We believe that this recognition is an acknowledgement of how we're revolutionizing our industry. We're giving customers what they want in a car-buying experience by creating a company culture that is focused on being ethical, trustworthy, and respectful of our customers.

With an estimated television viewing audience of approximately 185,000, Charlottesville, Va., represents our first entry into a small market. We will be adjusting our store footprint, inventory, and our staffing model in this store, as a result of the smaller overall sales opportunities provided by this market. This store's performance over the next few years will help us better understand our longer-term opportunities in small markets.

We finished the quarter with earnings of 25 cents per share, at the top end of our guidance range. Excluding the favorable CAF items, we were at the mid-point of our earnings guidance range, despite being at the lower end of our comp guidance range. As already discussed, we benefited from the unusually strong wholesale margins.

Selling, general, and administrative expenses as a percent of net sales and operating revenues increased slightly to 11.4% in this year's third quarter from 11.3% in last year's quarter. As expected, the moderate rate of increase in unit comps was not sufficient to provide SG&A leverage. Having a larger percentage of our store base comprised of stores not yet at basic maturity and last year's lower-than-normal corporate bonuses were also contributing factors. At the end of this year's third quarter, 49% of our stores were less than four years old, compared with 40% at the end of last year's third quarter.

After careful consideration, we have decided that for our next fiscal year, we'll issue guidance on comparable store used unit sales and on earnings per share only for the full fiscal year. We will no longer issue quarterly guidance. This decision reflects our continuing focus on longer-term store, sales, and earnings growth and on return on invested capital, and our recognition that the performance in shorter-term periods can be more volatile than over the longer term. As we report our quarterly results, we plan to comment on how our performance is tracking against our annual guidance.

Margins on other sales and revenues grew as a result of the growth in extended service plan revenues, which have no associated cost of sales, and the growth in our service margin, reflecting improved overhead expense absorption.