The selection at car auctions in Japan beats any stock an exporter may hold
As I write this we are in a slower time of the year. We are at the start of February, and the Spring peak season is not going to really get going for a month or so.
Despite, this we have 23,630 vehicles available today. Remember, this is a quiet day. In the peak season, in March and April, we will see days with double this amount.
As a comparison, let’s see what some top Japanese car exporters have available in stock today. To get a reasonable selection, I Googled “Japanese car exporter stock”. These were the results:
- www.******japanesecar.com – 213 cars
- www.***japan.com – 908 cars
- www.car********.com – 1,112 cars
Not unimpressive numbers, but much less than our total for just one day of auctions. But let's compare that 1,112 cars to the 23,630 vehicles at the auctions today. Look at it like this and the exporter with the most stock only has 5% of the number of cars at auction today. Not so great.
And the thing is that these stock cars may take weeks or months to sell, so the number of genuinely fresh cars available each week from any of these exporters will just be one or two hundred.
Obviously, not all cars that are auctioned on a particular day in the car auctions are sold either. Some fail to sell in live bidding or in negotiation and so these return the following week. However, the majority of cars are sold on in one or two weeks. This means that every single day you get a huge choice of fresh cars to choose from.
A big exporter may turn over 100 cars per week. The auctions will bring you tens of thousands of fresh cars per week. This is a huge difference. Clearly the Japanese car auctions win hands down when it comes to numbers and, therefore, choice.
Third-party inspection
Log in to our online Japanese car auction system on any day, and you can see detailed inspection reports of all the cars that are to be auctioned on that day.
These inspections are carried out by professional, trained inspectors and are a thorough assessment of the car. Not only that, but these done by the auction’s own inspection team. Not by the seller, not by the exporter - a true third-party set of eyeballs checking out the car.
On the other hand, if you buy from an exporter’s stock, you will have to take their word for the condition of the vehicle. In this case the inspector and the seller are the same person. You'll need to be absolutely confident you are dealing with someone honest in that situation.
So when you buy cars from the auctions in Japan, you know that the inspection report has not been made by the seller, or the car exporter, but by a third party. That's the peace of mind you need.
Watch Out - Stock Offloading!
Unfortunately, it's not difficult to see another way in which unscrupulous exporters may prey on naive customers. Not only do they have an incentive to downplay problems with the cars they are selling, but it's also going to be very tempting for them to try to offload cars they have had difficulty shifting onto unsuspecting buyers.
Imagine this: You are an exporter with a stock of 100 cars. These are cars you have bought with your money, and they are just sitting there, waiting for a buyer. Most of these cars get sold on at a sensible pace. But there's always a group of 10 or so that no one ever wants to buy.
Think how frustrated you would feel. Those ten cars are your money, sitting around and doing nothing. That's not just unrealized profit. That's your capital stuck right there.
Here comes a new customer. Can you imagine the temptation to steer him to these cars? Can you feel the pull to make them seem better than they really are?
Yes, the incentives to try to offload unwanted stock are going to be strong. Even the most morally upright salesman is going to find it difficult to resist the temptation.
We have no stock sitting around waiting for a buyer. We only buy to order directly from the Japanese car auctions. So we don't have this problem, as we never have any stock we need to offload on customers anyway. It's better for you, and better for us.
Speed of shipping
If you want to get the car right away, then it is true that the buying from an exporter’s stock may mean that it can be shipped out to you quicker.
The reason is that when we buy a car at auction, we have to get the car physically moved to the port, and we have to receive the paperwork from the seller so that we can start processing it for export. Theoretically, the seller has up to 14 days to get the documents to us, but in reality most are much quicker.
On the other hand, if the car is in the exporter's yard, then he can get it to the port right away, and he probably already has the paperwork in hand.
So it's true that a car bought from an exporter's stock may get to you quicker than at car bought at auction. But even this will only be true some of the time. You see, ships don’t sail to even the busiest ports every day, so if your stock-sourced car has just missed a place on one ship, then it may be that and auction-bought car would end up on the same ship anyway.
At Integrity Exports, we believe that the advantages of sourcing cars for our customers entirely from the Japanese car auctions far outweighs any benefits of holding stock cars on the off-chance that someone may want to buy one
Conclusion - Buying From Japanese Car Auctions Wins
At Integrity Exports, we believe that the advantages of sourcing cars for our customers to order far outweighs any benefits of holding a stock of cars waiting for a buyer.
To name just a few of these:
- Ordering directly from Japan's car auctions gives you much more choice.
- Your cars will be independently inspected by the auction. You don't have to take the seller's or exporter's word for about the condition.
- There's no danger of having unwanted stock cars dumped on you.
That's why we buy to order only - whether from the auctions, from car dealers or even from Yahoo Auctions. We have no stock cars just sitting around waiting for a buyer.
We find that the most successful importers really understand how it all works - from the auction to the ship and beyond. Don't get left behind!
