Sale of cars at city park ‘booming’

By ZARA KANU LEBO
CAR sales at Jack Pidik Park in Port Moresby have expanded over the last nine years – from selling under 10 on show to more than 60 different brands vehicles today.
The informal car dealership, or “black market” as named by the car agents themselves is a place where you can get a deal with ease, negotiate an affordable price, exchange cash and titles and drive off a happy customer.
Businessman and agent Willie Isaac, from Enga, said: “We are all individuals selling here and because we order online from Japanese used cars (websites) using our own funds, we price the vehicles based on the brand of the vehicle.
“When you go to car dealerships and when you purchase a vehicle, most are unregistered so there is another process involved where you spend time and money, while here we register the vehicles and upon payment of cash we just transfer the title to you as the new owner.”
Isaac said the increase in the number of vehicles over the years was because of the increase in ordering vehicles online.
He said there was also no discrimination on who could sell at the park.
After 2014, the park was closed off for commercial construction forcing dealers to move their vehicles to a smaller area at one end of the park.
Despite the influx of sellers displaying their vehicles in the area, business was still successful for most of the dealers as walk-in customers range from 15 to 20 a day with sellers making at least a K5,000 profit on sales.
“Despite having a lot of genuine buyers on our set prices, we can negotiate depending on the brand of the vehicle, where we can drop the price by K1,000 to K2,000 if the client comes good with cash or we want to make an urgent sale,” Isaac said.