You are given a text that consists of multiple sentences. Your task is to perform abstractive summarization on this text. Use your understanding of the content to express the main ideas and crucial details in a shorter, coherent, and natural sounding text. 
Text: I'm here today with Bill Nash, our president and CEO; Tom Reedy, our executive vice president of finance; Enrique Mayor-Mora, our senior vice president and CFO; and Jon Daniels, our senior vice president, CAF operations.
Celeste has been an integral part of our IR program for almost 20 years, and I'm sure you will all agree, she'll be deeply missed.
Celeste, we wish you all the joy and happiness retirement can bring.
Net earnings up 27% to $297 million and earnings per share up 27.9% to $1.79.
This performance was the result of strength across all aspects of our business: retail, wholesale and CAF.
We are proud to be the nation's largest and most profitable retailer of used car.
I'm also proud to say that this quarter, we completed the rollout of our omnichannel offerings.
This has been years in the making and has required a remarkable level of focus and change across our entire organization.
During this time, we have evolved nearly every aspect of our business.
From how we support and interact with our customers to how we structure our staffing to how we buy, sell and deliver cars.
Our omnichannel experience is built to provide a personalized multichannel experience that empowers customers to buy a car on their terms.
It is designed as a world-class in-store experience, a world-class online experience and a seamless integration of the two, giving us the largest addressable market within the used car industry.
No other used car retailer is in the position to deliver this iconic customer experience the way we can.
Now turning to our results.
For the second quarter, we achieved a 3.9% increase in total used units sold and the used unit comp growth of 1.2%.
In June, we experienced a high single-digit negative used unit comp which was more than offset by positive comps in both July and August.
The improvement in sales was the result of a variety of factors, including solid execution in operations, finance and marketing in addition to a strengthening used car sales environment.
In the quarter, we saw solid growth in web traffic, averaging approximately 29 million visits per month to carmax.com.
During the second quarter, our saleable inventory was below our targeted level as we saw a rapid increase in demand from the first quarter.
For the past three months, our teams have done a phenomenal job buying and producing vehicles at record levels, increasing salable inventory by more than 50% in the quarter.
Today, I'm pleased to report that we've successfully ramped inventory to targeted levels, providing customers with more than 55,000 vehicles nationwide, the largest of any used car retailer.
We offer a broad selection of inventory with a focus on zero to 10-year-old vehicles.
This quarter, we saw five to 10-year-old vehicles increased to 27% compared with 22% last year as a percentage of our sales mix, reflecting customer demand for older and less expensive vehicles.
Gross profit per used unit for the quarter was $2,214 up $31 per unit from a year ago.
For wholesale, performance was supported by strong appreciation in the market and excellent execution by our teams.
Volume was up 5.1%, driven by one more auction date in the quarter and a record buy rate.
We also achieved record gross profit per wholesale unit of $1,086 in the quarter, the result of strong appreciation and operational execution.
By the end of the quarter, we saw depreciation return to the marketplace.
As a reminder, all auctions continue to run virtually throughout the quarter.
As our results show, we have achieved a substantial recovery in our business.
Over the past several months, our talented workforce has demonstrated incredible agility and ability to drive change in one of the most challenging environments that we've ever faced.
We are proud to say that by the end of July, our team was back together again, and we no longer had associates on furlough.
We are now actively hiring across the country as we continue to grow our core business, enhance our omnichannel offerings and pursue new opportunities.
For the quarter, other gross profit increased $6.8 million or 5.8%.
EPP profits grew by $6.1 million or 5.4%, largely due to the increase in used units sold.
In the quarter, we also recognized $8.2 million in extended service plan profit sharing revenues compared with $6.5 million recognized a year ago.
In the second quarter, we maintained our ESP penetration above 60% compared with the prior-year quarter.
Service profits increased $4.5 million or 31%, which benefited primarily from the improved sales growth and the employee retention tax credit from the CARES Act.
The increase in EPP and service profits were partially offset by a $5 million increase in net third-party finance fees attributable to a shift in our sales mix by finance channel.
On the SG&A front, expenses increased 2% to approximately $9 million to $490 million.
SG&A per used unit was $2,256, a year-over-year leverage of $44 per unit on the quarter.
Excluding the impact of stock-based compensation, SG&A leverage was $97 a unit.
