Paulo Figueiredo on Piscapisca.pt and the used-car market

We interviewed Paulo Figueiredo, director of Piscapisca.pt, at the company’s offices, surrounded by developers, back-office staff and customer support teams. The conversation took place in a more relaxed setting than one might expect - particularly in a building shared with a banking-sector business.

It is in this office building, amid the analytical discipline of banking, that we met the Piscapisca.pt team. Since 2020, it has pursued one goal: “transforming the used-car buying experience in Portugal”.

How is that transformation being delivered? Paulo Figueiredo explained throughout an interview that began with the project’s launch - in 2020, at the height of the pandemic - and ended by looking at a future that is already starting to take shape.

“The market needed a portal like Piscapisca.pt, capable of challenging a very strong monopoly that existed in Portugal.”

• Paulo Figueiredo, director of Piscapisca.pt

The platform already records more than 600,000 unique monthly users and brings together over 43,000 used-car adverts from across Portugal.

Piscapisca.pt and the value of a more transparent market

RA: What prompted a credit institution to launch a platform of this kind?

Paulo Figueiredo (PF): Credibom bank has been Portugal’s national leader in used-car finance for 20 years. Strengthening that position was naturally a good reason, but it was far from being the only one. The market needed a portal like Piscapisca.pt, capable of challenging a very strong monopoly that existed in Portugal.

I know it is a phrase that gets used often, but it is absolutely true: we wanted to add value for our partners. We are talking about a sector in which a substantial share was not even digitised.

RA: What kind of added value are we discussing?

PF: We are adding value on two fronts: for platform users, meaning buyers, and for our partners, the advertisers. We want to provide the most transparent used-car buying experience on the market.

That is why we developed a range of tools for buyers, including the “ideal car” search feature, which did not previously exist. By answering four or five simple questions - relating to their day-to-day needs - users receive recommendations for a selection of cars. This was something that had not existed before.

On the sellers’ side, for professionals, our most important tool is certification. Together with APDCA, we launched used-vehicle certification. We are the only platform with used vehicles certified by an independent third party, DEKRA or MForce, making it possible to access a report on a car’s actual condition.

We believe the market benefits from greater transparency and more information. This is the key position that Pisca Pisca has set out to occupy.

RA: Is there still work to do?

PF: Without question, on both sides. For instance, we want even more partners to join the certified cars programme, as we consider it a vital tool for increasing transparency.

“Here is a piece of exclusive news that we want to share with you: we are working hard so that, very soon, it will be possible to obtain a report on the history of a particular vehicle before buying it, using its registration number or VIN.”

• Paulo Figueiredo, Director of Piscapisca.pt

This vehicle-history database - which will comply with all GDPR requirements - will be available on the Piscapisca.pt platform. These are precisely the kinds of tools and information we want to provide to the market. We spoke earlier about adding value, and this is another step in that direction.

RA: And how will that work? Who provides you with that information?

PF: We have a long-standing partner that specialises in data and holds vehicle data. We have spent this time building a report containing highly important information about vehicles.

For example, it can show whether the vehicle has had a recall, how many owners it has had, its average time to sell, its average market selling price, whether it has been a taxi, whether it has belonged to a car-hire company, or whether it has had an accident recorded by an insurer.

RA: Including a private-hire vehicle?

PF: Including a private-hire vehicle. The aim is to ensure the buyer is genuinely equipped with all the information about that car. We have also seen a very positive response to this from partners. Contrary to what many people expected, professionals in the sector themselves have a strong desire to raise standards.

RA: So they are not all tarred with the same brush?

PF: I think that is genuinely an inaccurate view, although it has been gradually changing. However, there is still a strong tendency to lump everyone together, which simply is not true.

The vast majority of our partners work to an exemplary standard, with transparency throughout the purchasing, part-exchange and vehicle-selling processes.

Many people are already doing an excellent job, and we encourage and want to support that happening more widely because that is exactly what we believe in: raising standards. Quality will attract more buyers. And that is necessary.

RA: And over the past 10 years, we have seen the used-car sector become more professional.

PF: Absolutely, and the pandemic has accelerated that process. Vehicle shortages meant many partners had to find new ways of working and new ways of buying vehicles themselves, which raised the sector’s overall standard. For us, though, this remains a central priority and work we intend to continue.

