior year, driven by our previously communicated investment in marketing as we supported our new brand positioning launch and the restructuring expenses that I previously noted. These were partially offset by a reduction in the corporate bonus accrual. As David noted, we are on track to achieve at least $150 million in exit rate savings by the end of fiscal year 27. We took our first significant step toward these savings this quarter with an approximately 30% reduction in our CEC workforce. This reduction was supported by our continued process and technology enhancements which are making our associates more efficient as well as empowering our customers to perform more of their shopping activities themselves. Turning to capital allocation, during the third quarter we continued our share repurchases, buying back 4.6 million shares for a total expenditure of $202 million. As of the end of the quarter, we had approximately $1.36 billion of our repurchase authorization remaining. Looking forward, I'll cover two items. We are optimistic the actions of lowering margins and increasing marketing will improve our sales performance trends, but may pressure near-term earnings. We expect marketing spend on a total unit basis to be up year over year in the fourth quarter, though to a lesser degree than during the third quarter, with a focus on investing and acquisition to drive buys and sales. Secondly, we expect pressure on our service margins in the fourth quarter due to seasonal sales and as we annualized over cost coverage leverage taken last year. At this time, I will now turn the call over to John to provide more detail on Carmex Auto Finance and our continuing focus on full credit spectrum expansion.
Thanks, Enrique, and good morning, everyone. During the third quarter, Carmex Auto Finance originated $1.8 billion, resulting in sales penetration of 42.6% net of three-day payoffs versus 43.1% last year. Weighted average contract rate charged to new customers was 11% versus 11.2% last quarter as we continued to adjust consumer rates in reaction to the broader interest rate environment. Third-party Tier 2 volume for which we collect a fee and Tier 3 volume for which we pay a fee combined for 24.9% of sales versus 24.4% last year. Weakness in Tier 2 application volume, along with the impact from CAF's expansion in the Tier 2 space, was more than offset by growth from our Tier 3 partners. CAF penetration continues to benefit from underwriting and pricing adjustments implemented since the beginning of the fiscal year, estimated to be 100 to 150 basis points in the quarter. However, this volume has been offset primarily by lower application volume in the prime credit segment, along with the aforementioned Tier 3 partner lender overperformance. Cap income for the quarter was $175 million, up $15 million from the same period last year. Included in the quarter is a $27 million gain on sale, along with an additional $5 million of servicing fees attributed to the closing of the 25B deal in September. Note that while the gain on sale is fully recognized at the time of sale, servicing fee income will continue over the remaining life of the deal and will be proportional to the receivable volume remaining. Net interest margin on the portfolio was flat year-over-year and down to 6.2% from 6.6% last quarter and largely reflects the higher margin receivables removed from the balance sheet as a part of 25 . CAF had a loan loss provision of $73 million, resulting in a total reserve balance of $475 million, or 2.87% of auto loans held for investment. Losses observed during the quarter were in line with our expectations, upon which we based our reserve at the end of Q2. With regard to growing the CAF business, I am immensely proud of our accomplishments today. Over the last 18 months, we have greatly expanded our funding options, including this quarter's off-balance sheet transaction which have been critical prerequisites to this growth in addition we continue to add underwriting capabilities and modeling refinements that will support profitable expansion separately i am also excited about the significant future earnings potential from both our redesigned max care plan which focuses on mechanical coverage and our new max care plus plan which focuses on cosmetic protection these products have already migrated from test phase to pilot in multiple markets, we expect to achieve near-nationwide rollout during Q1 of FY27. Now I'd like to turn the call back over to David.
Thank you, Enrique. Thank you, John. Today we outlined our initial observations and near-term priorities to drive improvement, shrinking the price gap between our offering and the marketplace with a stronger focus on customer experience, increasing digital monetization capabilities, reducing costs, enhancing profitable growth drivers, and improving the speed of decision making. And while we are realistic about the near-term challenges, CarMax's competitive foundation remains strong. We have a trusted brand, national scale that is difficult to replicate, leading omni-channel capabilities, and growing digital infrastructure, a strong financing platform in CAS, and an award-winning culture. Our execution has not matched the potential of these assets. but that's what's changing. Tom, the board, and I are focused on strengthening performance and creating a solid foundation for the permanent CEO to build upon. We appreciate your continued confidence in CarMax and are committed to being transparent about our progress. With that, we'll open the line for questions. Operator?
