Cox asked dealers already sourcing directly from consumers what they get out of it. Two answers came back on top. Reduced reliance on auction and wholesale, 48%. Lower recon risk from known history, 58%.
The one everybody expects
Less auction is the obvious one and it is mostly a fee argument. An auction unit costs more than the hammer price. Buy fee, transport, and whatever the store two towns over ran you up because he needed the same car that week. A car sitting in a driveway two miles from your lot carries none of that.
The one that actually keeps them
Recon risk scored higher, and it is the one dealers underrate before they have done it. A condition report is somebody else describing a car. Known history is you knowing it.
The cost of getting that wrong is not really the repair. It is the days. A unit that sits an extra three weeks in the shop is a unit aging before it was ever on the line, and by the time it hits the lot it is already fighting the calendar. That is how a car that looked bought right turns into a car you take a bath on, and none of it was a selling problem.
The recon surprise does not cost you the repair. It costs you the days.
Which is why the dealers who move to street buying tend not to move back. The fee saving gets them to try it. The predictability is what makes it the plan.