STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Yahoo: Deal will facilitate "cross-border trading" between Japan and the U.S.
By middle of next year, Japanese and Americans can buy items through sites
Move marks return to Japan of eBay, which pulled out of the market in 2002
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TOKYO, Japan (AP) -- Yahoo Japan Corp. and eBay Inc. said Tuesday they have agreed to team up in online auctions, planning services for next year that will make it easier for consumers to buy things via the Internet from the U.S. and Japan.

Yahoo said by March, Japanese will be able to bid for items up for sale on eBay through the Yahoo auction site in Japan. By the middle of next year, similarly, a site will be set up that will allow Americans to buy Yahoo Japan auction items through the eBay site.

The move will mark a return to Japan of eBay, which pulled out of the market in 2002, never able to compete against the domination of Yahoo here.

The deal will facilitate "cross-border trading" and invigorate the online auction market, Yahoo said in a statement. In online auctions, consumers put up items they want to sell and get offers through the Internet from prospective buyers.

Americans using eBay will be able to more easily buy Japanese goods popular abroad, such as "manga" comic books, CDs, and products that feature Japanese animation characters and other mascots, it said.

Also, some products are cheaper online abroad than in Japan, and consumers will be able to compare prices for the best deals.

News of the agreement, initially reported in the business daily The Nikkei, sent shares of Yahoo Japan climbing Tuesday morning. By midday, the stock was up 3.9 percent at 56,040 yen ($509).

Yahoo Japan, a unit of Sunnyvale, California-based Yahoo Inc., has more than 15 million auction items listed on any given day, while eBay, based in San Jose, Calif., the world's biggest online auction site, boasts 248 million registered users.

The online auction markets in both countries are growing, Yahoo said. In Japan, it's up about 27 percent from a year ago to an estimated 4 trillion yen ($36.4 billion), and in the U.S., it's up 21 percent to more than 19 trillion yen ($172.7 billion).

Although Japanese already can shop online on overseas sites, and vice versa, the agreement will make it easier by bridging language and other barriers.

Macquarie analyst Nathan Ramler said the deal is positive for both sides.

"Now there is going to be a formal channel by which you can sell products from one market into another," he told Dow Jones Newswires.

The tie-up may be expanded, both sides said.

Lorrie Norrington, head of eBay's international operations, said the deal may be expanded in the future to other businesses. Besides the online auction, eBay owns the PayPal online payment service and Skype, an online telephone service.

Yahoo Japan President Masahiro Inoue said the companies may pursue a capital tie-up, although Tuesday's deal doesn't involve such mutual investments.

The 2002 withdrawal from Japan was a rare defeat for eBay, which entered the Japanese market in 2000. But it had just 25,000 items listed for sale. At that time, eBay said it hoped to return to the world's second-largest retail market when the timing was right.

RIP Celga?

RIP bank account?

This seems to depend on whether the sellers will actually ship internationally.

Yeah not sure how that would work out. Or if they'd use Paypal or what.
Maybe it would be only lame stuff that gets listed on this shared site.

we will surely see.

hopefully it will be a good relationship. It would suck for the big guys to whipe out celga and everyone

I hope this works out as it would be a HUGE money saver.

Great news. Yeah, Paypal + international shipping is the key.

I don't like paying the Celga fees, but it is nice not having to deal with all of the auction-end negotiations...

I really hope to see this go down.

I think I recall in the last thread someone mentioning there may be a fee associated with purchasing items through the portal from Japan - probably not as much as Celga's fee but I have to agree with akum6n, it's great not dealing with the end of auction crap

I think someone said 15%? I guess that's similar to celga, but they probably won't be able to hold and combine boxes like celga does.

It will be interesting to see how this effects the market. More accessability = more bidders, and potentially higher ending prices.

yeah, i don't think this is a good thing for collectors, its going to make it easier for anyone to get the stuff that you have always worked a little harder to get. anyone who can use ebay can now snipe you for that bemon.

have fun.

agreed. I say boo to this.