Operator
Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your keypad. To leave the queue at any time, press star two. Once again, that is star and one to ask a question. And your first question comes from the line of Sharon Saxia with William Blair. Your line is open. You may now ask your question.
Good to hear you again, Tom, on a conference call. And welcome, David, to the world of CARMAC conference calls. Thank you, Sharon. Yeah, I guess, you know, maybe if you could give some color on the magnitude of the GPU reset that you're looking to see here in the February quarter. And then as you look at the business kind of, I guess, with a fresher perspective, are there any customer cohorts that you can delve into where you think somehow CarMax has become a bit less competitive or a bit less attractive? And, you know, what's the game plan to win those customers back?
Yeah, Sharon, hey, it's Enrique. Let me jump in. You know, the margin reductions, which are going to be supported on marketing, will be meaningful marketplace. And we're optimistic. But, you know, they're big enough for us to talk about. We're going to see how they roll out. We're going to see the impact within this quarter. And then when we have our year-end call in April, what's that mean to us?
Yeah, Sharon, this is John. I'll jump into your customer cohort question. Yeah, I think there's obviously places across the spectrum that we're looking to improve and grow sales. One in particular that stands out for me is if you look at maybe the higher FICO segments, we mentioned in the prepared remarks sort of in CAF and the Tier 2 section that maybe 650 to 750 space. Feels like we've lost volume there. We can track that through application volume coming through the door and then progression further on. So a lot of speculation around what that could be. Certainly, we're going to look at all things. David mentioned a number of things, pricing. Obviously, we try and keep our rates competitive. Just overall, the offering that we provide the consumer. But I think that's one spot in particular that I think there's a lot of chance to recapture and feel our growth.
Can I ask a follow-up? You have a competitor who will be kind of lowering finance rates proactively in the current quarter to reinvest some of their GPU to the customer. I think historically you've followed the market on finance rates. Would there be something you'd be willing to do on interest rates to be – to kind of weaponize that a bit more, to gain more conversion?
Sure. I appreciate that question. Yeah, I think we're always keeping the pulse on the markets, looking at how we compare to, obviously, credit unions and banks and what have you, and certainly competitors as well, to the degree we can measure that. Yeah, I'm not going to speak to what they're going to do. But we think our APRs are quite competitive with the Fed making the moves that they've had to make. We will adjust accordingly. We always have a test and learn methodology there. You know, I'm not going to say we're going to try and get further ahead of the market. But I still think in maybe this space, there is a gap in interest rates that still exists, although it might be closing. But I think it's the broader offering question. You know, how do we compare from an interest rate standpoint? certainly it may be term, but obviously couple that with what's the price of the car and all the other fees associated with that. So I think the bigger offering picture is the one that's really going to be the focus here.
And Sharon, what I'd say, looking at it a bit more broadly as well, is that the reductions in SG&A, so these are levers that we've talked about, the reductions in SG&A, the focus on COGS, growth opportunities in CAF in full spectrum, as well as EPP products that John talked about and we're happy to elaborate on. Those are all levers that bring to bear an ability to be more competitive in the marketplace. At the same time, we're reevaluating, as David talked about, reevaluating how we go to market, right? And how we go to market, as John mentioned, it's the kind of cars, it's the price of the cars, it's how we communicate on our website. It's all of those items. And so we do think we have levers at this point that are lining up to be materially more competitive and to go to market with.
Operator
Thank you. Thank you. So our next question comes from Scott Ciccarelli with Therese. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Good morning, everyone. So historically, I'm going to take another shot at this GPU question. Historically, I believe the management teams have talked about needing to lower prices by about $500 per unit to see a real inflection in the sales space. So that would obviously be meaningful to use Enrique's words. So is that in the range of how you guys are thinking about reducing your GPU? you?
