Jeff Dyke doesn’t mind competition stopping by and checking out EchoPark Automotive, the pre-owned vehicle retail store concept recently launched by Sonic Automotive.

In fact, Sonic’s executive vice president of operations welcomes them, along with the OEMs, Wall Street folks and many others who have checked out the pre-owned program that opened its first store in early November. 

“I’ve had competition coming to EchoPark. We’ve had some of our big competitors come in. And they’re more than welcome,” Dyke told Auto Remarketing in an interview late last month. “We’ve invited everybody to come in, see what we’re doing, how we’re doing (it) — because we think, ultimately, that it’s the best thing for the customer. That if the industry goes this way, the guest is going to benefit the most. And that’s what we’re focused on.”

EchoPark is built on a hub-and-spoke model, Dyke explained. The first “pod” opened in the Denver-area town of Thornton, Colo., on Nov. 3. Sonic has plans to open two “neighborhood” stores this month, two more in the second quarter of 2015 and then one in Q3.

“Then, we’ll take a little break; we’ll make sure everything is going great, the way we want it, and then we’ll start a campaign to roll out two to three pods a year for the next 10 years,” Dyke said.

These initial five neighborhood “spokes” — which are designed to be 12,000- to 15,000-square-foot facilities , as compared to the 60,000- to 70,000-square-foot hub — are in the Denver area, as well, circling the city.

“The idea of the neighborhood store is to literally, as it says, move into the neighborhood so the consumer doesn’t have to travel far from either where they work or where they live,” Dyke said.

Where EchoPark Stands Out

Dyke said he gets this question a lot: Is CarMax the No. 1 competitor?

“People ask me all the time, ‘Do you consider CarMax to be your main competition?’ and things like that, and the answer is no. I don’t pay a lot of attention to what those guys are doing.  If we’re focused on what my competition is doing, then that’s exactly what they want and I’m a follower,” Dyke said.

“And really, we’re focused on our guests and what they’re doing. And I don’t pay a whole lot of attention to those guys, other than I have a lot of respect for what they do,” he added.

And not only is EchoPark different than the CarMax model, it’s also quite a few shades apart from the traditional dealership model, as well.

When you walk into EchoPark, the look is “kind of a cross between Apple and a Google experience,” Dyke said.

“It does not look like a traditional dealership. When you walk into the store, one of the things that you notice real quickly is the technology; huge screens, ample iPads for everybody to use, to search at their leisure without having any pressure,” he said.

That last point is key: all of the associates are paid on salary, which means there’s not the same kind of sales pressure that can often come from a commission-based approach.

The Consumer Reaction

Here is a tidbit that shoppers may find interesting when they arrive at EchoPark: the service department is completely wide open with glass walls, “so you can see everything that’s going on inside,” Dyke said.

There is also a spot where kids can push a microphone button to talk with the technician in that corner of the service department and ask questions.

It probably “drives the technician crazy,” Dyke admits, “but it’s a lot of fun for them to get involved with what’s going on in the store.”

And based on the customer reaction so far, the overall concept of this type of car-shopping has been fun for adults, too. When Auto Remarketing talked with Dyke, he was expecting more than 100 sales at the debut location for November.

That was without a great deal of advertising yet, either, as Sonic was shying away from driving too much traffic during the soft-launch period so that it could work out any technological glitches that can crop up when such a brand-new process is installed (and most of those glitches have been solved, Dyke says.)

 “Our guests love it,” Dyke said. “The experience from the consumer’s perspective has just been fantastic. It’s relaxed, it’s transparent. We’re delivering on the promises that we made and the fact that we can get a car done in less than an hour with very little paperwork that has to be signed. It’s been so well-received.”