Notable SG&A expense drivers for the second quarter were: the opening of 14 stores since the beginning of the second quarter of last year, which represents a 7% growth in our store base; a $12 million or $53 per unit increase in share-based compensation expense; a 7.7% increase in advertising expense and continued spending to advance our technology platforms and support our core and omnichannel strategic initiatives.
Our ability to leverage SG&A in the quarter was supported by the decisive actions we took at the start of the pandemic to appropriately manage costs in a challenging environment.
We furloughed associates and froze hiring for a period of time, rightsized certain functions, aligned other overhead costs to the business and paused our store expansion strategy, thereby reducing preopening costs in the quarter.
We also experienced year-over-year favorability in the quarter due to lower self-insured loss and litigation-related expenses.
We remain committed to ensuring we are efficient in our spend, and we expect that targeted areas of focus will continue to deliver improvements over time.
Examples of these areas include improving the efficiencies of our customer experience centers or CECs, strategic sourcing and inventory production.
At the same time, we are very bullish about our future, given our unique customer offering.
We recognize that we have an opportunity to capitalize on our current position and grow market share.
Accordingly, we remain in a period of investment as we continue to evolve our omni experience in the areas of vehicle and customer acquisition.
We also planned in the back half of this year to increase our year-over-year spend in marketing, which Bill will address shortly.
From a capital allocation perspective, we remain focused on growing the business while managing with the appropriate amount of caution given the uncertainty that remains in the macro environment.
First, we are ready to resume store growth and are currently planning for eight to 10 new stores in FY '22.
And second, subsequent to the end of the quarter, we fully paid down the outstanding balance in our revolver.
Given the turnaround in our business, the strength of the credit markets and our solid balance sheet, we are confident that we have the appropriate liquidity and access to capital.
Finally, we ended the quarter modestly below our historical leverage target of 35% to 45% adjusted debt-to-capital when netting out cash.
Similar to our retail and wholesale business, CarMax Auto Finance and our partner lenders delivered with strong conversion in all credit tiers, and solid growth in cap income independent of the favorable loss experience.
As we previously discussed, CAF made some temporary underwriting adjustments early in the pandemic, with the goal of ensuring financeable Tier 1 portfolio.
While we remain cautious in our outlook, we are pleased with the trends we have experienced to date.
Payment extensions are down significantly, delinquencies are trending favorably, and our July ABS transaction was well received.
Consequently, in the back half of the quarter, we began originating our normal spectrum of Tier 1 business.
CAF also curtailed its in-house Tier 3 lending at the start of the pandemic.
And did not originate any loans through this channel in the second quarter.
Based on the trends I just mentioned, we have reengaged in the Tier 3 space in recent weeks.
Now I'll turn to performance in the quarter.
Net of three-day payoffs, they were significantly lower year over year.
Cash penetration was 42.6% compared with 42.2% a year ago.
Tier 2 accounted for 22.3% of used unit sales compared with 19.7% last year.
And Tier 3 was up to 11.1% compared with 9.6% a year ago.
Year over year, cash net loans originated grew by 1% to $1.8 billion as the increases in used cars sold and penetration rate were somewhat offset by a lower average amount finance.
For loans originated during the quarter, the weighted average contract rate charged to customers was 8.2%, down from 8.6% a year ago and 8.4% in the first quarter.
The lower rate reflects our focus on a higher-quality portfolio for much of the quarter.
Portfolio interest margin as a percent of average managed receivables increased to 6% versus 5.7% in Q2 last year.
Combined with our growth in receivables, this drove an increase in total interest margin of 7.4%, independent of any favorability in the provision for loan losses.
Total CAF income for the quarter was up 29% to $147.2 million.
This improvement primarily reflected a reduced loan loss provision, plus the increase in both interest margin and average managed receivables.
The provision for loan losses was $26 million in Q2, which results in an ending reserve balance of $433 million.
That's 3.2% of average managed receivables, which is moderately lower than at the end of Q1.
While its loss experienced in June, July and August was significantly favorable to the expectations we set at the end of Q1.
The loss reserve continues to reflect the unpredictability of the current environment in the highly uncertain consumer situation.
Our results in Q2 illustrate the importance of having a diverse group of lenders that can continually deliver high-quality finance offers to our broad range of customers in all economic environments.
In addition, having a fully functioning captive finance such as CAF offers numerous contributions to the business model that are difficult to replicate.
As I mentioned earlier, we have completed the rollout of our omnichannel offering.
