This Quick Tour shows a few sample screenshots so you can see what's what at Yahoo! Japan Auctions even when everything is in Japanese.

There are three basic types of pages which you must deal with. Once you familiarize yourself with these pages, it should be pretty easy to find things in any auction category.

Our ProxyShop Yahoo! Japan Auctions page has direct links to the best auction categories. From there, you will come across the following types of pages:

Photos Only View
This page displays thumbnails of items in a specific auction category (the sample screenshot shows fine-art photo books). The Photos Only View is the most convenient way to find what you want. You can browse items by looking at thumbnail images instead of the Japanese text titles. It's much faster to identify an item by looking at the image instead of the text title.

The vast majority of sellers at Yahoo! Japan Auctions provide an image for each item. And these images are displayed as thumbnails on the Photos Only View page.

When you first enter Yahoo! Japan Auctions, the first thing to do is to find the Photos Only View page for the target category.

Each thumbnail is captioned with the current price, number of bids if any, time left in days or hours (or minutes if in red letters), and the auction title. If you see something that interests you, click on the thumbnail to see the item page.

If there are more than 50 items in the auction category, you can click on the "Next 50 items" link at the bottom right to see more thumbnails.

Text Only View
We provide links to Photos Only View pages as much as possible, but you will sometimes come across the "Text Only" view page. If this happens, find the Photos Only View link and click it to change the view to Photos Only.

On the Text Only view screenshot, you can see where the Photos Only View link is.

Item page
This page appears when you click on one of the thumbnails on the Photos Only View page. It displays the auction item, current price, time remaining, sample image, item description, etc. This is where we place the bid.

Study the sample screenshot. The first two things you must recognize are the current bid (in yen) and the time left in the auction. The numerals will be recognizable. The current bid does not include any taxes nor shipping.

Below the current bid is the time left which will be either days (max. 10) or hours (max. 23). It does not show days AND hours. (The screenshot shows 3 days left.)

If the time left is in red characters, it indicates that there is 1 hour or less time left. If it's less than 1 hour, then the number of minutes remaining will be shown in red. (In such a case, it is probably too late to submit an order to bid on it.)

If you can recognize the kanji characters for days, hours, and minutes, you can tell which is which:

Toward the bottom of the item page, you can see the item's sample image(s). Sellers can post up to three sample images for an item. Below the sample image is the item description.

Also note that sometimes an item has a Buy Now price (sample screenshot) within a light-yellow stripe. It is the price that you can automatically win the auction for.

If you see some red text in the Notes, it most likely says that there's a Reserve Price that has not been met yet. This means that the seller won't sell the item if the bidding does not reach that reserve price.

After you examine the item page and decide that you want to place a bid, copy and paste the item page's URL on our order form. We will then send you a price quote.

After we receive your payment, we will place a bid for you. You can then see our auction name (bidplaced) as the high bidder.

You now know enough to start browsing Yahoo! Japan Auctions through our ProxyShop Yahoo! Japan Auctions page.

Later, you should also look at the English version at Yahoo! Auctions in the USA. Their auction system and page format are almost the same as Yahoo! Japan Auctions.

Searching for Idol Books

If you can read a little Japanese, you should know how the auction categories are structured for idol books.

Idol book index
This is the top page for idol books. The left column shows the a-ka-sa-ta-na hiragana characters. For example, if you're looking for someone whose family name is Tanaka, then click on "ta."

The subindex for ta will then appear. In the left column, you will see all the names listed for ta, chi, tsu, te, to. Click on the idol's name. The Text Only page for that idol will appear. Find the Photos Only View link and click it to see the thumbnails.

That's it for this Quick Tour. Now go to our Proxy Service page for Yahoo! Japan Auctions.