Yeah, what I'd say is I don't think we've said $500 is a meaningful or a needed amount to redo price elasticity testing. We're always in the market doing price elasticity testing. I'd tell you the number to move sales is well south of that. Nine different things. We are to talk about on this call. We're going to test the impact on sales, again, in combination with an increase.
Got it. Thank you. And then just to follow up, if I can, I guess it's a bigger picture question um for tom and david like what do you think carmax represents to consumers today like you know in late 2025 you know given some of the alternatives that are out there and where do you think you would like to end up and call it you know two to three years thank you hey there nice to talk to you david here um you know we think many of the things that carmax has meant to the customers in the past can continue to be we believe we're a leading uh used car destination for customers.
We've invested a lot of money and time and effort in building and broadening those capabilities to be able to let them shop where they want and how they want. And ultimately, we believe we're the most trusted brand out there. The differences in where we've been and the performance we need to adjust to and adjust our model towards getting to and have confidence we're going to be able to get there in the near term.
Hey, Scott. It's Tom. Good to talk to you again. Knows what we represent. They know the quality. I think our associates in our stores and in our CECs and across the board are completely engaged and ready to serve the customer. We've spent a lot of money investing so that we could serve the customer however they want to be served, whether it's online or in our stores. And I just think we need to activate that. We need to do a better job of presenting that to the customer up front. But in terms of the brand and the strength and the quality of our vehicles, all that stuff is fully intact. And I think it's the basis for us moving forward.
Speaker 4
And a basis from which we can we can grow again thank you and happy holidays thank you thank you thank you we will move next with craig kenison with barrett please go ahead your line is open hey good morning thanks for taking my question on the sgna topic what is the baseline sgna from which you expect to cut 150 million dollars just curious so that we can track your performance against that goal yeah no absolutely and so when we talk about our sgna goal of 100 and that is an
exit run rate as of q4 of fiscal 27. okay thank you thank you our next question comes from rajad gupta with jp morgan please go ahead your line is open great uh thanks for taking the question and And thanks for the candid assessment on the prepared remarks. I had a follow-up on just the margin versus same-store expectation. Could you give us any sort of early read? Because we got the sense that last quarter also there was some effort to become more price competitive. Anything you can give us in terms of, like, early leads in December and how those actions have already started to show some results or is it still very early or have you not implemented them yet? And what kind of, like, equation are we looking at, you know, in terms of, you know, dollar versus same-store volume, you know, tradeoff, dollar and GPO versus same-store volume tradeoff? Any more insights you can give us on how you see this equation playing out? I have a very quick follow-up.
Hey, Rajat. So we just rolled out the price changes. Good point. They're not fully rolled out. They're underway, but we just started. If they hope to go back to share gains or positive unit growth, what kind of the expected outcome in the near term? yeah look like we are optimistic that this this lever that we're pulling and again it's really the combination right of having uh being more price competitive supporting it with acquisition marketing right so think of like paid search other direct levers like that like directly to support sales is going to change the trend of our performance so we just reported a negative nine comp um last quarter was a little better than that but not great and our goal is to change the trend and to get the sales flywheel going, and that's what we're looking to do. And at the same time, we're working really hard on getting other profitability metrics or levers, I should say, in place. And, again, those things are SG&A reductions, COG reductions, EPP growth, capital spectrum, so CAP income growth over time. These are all levers that we're pulling because our goal is to drive sales over time, absolutely, and to drive earnings power over time as well.
Just a quick follow-up on CAP. You know, it looks like, you know, as you mentioned, like, third-party Tier 3 penetration went up. Is there, like, any meaningful, like, tightening effort going on right now? I'm curious, you know, how those reserves will change going forward once you go back to having more in-house, you know, Tier 3, Tier 2 type penetration. Or maybe, like, any color you can give us on this GAF provision in the fourth quarter would be helpful as well. Thanks.
