What and how Japanese sell on Yahoo! Auction
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Last month I had a look at buying habits on Yahoo! Auction, so as a complement today I look at selling on Yahoo! Auction, in a survey from Media Interactive (iResearch) reported on japan.internet.com.
Demographics
Between the 5th and 7th of January 2010 1,000 people who had sold items on Yahoo! Auction completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.4% of the sample were male, 0.5% in their teens, 13.6% in their twenties, 39.3% in their thirties, 31.6% in their forties, 12.0% in their fifties, and 3.0% in their sixties.
It does seem that sellers are quite busy, with over two in five selling at least once a month. I’d love to find out more about what they are selling and if they are doing it as a real business or just selling off books they’ve read and clothes they’ve got bored with. Have any of my readers had any experiences of Japan online auctions?
Research results
Q1: What kinds of items have you sold through Yahoo! Auction? (Sample size=1,000, multiple answer)
Clothes 48.9% Books 476% Toys, games 43.3% Tickets, gift cards, hotel reservations 39.4% Home appliances. audio-visual equipment, cameras 35.4% Music 26.3% Hobby, culture-related items 24.1% Computers 23.9% Accessories, watches 23.7% Movies, videos 20.8% Beauty, health care items 17.9% Comic, animation goods 17.2% Antiques, collections 14.9% Sport, leisure goods 13.6% Home, interior items 13.3% Celebrity-related 12.8% Baby goods 12.6% Cars, motorbikes 11.3% Food, drink 8.5% Office, business items 4.3% Pets, live animals 2.2% Flowers, gardening 1.3% Property 0.3% Charities 0.1% Other (adult items, information, etc) 3.7% Q2: About how often do you sell items through Yahoo! Auction? (Sample size=1,000)
Every day 0.7% Few times a week 6.0% Once a week 5.6% Few times a month 19.7% Once a month 10.7% Once every two or three months 16.9% Once every six months 11.5% Once a year 1.3% Just whenever I have anything to sell 27.6% Next, 293 people, or 29.3% of the sellers, had used one or more paid-for options for their auctions. They were asked the following:
Q3: Which of the following pay services have you used on Yahoo! Auction? (Sample size=293, multiple answer)
Votes Percentage Featured auction 189 64.5% Reserve price auction 127 43.3% Bold text 99 33.8% Highlight icon 75 25.6% Highlight colour 55 18.8% Showcase 27 9.2% Gift item icon 10 3.4% Affiliate 7 2.4% Finally, everyone was asked if they had experienced trouble as a seller, and 140 (14.0%) replied they had. The most common causes of trouble was being unable to contact the buyer, the buyer not paying, and the buyer suddenly cancelling the deal.
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It’s tough to find good bargains and deals these days… especially before Christmas. A friend of mine mentioned something about penny auctions though, so I’ll probably check that out. Anyone know if they’re just scams though?