They probably are, because they manage themselves. Most dealers are not making money on sales : everybody comes in after checking Edmunds, kbb, and the like so they know what the dealer actually paid and don't want to pay more than that. The real money in selling cars is you can sell service and parts (you get first crack at all the first year service) . None of these scale to being run from headquarters, the mechanics need to be in each city. Dealers also do local advertising, something that is more expensive to run from headquarters just because local people have an intuitive feeling for what works locally and don't need to buy as much research.