Yeah, I appreciate the question, Rajat. Yeah, I don't think there's a tremendous story in the Tier 2, Tier 3. We always just provide the numbers and provide a little guidance as to the Delta there. But you know, there's always, you know, swapping between, you know, maybe a Tier 2 lender that is choosing to be a little more aggressive or doing tightening, again, they're going to make their own individual decisions, versus the Tier 3 partner that, again, may be the recipient of that tightening higher upstream or, again, being a little looser on their side so I don't think there's a meaningful story there just to clarify just really providing the numbers and and ultimately to your second question you know I don't think that I wouldn't read much into that in terms of you know CAF provision again we're as we stated very very excited about our opportunity as we go down into the tier two spectrum you know just for point a point to note you know this is we were over 10 percent of the tier two volume came to CAF this quarter we went after. And so we're really excited about that. And, you know, as we continue to go further spectrum, we're generally operating in the higher 50% of Tier 2, but we think, you know, we can get the entirety of that credit spectrum as we methodically roll out refinements to our model. We're excited about the funding solutions we have in place. And so, you know, we will reserve for it accordingly, and we will enjoy the income, and we will get there.
Thanks for all the color, and good luck. Thank you.
Thank you. our next question comes from brian nagel with oppenheimer please go ahead your line is open hey guys good morning tom welcome back to the falls hey brian thanks um you know look this is going to be a potentially repetitive i want to make that you know just get this point across so we're talking about you know pricing and you know and be more aggressive in pricing here uh you know for as long as i can remember and i've probably come back for some time now you've done these pricing tests and the message from carbon max has always been the same is that they really lower prices that the net result has not been you know not been favorable uh so i guess that what i'm asking is you're talking about once again you know it's either testing or moving forward with lower prices and accepting lower gpus what's what's different this time you know why why do you think that this will you know this time around is going to be different than the past which actually drive better better uh you know unit volumes Yeah, I think in the past, look, when we've lowered our prices, and we do price elasticity all the time, right, Brian, we talk about that.
I think the equation in the past has been, you know, you lower your prices, and then when you flow it through to the business, do you make enough money to offset the lower margin with increasing sales? It absolutely drives sales, right? But the equation was, well, it didn't always drive enough profit. I think the difference absolutely right now, there's a clear difference. The clear difference is that we have strong levers that are now supporting to look at the business more holistically. So, again, you know, think of the reduction in SG&A, that aggressive cuts that we're going after. You think of COGS and how aggressive we're going after COGS. You think of EPP growth. You think of CAF full-spectrum income growth. These are all levers that are offset. Some of that pressure we had seen when we looked solely at just looking at the business a bit more holistically, and we have those levers at hand here.
Yeah, and, Brian, I would just add that, as Enrique mentioned, we've always talked about it in terms of total profitability. When we do price changes, we definitely see some sales movement, and then we've always had kind of the guardrails around what total profitability is. I would just tell you that our focus in the near term, given our current performance, is to drive sales and to get things moving in the other direction. The other thing to remember is when we say we're at a lower price is $100 or $200, it doesn't mean we're taking $100 across the board on cars. It's more like if we say $100, think of it as 10% of our cars, $1,000, or 5% of our cars, $500. So it does – it meaningfully impacts the trajectory of sales because of the way we execute price changes. But back to our near-term priority is to get things turned around and get sales moving in the other direction.
And thank you. And then just a follow-up. Sorry, David. But with regard to marketing, so you talked about, if I understand correctly, a stepped-up marketing now. You know, so to say, that's down to gas a little bit more. So when you think about it, is it more of the same, or is Carmex really working on coming to market with a new marketing message?
So, yeah, good question. Thank you. So what we're doing is taking – the new campaign was launched recently as the team took it through. And what we're focusing on now in the near term is sort of optimizing the campaign we have with the results and tests we have. So shifting things that are going into driving more conversion, messaging, perhaps some of the – and dialing back perhaps some of the brand longer-term spend on it. But ultimately, we think the review and positioning of the campaign is really something for the new CEO who's going to align it with the new strategy. And we're working with the existing campaign and resources we have right now. But the team has been working to optimize the results based on media, based on geographies, and based on messaging.
Thanks. I appreciate all the calls. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from Daniela Pagian with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Thank you. Good morning, Tom, David. Appreciate your color in the prepared remarks. My first question is on that digital, redefining the digital platform. What specifically within that needs to change to drive more of a selling experience? And how does that impact the operating cost structure with your store base? what would be early indicators of progress in that redefinition?
