But everyone knows they can get a better deal than Carvana/Carmax/etc. - they're selling to Carvana because it's convenient. In theory, Akerlof's lemon theory

But everyone knows they can get a better deal than Carvana/Carmax/etc. - they're selling to Carvana because it's convenient. In theory, Akerlof's lemon theory could lead to a situation in which Carvana has to underpay to account for all the lemons they're buying to the point that sellers aren't willing to take the hit. In practice, I think this just isn't a big deal - they aren't buying enough lemons to move their offer prices much, and the convenience factor is worth quite a lot of money to sellers. If this was truly a major issue I think we'd see it with CarMax who are wildly successful.