An unusual buyer has quietly scooped up a half-dozen Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram dealerships across the country over the past year: Carvana Co., the online used car sales giant.

Its most recent purchase of a CDJR store outside Boston closed last week. The other five locations — for which Carvana paid a combined $160 million — are in the Phoenix and Atlanta metro areas, Dallas, San Diego and Sacramento, Calif.

The Tempe, Ariz.-based company advertises the new car offerings on its main website, alongside its used listings, to buyers living in broad geographic areas surrounding the dealerships. Prices are often discounted thousands of dollars below the manufacturer-suggested level. The new car shopping option isn't available in Michigan.

The push into new car sales by Carvana — already known as an industry disruptor with its streamlined no-haggle online buying process and home delivery offerings — has rattled other members of Stellantis NV's 2,400-member dealer body. A heated question from one such dealer to Stellantis executives about the issue at a packed February meeting in Las Vegas brought the closed-door gathering to a close.

Among their concerns: that Carvana will upend the existing dealer model by siphoning sales away from other stores, both by undercutting them on price and offering home delivery to a large region that would usually fall under the purview of several franchises. Online listings show the company is offering free shipping to locations that are sometimes hundreds of miles away from its nearest dealership.

But analysts say Carvana's arrival in the new car space may also force traditional retailers to adopt more of the company's straightforward and online-based sales processes favored by many shoppers.

"I think the purchases demonstrate Carvana is interested in testing its online sales model in the new vehicle market," said Alan Haig, president of Haig Partners, a dealer consulting firm.

He added that other used auto retailers have similarly dabbled with selling new cars. Carvana competitor CarMax Inc., for several years, owned new car dealerships, including Toyota Motor Corp. stores, but ultimately sold them off to focus on its core used vehicle business.

Carvana, long known for its used car "vending machines" located around the country, has said little publicly about its move into new car sales. A spokesperson didn't provide a comment for this story. Its website does say that it now sells "brand new cars," adding that there are "no hidden fees, no haggling and we'll deliver it right to your door."

After Carvana acquired its first dealership in Arizona a year ago, CEO Ernie Garcia said on an earnings call that the company was "in the process now of experimenting and learning," but declined to provide further details.

At a Morgan Stanley conference last week, Garcia said there were "clearly opportunities" for Carvana market expansion. "But we're trying to pick places there, and not do too much at once," he said, "just because we've got such a simple, and clear, and scalable opportunity right in front of us (with used cars)."

Stellantis hasn't opposed Carvana's arrival in its dealer network. After seven straight years of U.S. sales declines, the struggling automaker is trying to grow in any way it can, and has set a goal of 25% more retail vehicle sales this year. Industry watchers and dealers said Carvana appears to have already significantly boosted sales volumes at its newly acquired stores.

Stellantis recently sent a letter to its dealers reminding them of policies that restrict where and how many stores one person or entity can own, according to a copy obtained by The Detroit News. The rules, which aim to "support a competitive retail environment," included a new addition as of the start of this year: "No person or entity may acquire more than one CJDR dealership within a rolling 12-month period."

But in a statement, Stellantis didn't indicate the letter or new policy were in response to Carvana's purchases. It didn't respond to questions about Carvana's recent moves at all. Instead, the automaker said the new rule is due to "an increase in interest from new and untested dealers to our network to purchase a number of locations."

"We want to ensure healthy competition for our customers and that our dealer network remains strong and vibrant," said the statement from spokesperson Ann Marie Fortunate. "The rule was put in place so we can continue to focus on building a healthy, competitive dealer network that provides exceptional service for our customers with the brands they love."

Indeed, Carvana is far from alone in buying up Stellantis dealerships in recent years. As the automaker and its dealers have struggled with profitability, many of the stores have hit the market — sometimes at bargain-basement prices appealing to all stripes of buyer, including those with limited experience selling new vehicles.

Last year, there were 75 CDJR dealership transactions, more than any other brand and representing a disproportionate amount of buy-sell activity when considering the total size of the carmaker's dealer network, according to figures provided by Dave Cantin Group, a dealer mergers and acquisitions adviser.

The adviser said many dealers view CDJR stores as a "cheap entry point" right now with the expectation that the company's sales will soon bounce back thanks to a series of new V-8 and hybrid-powered vehicles from Ram, Dodge and Jeep hitting the market.

Analysts said Carvana may see its CDJR purchases much the same way, as a relatively affordable way to test out its online sales model in the new car market.

"I think it's a little bit of a probing exercise," said Douglas Arthur, an analyst who follows Carvana for Huber Research. The recent purchases can serve as "another arrow in the quiver," he said, and "allows them to sort of see the market from another angle" — even as Carvana remains primarily focused on growing the used car side, including with its recent expansion of vehicle reconditioning facilities around the country.

The CDJR stores may also bring other advantages, analysts and dealers said. New car transactions will help plow more business into Carvana's in-house financing operation, a large profit-driver for the firm that is utilized by about 85% of the company's customers. Selling new cars will also help generate more trade-in vehicles affordably, which can then be funneled back into Carvana's used-car business.

The new dealerships allow the company to diversify into new areas such as vehicle service, potentially offering repairs and maintenance to existing Carvana customers. The additional shop space could also be used to prepare even more used cars for sale. And Carvana might not need to employ as many salespeople and support staff as other dealers would, considering that much of its sales process occurs online, helping to keep costs low, industry experts said.

“They get the benefit of all these different businesses, instead of just being, 'Sell us your car, and we're going to sell it to somebody else,' ” said Kevin Tynan, director of research at the Presidio Group, an investment banking and advisory firm that works with dealers.

Carvana has already shown that shoppers are willing to buy used cars online, sight-unseen, Tynan said, so it only makes sense that people will buy new cars in the same way: “I think they believe they can apply what they’ve learned in the used vehicle market across other areas of the automotive retail space.”

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