Yeah, so we'll take the first part of the question first. We have worked very diligently and over the years to build the capability set, but we have not been as focused yet on the next stage, which is to make it easier. Look, shopping online with us is not easy. We have ways to streamline it, and we have ways to make the digital selling voice really just like our sales associates in the stores, make it easier to bring to get them to the ultimate sale, and the ultimate satisfaction is finding a car they like that they can afford. And we recognize that with all the good work that's been done, it's still not an easy experience. And so in our earnest efforts to provide information and countless options, we still have opportunity to streamline it and bring it there. And then in terms of the impact downstream, we'll work in lockstep with the organization and the field to figure out what those best options are. As both John mentioned and Enrique mentioned earlier, we have an opportunity to look holistically at our business model from our COGS, our SG&A, our messaging, and all those components. and that includes how we make decisions, not necessarily individually, but more holistically and what that means for an offer for the customer so we don't lose sight of what's most important to them. But I would expect you're going to see some of the changes. Tom and I would expect you'll see some of the changes. And it'll be iterative in the next month or two. You'll see it and we'll continue after that. But you should see the efforts are underway and the team's very excited about this next step in that digital journey and how important it is in linking with the field team. Very symbiotic.
Got it. That's helpful and appreciate your transparency there. My follow-up is on COGS, right? You and Enrique, you keep calling out COGS as a key lever. What's the strategy with reducing that line item, and are you still progressing towards that regional reconditioning center approach?
Yeah, I'll tell you, look, we have been focused on COGS for – I mean, we're always focused on COGS. what we've done so we've called it out over the past couple years like last year we communicated a goal of 125 dollars per unit we hit that goal this year we had communicated again another goal of 125 dollars per unit i would tell you given where sales are or have been for the past two quarters we're probably a little bit behind that goal not not because the initiatives aren't there and the teams aren't doing great work it's just because you deliver but we will continue to put even more accelerated goals internally to go after cogs opportunities some of that is through the reconditioning centers right some is that for I'll give you a real example we just rolled out a part selecting benefits easy for our associate the reconditioning centers yeah we've rolled out at this point in time five only two of them have been open for about a year so it's still kind of early to tell what the goals are I mean the ultimate goal is absolutely to get them more efficient we're already seeing logistics savings in the system because we've rolled these things out and we expect that those will perform in line with some of our larger. We have the same expectations.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from David Bellinger with Misuho Securities. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hey, good morning, everyone. Tom, nice to talk to you again. In the prepared remarks you guys mentioned, reassessing the cost of bringing a car to market, what about the time to turn vehicles? CarMax has been a leader in that area for a long time. Looks like some competitors have increased their speed to market pretty dramatically. Is there anything you guys can do around AI implementation, cut down that timeline, use your 30-plus years of data, and potentially avoid some of those sharper depreciation swings that have disrupted the business over the last few quarters? How should we think about that opportunity?
And Enrique, maybe a second question. Can you update us on the real estate strategy? Anything that's changing there? You guys own a lot of your real estate. Is that a potential area where you could monetize and use that to fund more investment in the business if you need to.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from Chris Potiglieri with BNP Paribas. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hey, guys. Thanks for taking the question. First, one more clerical, I suppose, and then just a bigger question. Did you give the service profit i think it was four million last quarter just curious what that was for q3 is that a good run rate for q4 given volumes are pretty similar q4 versus q3 and then my um actual can you just elaborate what's happening with a credit penetration um it sounds like the prime side i suppose you're seeing less appraisal traffic or less traffic coming in is there i would think that with a hay-shaped economy that's probably the healthier side of the market just I'm just kind of curious what's causing that, what you're saying there.
