Japanese online auctions have a large overseas audience. However, come of the reasons which prevent non-Japanese people from participating in these auctions are:

* The Japanese online auctions are in Japanese and not in English
* Most of the auctioneers on these auction sites, do not send shipments overseas
* There are very few auctioneers who accept payment through credit card or Paypal. They usually work with Japanese banks only
* It is possible that auctioneers may not have previous experience in shipping goods overseas. This may mean extra cartage charges leading to more expensive goods

This is the information service for Japanese online auctions.

If you shall like to translate Japanese web sites into English or any other language, please visit Japanas.com for further information (This is the Japanese auction and shopping directory)

Register with JapanAuctionCenter.com (our affiliates) for free, and start enjoying the Auctions in Japan, immediately. You can pay for all the products you win from the comfort of your home, using Paypal. This is surely the best way to pay!

For any further information, do not hesitate to contact us.

The Yahoo! Japan Auctions is the largest online auction site in Japan. Yahoo’s Japan Auctions

Site, enjoys the same popularity that e-Bay enjoys in America.

* The Yahoo! Japan Auctions site is called "YAFU-OKU" in Japanese.
* Currently there are close to 4,000,000, registered members. Additionally, an estimated 5,000,000 users including the family members, friends and relatives of the registered members, access the website.
* Yahoo! Japan Corporation, is affiliated to Yahoo! Yahoo! Japan is headquartered in Roppongi Hills Mori Tower, Minato, Tokyo. The largest stockholders in Yahoo’s Japanese operations are Softbank
* The average employee age in Yahoo! Japan Auction is 32. This makes the company, with strength of 1,740 employees, a young and dynamic company.
* Yahoo! Japan Auction Company is comparable to Yahoo! USA. However, the site has adapted itself to the needs of the users in Japan, specifically. The site has an inbuilt timer system which allows the seller to extend the auction for an additional 5 minutes in case of a new bid which may come in the last 5 minutes. This feature makes sure that bidders do not resort to 'sniping' especially for items that many bidders want. The Yahoo! Japan Auction service was launched in September, 1999.
* Over 7,000,000 items go for sale or are put up for bidding on a daily basis. This figure is similar to the total sales figure for all the major department stores in Japan.
* An average of 8,810,000 items, go up for auction currently, every month on Yahoo! Japan. The per day sales figures are touching close to ¥1.67B. It’s very unfortunate that a non-Japanese person is not able to reap the benefits of these auctions since the site is displayed in Japanese.

Here are the guidelines laid by Yahoo! Japan for participating in their auctions:

1. The user should be able to read, write, and fully comprehend Japanese
2. The user should be over 20 years in age
3. The user needs to agree to the Yahoo! Japan’s Terms of Service (TOS) and be able to read and agree with the auction service guidelines as laid by Yahoo! Japan.

* Any person of non-Japanese origin can participate in the auctions. However he/she should be proficient to read, write, and understand Japanese.
* The fees for exhibition are ¥ 10.5 (this includes 5% Japanese TAV) and an additional ¥ 2,940 (inclusive of taxes) for cars (bodies only) and also ¥ 1,890 (inclusive of taxes) for motorbikes.
* If the auctioneer decides to cancel the auction of any item, he shall be liable to pay ¥ 500 + 5% TAV.
* Only the Yahoo! Premium members can participate in the Yahoo! Japan Auctions. However, all these members need to register with Yahoo! Wallet to further get their credit card information verified.
* Each member shall have to confirm his/her residential address.
* The website, Yahoo! Japan Auctions shall be paid a commission of 3% on the transaction amount. However, a commission of ¥2,940 and ¥1,980 is fixed for cars and motorcycles, respectively.
* Amongst all the auction websites in Japan, Yahoo! Japan Auctions is the only website which charges a monthly membership fee of ¥ 280, to all its members.
* All users need to understand that due to excessive traffic, the Yahoo! Japan Auctions may respond slowly sometimes.

Rakuten is a unified shopping mall on the Web. Rakuten’s core business capabilities were seen in the form of a mega electronic shopping mall, with over 15 millions products for customers to choose from, initially. However, Rakuten Ichiba have since then, expanded their operations to embrace various businesses such as Portal & Media services (Infoseek, Ynot, Target, Rakuten TV, ShowTime Minano Shushoku and Cyber Brains), Travel & entertainment (Rakuten Travel, Ctrip.com International Ltd.), and Financial services offering Rakuten Ceredit Cards and e-banking capabilities. Their auction types are single, power, and Dutch Auctions. No proxy bid system is offered.

Bidders has the support of over 3 million registered users, making it one of the top players in the country’s online auction and shopping market. Dena Co. Ltd. owns and manages this site and is headquartered at the Sasazuka Building of Shibuya (Tokyo). They have also collaborated with MSN Japan, Excite Japan, and Biglobe auctions.

With a listing of over 1.2M items on their auction site, Bidders has become Japan’s second largest auction site. They do not charge their members any subscription or listing fees. However, they charge a commission of 2.5% on every item sold; making their rates cheaper than Yahoo! Japan Auction.

The Win Corporation (Shibuya Tokyo) and Sara Corporation (Yokohama) jointly own the 1998 established Wanted Auctions, jointly.

The site is popular because of their ‘Made in Japan’ collection of items, animation, and adult section. There are no registration fees applied to buyers and sellers. There are no commission charges either. (updated on April 25th, 2009)

Many people wonders if there is an eBay auction site in Japan.
Please click here to see the answer of this question.