The Basics of Bidding
First of all, the auctions are not slow, with a buildup over many days, as you might find on a website like eBay.
A particular car will the auctioned at a particular auction house location, on a particular day, at a particular time. When it comes time for that car to be auctioned, the actual process of bidding takes anything between 10 seconds to 40 seconds to complete.
So, it's much faster than eBay. Once live bidding starts, there's no time for us to discuss with you whether you want to change your maximum bid. We need to know right from the start what your max will be so we can give our complete focus to getting the car for you. (Of course, if we get the car for under your maximum bid, that's an extra bonus for you.)
If it's not like eBay, is it more similar to a traditional auction with an auctioneer holding a gavel? Well, as I wrote before, it's not really like this either.
Bidding is very fast, and the larger auctions will have multiple "lanes" in which cars are coming up for auction every 20 to 30 seconds or so over a period of 8 to 12 hours, and on top of that, most of the people who are bidding will not even be at the auction's physical location.
This is why bidding is done on computer terminals, using the auction houses' own proprietary systems. The bidding is done by either clicking a mouse, or clicking a button on a special joystick. The computer system itself plays the role of auctioneer.
Your “Bids”
Although we often talk about the bids you place in our online system as "bids", if you look at our Terms of Business, for example, you'll find them referred to as "proxy bids".
The reason for this is simple. We bid live through the auctions' proprietary systems because we are a member of those auctions. Now, to become a member, you need to be a corporation, or a private individual in Japan with property as collateral, and Japanese guarantors.
Obviously, someone overseas cannot do this. So, we provide the bridge for you, by bidding for cars following your instructions to us in the online system. Your proxy bid tells us the maximum price you are willing to pay in the actual live bidding, which we then carry out through our accounts with the auction houses in live bidding.
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!