Do you want to do that with the personnel check? Yeah, that's fine. Chris, this is John. I'll take the credit side. Yeah, as we've noted in the remarks, and even reflecting on Sharon's question, when we look across the credit spectrum, we really can gauge who's coming and shopping with us through our prequel product is a great place to do it. Customers love it. They take full advantage of it. You know, 80-plus percent of our customers start with credit online. Yeah, I think we see definitely an opportunity in that sort of 650 to 750 credit space. You know, as I mentioned earlier, hard to speculate what's driving that, you know, is that we think our rates are quite competitive there. But it's always a question of inventory, price, availability, all of that. I think, as we mentioned on this call, holistically, all of that is up for discussion, and we're going to look at improving our overall offering there. So, while you would say K-shaped economy, you know, ultimately we do see those folks probably are less stressed by affordability. We want to make sure we have the right product at the right price at the right time for them when they're ready to purchase. So, I think there's improvement there. That's really what the comments, I think, are in that space are.
Yeah, and regarding service in the quarter, there definitely was pressure in services, as you know, and as we've talked about, and the de-leverages when sales. But look, over the past couple of years, the teams have made material strides. And we had even talked at the beginning of this year that we expected to be, I think, slightly positive for the year in service margin. Certainly our sales expectations at that point in time were not where we are currently actualizing. But I'll tell you, for the full year, our outlook right now is maybe a little unprofitable or a little profitable, depending on sales performance in the fourth quarter. And that just tells you the incredible work the teams did have a negative uh we do expect as i talked about in my prepared we'll be comping over some cost coverage um cost coverage that we took last year um but again if i take a step back and i look more holistically at it the teams have done tremendous work you know it's going to be borderline whether or not we hit that positive margin for the full year but again sales have been definitely more pressured than what we got anticipated thank you we'll move next with john
Operator
Bobcock with Barclays. Please go ahead.
Hey, good morning, and thanks for taking my questions. I guess, just first of all, I was wondering if you could talk a bit more about what the board is looking for in its next CEO, and also how we should think about timing in terms of, you know, when something might be announced there, recognizing that might be variable.
It is, it's the board's highest priority. You know, we're looking for somebody to have a digital transfer motive necessarily, doesn't necessarily have to come from retail. But, you know, one of the most important things is that it's somebody who understands our culture and can lead this team onto the next phase of timing.
Totally fair. And then next, at least based on the work that you've been doing over the last couple of months and even in knowing the business, I was just wondering, how are you thinking about the omni-channel business? I mean, do you think this is kind of a setup that you want to keep longer term? Do you think you want to shift more towards digital over time?
What's the benefit of omni-channel versus digital or pursuing more of a brick-and-mortar strategy I think for us it's all it's really it's all of the evaluation that you've heard today is that we're we're not happy with how we present to the customer from a digital standpoint and I think we're gonna you'll see us make some significant improvements there but we
think our stores are extremely valuable in our stand our store teams do a great job meeting the doers once we get them in the store but we clearly need to get better on the digital side yeah and just to add a little color to Tom's comments on that um we again carmax has built out so many capabilities and now when we are talking about holistically looking at our business model we've built out so many potential capabilities and many of them are helpful but some of them probably are adding clearly decisions we've made things we're trying to do and our best efforts to please everything for every customer we have an opportunity to streamline, make some decisions, prioritize some things based on real quantified insight from the consumer in ways that we can streamline and optimize the advantages that Omni should provide versus getting caught in some of the complexities that Omni also provides. So, I will think you'll see that in the near term as the team sort of finishes that infrastructure build out, but then gets to really sharpen it and hone it into a competitive...
All right. Thank you. That's very helpful.
Thank you. we will move next with jeff flick with stevens inc please go ahead good morning thanks for taking my question um it is absolutely awesome to hear your voice um so uh listen david a question for you you know you've been a senior leader at retail organizations that were digitally native and also retail organizations that are kind of a hybrid they have you know a physical business and a digital business. I was wondering if you can speak to the challenges of a, you know, CarMax is a hybrid business where, you know, there are people that are wedded to the physical part of the business and there's some natural tension, which makes it more difficult to have, you know, an ideal digital business.
