Q: What is "YJ" or "YJA"?
A: These are the common abbreviations for Yahoo Japan or Yahoo Japan auctions, the
most popular auction site in Japan. Similar to Ebay in the United States, it is the site with
the largest number of auctions and the broadest range of goods.
Q: What are all the parts of an auction page on Yahoo Japan?
A: Here's a sample YJ auction page with all the important parts identified!
[insert graphic here of YJ page with balloons pointing to important sections]
Q: How do I find the full URL of a Yahoo Japan auction page so I can include it in my
bid request?
A: If you are using the Yahoo Japan searches on the Celga website, you don't
need to worry about finding the URL! Whenever you use the "bid on this auction" button
it will take you to our (bidrequest)bid request form with the item's URL already filled
in for you! And it will fill in your personal information – all you need to do is decide how
much you want to bid before sending it to us!
We know a lot of our customers like to search Yahoo Japan in other ways, so here's how
to find the URL directly from a YJ page. When you are at an auction page for an
individual item, the full URL of the auction will be in the URL/Navigation bar of your
browser. It will look something like this:
http://page9.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/k40824867
All you need to do is copy the entire line of text from your browser's Navigation bar and
paste it into the correct spot in our (bidrequest)Bid Request form! Please make sure
that the URL points directly to the YJ auction in Japanese, and does not contain extra
information from translator sites or other web sites!
Yahoo Japan uses many different servers to host their individual auction pages, so it's
important that you copy the URL exactly as it shows up in your browser and make sure to
include the "http://" header. It's that simple!
Q: How does the "buy it now" feature work on Yahoo Japan?
A: On Yahoo Japan, sellers can choose to set a "buy it now" price on their auctions. "Buy
it now" means that if someone places a bid for the "buy it now" price or higher, the
auction is closed immediately and that bidder wins the auction immediately at the "buy it
now" price.
You can tell if there's a "buy it now" price on an auction by the price in the yellow box
just below the bid increment, the fourth item in the second column. Please see our image
of a (yjauctionpage)Yahoo Japan auction page to see an example!
Because the "buy it now" feature happens automatically if we place a bid at or above the
"buy it now" price, if we receive a bid from one of our customers that meets or exceeds
that price, we understand it to mean the customer wants us to go ahead and "buy it now".
We'll do that right away for you! If you do not want win the auction immediately at the
"buy it now" price, you must bid below it.
Please note that unlike Ebay, the "buy it now" price on Yahoo Japan auctions does not
disappear if someone places a lower bid. It is available until the auction ends or someone
meets the price - which means that even if you place your bid early, someone else can
still come along, use the "buy it now" price, and win the auction immediately.
Q: Can I bid on a Yahoo Japan auction with my own ID and have you take care of the
payment and shipping details once it has ended?
A: We only handle transactions of this type through our (goldfaq)Celga Gold program.
Please check it out and see if it is right for you!
Q: The bid on an item keeps going up, but there's no high bidder listed. What's going on?
A: Sellers on Yahoo Japan can choose to set a reserve on their auctions. A reserve is a
price, higher than the starting bid, under which the seller will not sell. Sellers often do
this to generate interest in their auctions without taking the risk of selling at a low price.
You can tell if an auction has a reserve price by the red text at the bottom of the second
column of a listing.
If an item has received bids that do not meet the reserve price, the current bid price on the
item will reflect these bids, but no high bidder will be listed because no one is winning
the auction. When the reserve on an item has been reached, the high bidder's ID will be
shown along with the current bid price.
If the auction ends with no bid reaching the reserve price, there is no winner, and the item
is not sold. The seller is free to relist it.
Q: Does Yahoo Japan offer proxy bidding?
A: Yes, Yahoo Japan auctions offer proxy bidding. You can find a detailed
(bidproxy)explanation of how proxy bidding works in our (bidfaq)general bidding
FAQ!
Q: An item which started at 1 yen ended way below my maximum bid of 10000 yen.
Why didn't you bid on it for me?
A: Yahoo Japan has several quirky rules, and one of those rules is that you cannot place a
bid more than 100 times the current bid. Since you cannot retract bids on YJ, this is basic
buyer protection against gross errors when entering a bid (like 32000 yen instead of 320
yen).
This only becomes an issue when sellers start auctions for valuable items at an artificially
low price. At 1 yen, the highest bid that can be entered is 100 yen, even if the item is
worth considerably more than that. So even if your maximum is 10000 yen, we can only
bid 100 yen on your behalf. Yahoo Japan will not let us enter a higher bid.
If another bidder comes along and bids against us, then the current bid will go up and so
will the auction bid limit. We try very hard to watch for these changes so we can place
your true maximum bid. However, with the thousands of auctions we handle, we can't
make any guarantees about catching them, especially if this happens during a bidding
frenzy at the very end of the auction.
If you find yourself in this situation often, you may want to consider applying for a
(goldfaq)Celga Gold Account, so you can keep an eye on your auctions personally!
Q: Why didn't the auction end when it was supposed to? Someone outbid me after the
auction was supposed to end!
A: Yahoo Japan auctions have a feature available to sellers to extend auctions if a bid
placed within 5 minutes of the scheduled end of the auction. If this happens, the end of
the auction is automatically extended for 5 more minutes, allowing more time for
bidding. Almost every seller uses this feature; it is very rare that a seller has chosen not to
use it.
You can tell if an auction has this feature by checking the text at the bottom of the second
column in the auction header. Please see our (yjauctionpage)sample Yahoo Japan
auction page for an example.
Q: How can I retract my bid on a Yahoo Japan auction?
A: You cannot. Yahoo Japan does not allow bid retractions or provide any method to do
so. Once a bid is placed, it must be honored.
This is why Celga cannot cancel any bid requests from customers once that bid has been
placed on a Yahoo Japan. There is simply no way to do so.
