A Disruptive Challenge in the Used Car Industry: The Pursuit of 'Overwhelming Transparency'—An Interview with Yusaku Nakano

Key Points of This Article

1. Transparency of Information and Industry Transformation
Addressing the opaque costs prevalent in the used car industry by disclosing costs and fees on platforms like YouTube to eliminate information asymmetry. This initiative has supported the industry's overall transparency, including the mandatory display of total payment amounts, contributing to a safer purchasing environment for users.

2. Building Trust with AI and Blockchain
While using generative AI to standardize customer interactions, humans focus on emotional engagement, promoting a division of roles. Additionally, managing tamper-proof maintenance history data with blockchain aims to fairly reflect future appraisal values, challenging a new trust mechanism.

3. The Vision of 'Car Dealer 3.0' and Platform Concept
Expanding customer touchpoints through cross-industry ventures, aiming to establish CtoC transaction infrastructure and intermediary platforms based on accumulated data and trust. Advocating for a distribution revolution where used cars can be purchased with one click online, challenging the transformation of industry structures.

──Could you tell us about the origin of the name 'BUDDICA'?

Yusaku Nakano (hereafter, Nakano): When starting the company, I thought about what kind of company we wanted to be and named it by combining 'Buddy' and 'Car.' We aspire to be a trusted and relied-upon presence for customers, employees, and business partners, not just a car seller.

──The traditional used car industry primarily operated on a centralized model, profiting from information asymmetry by hoarding inventory. How did BUDDICA's practices of 'opening inventory to rivals' and 'transparency of costs and fees' impact the industry?

Nakano: It would be presumptuous to say I changed the industry alone, but I feel that our YouTube broadcasts starting in August 2022 were a definite catalyst.

Until then, the used car industry was a complete black box for consumers. With the purchase frequency being as low as once every seven years, general customers had no idea about fee standards or the necessity of options.

For example, charging 80,000 yen for a parking certificate that costs about 10,000 yen in practical terms was a common fee business exploiting the lack of knowledge. Since the general public couldn't see through the method of making the base price look cheap and adjusting with additional costs, I decided to 'discuss everything on YouTube.'

──You aimed to resolve information asymmetry through the medium of video.

Nakano: Even if the base price was the same 2 million yen, it was common for other companies to add extra costs, making the total over 200,000 yen higher. I thoroughly explained frequently asked questions.

As we continued to broadcast, the videos reached many people, and as customers began to be cautious, other companies had no choice but to lower their fees, resulting in price standardization.

What was even more significant was the revision of the rules (Automobile Fair Competition Code) in October 2023, about a year after we started broadcasting, which made the 'total payment display' for used cars mandatory.

Thanks to the long-standing efforts of industry veterans, combined with our YouTube broadcasts and industry fraud issues, a standard system where customers can buy with confidence through total price display was finally established. Over the past two years, I feel that the industry's transparency has accelerated rapidly.