I liked it the old way, just like everything else.

progress is stupid.

Oh I completely agree. It will just dumb down the whole process.
Ideal for those who can't be bothered to translate Japanese characters.

I figure that I have a year to pick up anything unusual or hard to find. Then the floodgates open. This has already started to a degree as Japanese sellers do sell some collectibles on eBay.

It will also be interesting to see if certain Japanese products or collectables start flooding into the US. More Manga or Japanese denim for example.

And what is there in the US that the Japanese covet? That I could sell to them?

They don't want or need our crap, except for our Hollywood Blockbusters...

In my opinion, ebay actually lowered the prices of many collectibles - especially vintage bullmarks. Except for the truly rare stuff for which there's a lot of pent-up demand, the effect of ebay has been to reduce the costs of buyers hunting for this stuff. In the old days, you'd pay like 2-3 times what relatively common Bullmarks go for on ebay now because you had to rely on dealers who had to recoup their costs for buying from their connections in Japan, etc., etc.

I can't recoup nearly what I paid for many of my pre-ebay pieces just because the prices have come down so much and a lot of this stuff turns out not to be as rare or as hard to get as we believed pre-internet (which is fine because I have no intention of selling - I love it too much).

With the exception of "toy-of-the-moment" items - some of the prices of which are driven to insane levels because of irrational behavior on the part of collectors - I think it remains to be seen whether the removal of the barriers we American collectors now face when buying on YJA (going through middlemen, etc.) will actual lower the overall price we pay or increase it.

My hunch is also that most of the buyers who are interested in buying on YJA are already doing so through buying services (i.e. if you really want this stuff, you've already found a way to get it) and that it may not add that much more competition to the mix - for some of these toys, the number of people who are interested in them is really a pretty small and discrete group. That's my 2 cents, dude.

I think you have some valid points. it's all just a matter of what "trend" is currently popular. that will always fetch high prices because most people have no patience and can't wait and MUST have it so they jack up the auctions with ridiculous bid amounts.

however, I think that more often that not, money is not the issue with bidding on Japanese auctions. that is evident when the same items are sold on ebay, and prices go through the roof. it's not that the collectors have any problem with spending that amount or having to pay fees that keeps them from bidding on Japanese auctions (because even with fees it's often less than what they end up paying on ebay!), but sheer laziness that keeps them from signing up with a bidding service and going to town.

with ebay, you pop in a credit card number and you're on your way. with YJA you have to contact a service, usually buy through them for a period of time first to earn their trust, and then provide them with a credit card and bid real time. it also means having to translate auctions and risk some miscommunication and get the wrong item or not have it be in the condition you expected. oh and did I mention there is more waiting, because many people wait til they have several items before they have the service ship them to save on the costs of EMS.

I think as it stands now, Yahoo is for the dedicated and ebay is for the "gimme gimme" style collector.

and marshmallow fluff. that stuff's worth its weight in gold internationally. giving some to foreigners (or native west coasters) is an experience that I imagine is akin to the aztecs feeding conquistadors chocolate for the first time.

+1!!!

Lobsters and Northwestern logs were popular in the last couple years.

You could make the same argument against what super7 is doing though couldn't you? The magazine is easy information for people who are too lazy to translate Japanese websites/magazines and the store is easy toys for people who are too lazy to buy from Japan. The hobby is far easier than it was 10 years ago, and I think it's a change for the better. I certainly wouldn't have found this stuff if it wasn't for the easy access s7 gives me.



Apparently shitty clothes from Abercrombie/Hollister/etc. They love the stuff.

I suppose you could say that, but Super 7 never causes a bidding war.

I should point out that I hate auctions in general. they are stressful and you almost always end up paying too much. I'd almost always rather buy from a store and pay some mark up than get stuff via auctions, if the stores can get what I want that is.