The powerful integration of our online and in person experiences give us the largest addressable market within the used car industry.
Along with the ability to buy online, customers are also seeking experienced guidance along the way.
We are uniquely capable of providing this help whenever and wherever the customers want with our centralized CECs, experienced floor sales consultants and personalized e-commerce capabilities.
Buying a used car is still a highly considered and complex purchase.
Customers don't want to be forced to interact 100% in-store or 100% online.
Our competitive advantage is giving customers the option to seamlessly do as much or as little online and in-person as they want.
While omni is now rolled out nationwide, it is still early in its evolution, and we will continue to make enhancements to meet and exceed our customers' current and future needs.
One area of focus is our CECs.
And although a relatively new capability for us and still maturing, they are quickly becoming more effective than our previous model.
An example of how we are optimizing performance is by leveraging our data advantage and machine learning to ensure we get the right work to the right associate at the right time.
We capture our customers' online interactions, combine them with the information in our customers' data mark, and provide a truly personalized experience that is much more effective in meeting the customer needs and improving our conversion rates.
We believe that we have an unmatched opportunity to create a superior customer experience by leveraging our data and technology advantages, both online and in-store.
Digital merchandising is another area of continuous improvement.
By the end of this year, we will have rolled out approximately 95% of our photo studios, which provide a more immersive experience with high-quality photos, 360-degree interior and exterior views, feature scoring hotspots and reconditioning with new part call outs.
We also continue to upgrade content on our website to help customers fully research a vehicle without ever having to leave carmax.com.
All this provides our customers more confidence as they progress online.
The other omni area of focus that I will highlight is our customer hub, which provides customers a means to track the progress they have made, both online and in-person.
It is here that customers can manage certain aspects of their car-buying journey.
They can book mark and save vehicles they've selected online.
They can submit financing pre-approval and compare their financing options.
They can also get an estimate or an actual offer for their trade-in.
And finally, they can complete the checkout process in the hub for the car they selected online or in-store and choose if they want a home delivery or a curbside pickup.
Our omnichannel experience has been well received.
Approximately 70% of our customers interacted with our CECs this quarter.
Additionally, approximately 50% of our customers progressed their sale remotely, up from about 42% pre-COVID.
Most of these customers still chose to come to the store to complete their transaction, and approximately 30% of our customers still opted for an in-store experience only.
Again, the advantage of our business model is that customers have the choice as to how they progress their experience.
This is what gives us the largest addressable market.
We are focused on driving customer engagement strategies to ensure we continue to remain top of mind and the first choice for car buyers and sellers.
We launched a national marketing campaign last year, which has reinforced the strength of our brand and established a solid platform for future campaigns.
We've now introduced our omnichannel offering nationwide.
Accordingly, as we go forward, our messaging will focus on clearly differentiating our brand from digital-only and traditional dealer brands by demonstrating the benefits of our omnichannel offering.
Additionally, we will be increasing our year-over-year marketing spend in the back half of the year to expand our teams and investments in areas such as SEO, SEM, messaging, content and social.
Our goal is to drive high ROI customers to our digital properties, while empowering us to create multichannel personalized campaigns.
We have a unique retail customer experience that we are continuing to evolve to exceed our customers' expectations.
At the same time, we are identifying and investing in new initiatives that we believe will also be solid contributors to our earnings growth.
All of this leads to a very exciting future, but none of this would be possible without our great associates.
I want to recognize all of them and the high-performance culture they maintain here at CarMax, a culture that values all individuals and perspectives.
Over the past several years, we have taken on the largest transformation in our company history, evolving nearly every aspect of our business.
We also accomplished all these great results in one of the most challenging environments we've ever faced.
And through it all, our associates have continued to live our values every day by putting people first and taking care of each other.
I am very proud of what we've accomplished, and I'm excited about the opportunities ahead.

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q2 earnings per share $1.79.
qtrly total used units increased 3.9%; used unit sales in comparable stores rose 1.2%.
qtrly total wholesale units increased 5.1%; wholesale gross profit per unit up $158 or 17.0%, to $1,086.
resuming store openings, with 8 to 10 new stores planned in fiscal year 2022.
a strengthening used car selling environment also benefited the quarter.
returned to targeted inventory levels in september.
positive comparable used unit sales in both july and august more than offset the high single digit negative comps experienced in june.

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