Auction Path · Japan
How auction lots work
Decode the lot, plan the bid, access live bidding through the platform, and move to the Deal Room when you win.
Agent-assisted bidding is coming soon — for now you analyze the lot and place the bid yourself.
Discover the lot Day 0
Auction lots blur into thousands of cars a week. Without a filter for grade, prefecture, and seller history, the wrong unit looks identical to the right one.
Hand you a photo + a price. The lot context stays hidden.
Auction lots surface on the Intelligence Floor and on per-listing VDPs — each with grade, prefecture, and inspector marks visible up front.
Decode the auction sheet Day 0–1
Inspector shorthand is in Japanese. Miss a mark and you've bid on a wreck dressed as a bargain.
Translate the sheet themselves — or charge you per-decipher with no rubric for what changed.
The Auction Sheet Decipher on the Intelligence Floor — grade, exterior/interior condition, accident history, plus prefecture-specific risk (salt-belt, snow, flood zones) flagged in plain English.
Run landed cost Day 0–1
You see a hammer price; the duty, freight, and clearance only land after you win. The "cheap" import becomes a money pit at the port.
Quote you a number, then itemise the surprises after the bid.
Landed Cost Engine computes shipping + duty + fees for the hammer-price range you would consider — to your country, your port, your vehicle age. No surprises at port.
Check battery health (EVs) Day 0–1
A 4-year-old EV at 92% State of Health is a different car from one at 78%. Without a number you bid on hope.
Don't differentiate. The seller's odometer is the only signal.
SOH Insight gives you a battery state-of-health estimate before you bid — the difference between a fair price and a costly mistake.
Access live bidding Day 1–7
You either trust a broker with a black-box markup, or you guess.
Take a markup to bid for you — opaque ceiling, opaque fee.
When the lot day comes, you log in to the auction-house platform we link you to and place the bid yourself. The price you offer is yours alone. WATTSHIP does not execute bids on your behalf.
Agent-assisted bidding — set a ceiling, we bid + report — is not live today. We will flag it on the page when it ships.
Outcome → Deal Room Day 7+
You won the lot, and now you have to coordinate export, freight, customs, and delivery yourself across three time zones.
Hand you a vessel name and a tracking link, then go silent.
Won the lot? Deal Room opens at Phase 1 (Initial Inquiry) with the hammer price pre-filled. The 7 phases — Inquiry → Quote → Agreement → Documents → Payment → Shipping → Inspection — are the same pipeline as marketplace listings.