Piscapisca.pt growth, performance and future plans

RA: Looking at these two years of Piscapisca.pt, were the targets achieved?

PF: Yes, they were clearly achieved and, across most of the key performance indicators (KPIs) we had set, exceeded. The clearest example is that, after entering a sector with an obvious monopolist, just two years later - in fact, not even two full years - we had more vehicles available on our platform than that competitor.

We currently have around 43,500 cars on the platform; our competition does not have these numbers.

“Having managed to become the platform with the most vehicles available on the market in such a short period is clearly an excellent result for our team and one that exceeded expectations.”

• Paulo Figueiredo, director of Piscapisca.pt

We are also generating increasingly more business for our dealers. Many cars are sold through “Pisca”, but that is not enough. We want to generate more leads and attract more traffic. Piscapisca.pt currently has around 600,000 visits per month, which is a very respectable figure for the time we have been operating, but we want to reach one million, exceed those numbers and generate more leads and more business.

“From a business perspective, sales through our portal are a KPI we will never be satisfied with because we always want more.”

• Paulo Figueiredo, director of Piscapisca.pt

In short, it has been a fantastic journey, with a few twists along the way. It is worth remembering that we launched the platform in the middle of the pandemic. Yet even that was well received by the market. People understood that they could rely on us in the most difficult moments.

We had the courage to carry on when almost everything was telling us to do the exact opposite. Today, we know it was the right decision. In truth, we never had any doubts.

RA: A genuine start-up.

PF: Yes, especially because there is an important point: we are a brand, a digital asset within a financial institution, which is typically more conservative and cumbersome, and Credibom deserves credit for that.

It not only had the vision, but also the ability to allow this highly agile and distinctive asset to grow and develop. Today, it is an absolutely strategic pillar of the group’s plan.

RA: Are we talking about international expansion?

PF: Yes, we are already working with our parent company in France, where we have a number of ongoing projects - what we call Pisca France - as well as projects in other markets and with other entities.

Beyond that, it is mainly viewed as a digital asset on which we will build the mobility projects that the group itself wants to support and develop. Not only in Portugal, but in every other country too.

RA: And what are those projects?

PF: For now, I cannot reveal them.

The used-car market: supply, prices and expectations

RA: Turning now to the used-car market, there is no memory of used cars becoming more expensive each year instead of losing value.

PF: There is clearly a shortage of product and stock. It began with the lack of new cars, which in turn meant fleet management companies and car-hire businesses did not renew their fleets. Those fleets were the main source of supply for the used-car sector. That entire snowball effect hit the used-car market very hard.

“We have seen some unprecedented situations, such as an 18- to 20-month-old used car costing as much as a new car because the new car is available, but only for delivery in eight months’ time.”

• Paulo Figueiredo, director of Piscapisca.pt

There is a market distortion, the number-one effect of which was higher prices, alongside the subsequent combination of war, inflation and everything that followed from it. On the platform, we are already starting to see some growth in supply. In other words, the decline is no longer as sharp as it had been; it has stabilised and is now growing slowly.

The expectation is that it will take at least another half-year, perhaps six to eight months, before we see some market normalisation, always assuming there are no further surprises.

RA: Under normal circumstances, what is your expectation for 2023?

PF: We believe the market will not contract as significantly as some players are suggesting. It will depend on inflation.

We even think there will be growth compared with 2022, which was not an entirely bad year from a business standpoint. Our view is that there will be stabilisation during this year, with 2024 being a year of recovery. Much will depend on the next few months, I would say up to June.

The world has entered a pace of change that requires us to be agile enough to keep up. Naturally, we have a clearly defined strategy, as we do through to 2025, but we must also have the capacity to adapt it.

RA: That strategy has been delivering results, as you have just received the Cinco Estrelas award.

PF: As I often say, that was an additional reward for our work. The award represents recognition from the market, buyers and consumers of our strategy and vision.

We had already won this award last year and have now won it again. In the history of the Cinco Estrelas used marketplace award, nobody other than the monopoly that existed had ever won it. This distinction reflects the work of the whole “Pisca” team, which is extremely dedicated and wants to see the project grow.

That is why we will present many new developments over the coming months.

RA: Can you reveal any of them already…

PF: Unfortunately, I still cannot reveal them. But I can guarantee that it will be a major evolution for Piscapisca.pt.