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Carvana: IsBadBuy
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Reference: DARDEN-QA-0886-E
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Number of pages: 6
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Publication Date: Nov 21, 2019
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Fecha de edición: May 18, 2020
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Source: Darden University of Virginia (USA)
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Type of Document: Case
Description
This case, which has been taught successfully in a Darden online class, allows for an introductory application of the Tableau analytics platform. In 2012, Carvana Co., an e-commerce platform for buying used cars, hosted a competition called “Don’t Get Kicked!” wherein 570 teams competed to predict if a car purchased at auction was a “kick” (i.e., a bad buy)—a vehicle with a major defect. To compete, teams downloaded Carvana’s data from Kaggle’s website. At the time of the competition, data science was a burgeoning field, and industry watchers wondered if machine learning could help a company such as Carvana develop a competitive advantage. This case analyzes the US used-car market, Carvana’s history and Kaggle’s role in its development, and the viability of data science—particularly visual analytics—in guiding business and consumer decisions.