Yeah, Jeff, great insight. And thank you for that question. Yeah, there are examples of that. And that's a little bit of what I was alluding to um now recognize tom and i have been in the chair for two and a half weeks or so but uh what the most important things i see is that it's a really team's very excited about breaking through and it's incredibly talented and dedicated group we just need to work across those channels to make sure we're putting the customer at front of those decisions and not having the operational biases or legacy approaches come through so there is not a battle between one version versus another but what we need to do is provide some leadership and focus to the team so we can start executing more with that what's most important to the customer streamline make sure it's a competitive offer because we know we own the brand and we know we own the trust in a great part of the american consumer but you're absolutely right many organizations omni causes them to trip up I would say we're just going through finishing sort of like an awkward adolescence, and we'll be moving into a much more refined effort in the upcoming time. Now, that being said, you'll want to confirm that answer with the new CEO when they come in. But in the interim, that's why we're so optimistic about the improvement, because we have so many of the components already in place.
And I was just wondering if we could quick double back to Sharon's first question about potential, you know, cohorts that you might have lost or been, you know, be less effective with, you know, I don't think she was thinking about necessarily the BIFICO score, you know, and this kind of gets into the advertising strategy, you know, and, you know, I'm just wondering, you know, back in the day, it always seems like you over indexed with that young professional, likely a female. didn't want to go into the franchise dealer and do battle you know you provided a much more easy professional experience uh do you think that your primary competitor has maybe cut you off the pass
at the past and hasn't even done a better job of providing an experience for that person where it's like look it's now it's super easy you know your question about cohorts the you know second quarter were down six percent last quarter we were down nine percent so we need to improve across the board um in turn you know i would just go back to the comments we've already made we're not as easy as we need to be for the consumer we need to simplify our processes we need it's so easy to buy stuff online it doesn't matter what it is these days for one or two invested the money to put ourselves in a position to be the best at this and we got some work to do to get there but we need to simplify for the consumer how they go through the process with us.
Best of luck. And I look forward to hearing from you again.
Operator
Thank you. We will move next with Chris Pierce. We didn't need him. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Sort of following up good morning on Jeff's thought there. I guess do you think you have the customer base that wants to do more of the work online to sort of drive an OPEX offset in GPUs? or do you need to reposition the brand to get younger or would you sort of reject that framing? Yeah, I'm just curious. Do you think you have the customer base that wants to do more of the work online? Like, do you think you need to get younger with this new ad campaign or do you think it's just about pricing and the experience you're offering?
I absolutely think we have the customer base that wants to do more of the process online. By the way, the younger you go, the less money you have.
Okay, thank you and good luck.
Operator
Thank you. We will move next with Michael Montani with Evercore. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hi. Good morning. Thanks for taking the question. And Tom, good to hear from you again as well. Just wanted to dig into, I guess it's a three-parter, but it's kind of all related, which was depreciation trends, just some incremental color about what you're seeing. The competitive backdrop, you know, is the intensity ratcheting up. And then lastly was on the reinvestment into GPU, just how much of a reinvestment we ought to be thinking about moving ahead.
Depreciation, you know, right?
Just the competitive intensity.
I think I got number one and number three.
Let me add to the pricing part, which is very dynamic throughout.
We're not trying to be invasive with what we think the market is trying to be as impactful as we can. And again, we're 18 days into the quarter, so this will be a dynamic process throughout the next three months.
Operator
Thank you. And we don't have any further questions at this time. I will hand the call back to David for any closing remarks.
We'd like to thank the thousands of CarMax Associates who have helped build the business that we have today and will be part of our next leg of growth in the future. Thank you all for joining our call today and then before we sign off, Tom has some closing remarks.
Yeah, I just thank all of you guys for your support. Many of you I know and have heard your voice in the past and although it's good to be back, I wish it was under slightly different circumstances, but what I would tell you is from the board perspective, we are absolutely committed to getting this right. David is the perfect person to sit in this role while we search for our next CEO. I'm happy to spend more time on the business. What I've been most enthusiastic about in the last two weeks is how engaged all of our employees are and how excited they are to win. And as we've mentioned multiple times, and Enrique just kind of covered in total, we have incredible assets in this company. We have a great balance sheet. We have an iconic brand. We have 250 locations. And most importantly, what has always separated us from everybody else is the engagement of our more than 28,000 associates, and none of that has been committed to getting this right.
Operator
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes the third quarter fiscal year 2026 Cormac's earnings release conference call. You may now disconnect.
