Over time there have been some habits or techniques that a lot of users use on Yahoo. For example, just like with eBay, the busiest night of all is Sunday evening. No other night even compares. Yahoo even tends to slow down quite a bit on Sunday evening because of the heavier traffic. If you're watching a lot of auctions and refreshing your Watch List a lot be prepared for some connection errors every now and then.
Auction Format Dominates
The auction format is by far the most used format on Yahoo. I'm starting to see a few more Buy-It-Now listings, especially from stores that do business on eBay, but by far the preferred method is to run an auction with a low starting price. Japanese people like bidding. They'll bid more in the end through an auction that a lower Buy-It-Now price. eBay has turned into an online store to a large extent buy Yahoo is still a place dominated by the bidding process.
Ending Auctions Early
This rarely happens. A lot of times Buyers will send a message to the Seller offering a price and asking to end it early, but on Yahoo I've been successful with this maybe less than 10% of the time. They really like to let the auction run all the way to the end even if you offer them a good price.
Answering Questions
Yahoo Sellers don't do this as much. Again, don't ask me why, but they just don't answer questions nearly as often as eBay sellers do.
Auction Information
It's not uncommon to see listings that have no information about shipping or payment. Sellers are starting to learn a bit more about this and there is more information than in the past, but it's not uncommon to make a purchase without knowing what the shipping price will be. Sellers don't really inflate shipping prices on Yahoo so in the end they probably just assume that the cost is what it is and they leave it at that.
Handling Fees
When they do add in a shipping cost you sometimes do not see a handling fee. A lot of sellers give a location and the size of the package and a link to the Japan Post price website. That means you're going to pay for the shipping cost only and there won't be any padding or extra charges added in. Naturally there are some sellers who post their own rates and include handling charges, and there are some Sellers who pad the cost, but it doesn't happen to nearly the same extent as on eBay.
Personal Sellers
In terms of business sellers to personal sellers, the number is much higher for personal sellers on Yahoo than on eBay. Maybe it's because Japan has Rakuten and Amazon and other outlets for business Sellers, but Yahoo is still a place dominated by the guys selling the extra stuff they don't need anymore. There are Yahoo stores but they are few and far between compared to eBay. Yahoo doesn't seem to push the online business angle nearly as much.
Searching
There still is no perfect way to search for items on Yahoo. They use a mix of the 3 different writing styles, plus sometimes they use English. There are 3 different ways to write "Nintendo" and the Nintendo product itself might be in English or Japanese. The means you might have to do 6 different searches to make sure you've covered all of the possibilities.
