TOKYO -- Japanese startups are emerging as key players in the global market for used goods, from totaled cars to fishing tackle.

Consider the fate of a vehicle that ended up in a ditch in western Japan. The driver, a 45-year-old Hyogo Prefecture man, had veered off the road and turned the car onto its side. The damage was so severe that "the repair estimate was as high as a new vehicle," the man said.

Tau, a company specializing in damaged vehicles, offered a way out of his predicament.

The company, founded in 1996, is based in Saitama, just north of Tokyo. It buys damaged vehicles -- including ones that have been totaled -- and sells them on its website, which has over 100,000 registered dealerships. Even mangled Japanese cars easily find buyers overseas, thanks to their reputation for quality.

"Ninety-five percent [of the vehicles] are auctioned off within 48 hours," said Tau's CEO Akitaka Miyamoto.

Tau sells about 50,000 cars a year in Japan and abroad.

The vehicles are exported in their damaged state, since tariffs are lower that way. The car Tau bought from the Hyogo man was sold on to a dealership owner in Peru, where it is currently being repaired. Such businesses appreciate the chance to buy Japanese cars at low cost; the Peruvian dealer has purchased several without any problems.

Tau conducts thorough background checks to avoid purchasing stolen vehicles.

Selling points

Tau is not the only Japanese company finding global homes for unwanted stuff.

SynaBiz, a startup in Tokyo, buys a range of leftover inventory and returned merchandise. Generally, companies are reluctant to sell such products at a discount, for fear of crashing their prices. Often, the surplus is simply thrown away.

"In Japan alone, the value of such liquid assets written off the books is more than 20 trillion yen ($182 billion)," said Nobuyuki Tajima, a SynaBiz director.

SynaBiz works around clients' concerns. It can limit sales to specific areas -- say, only overseas markets. But the more conditions the seller attaches, the lower SynaBiz's valuation of the goods tends to be.

Currently, the company is focusing on domestic appliances, computers, clothing and food products. It receives about 150 requests per month and actually buys about 30% of the time.

MarketEnterprise, meanwhile, handles 28 categories of goods -- among them figurines, musical instruments, power tools, domestic appliances, fishing tackle and agricultural equipment. "We wanted to overcome the suspicion associated with secondhand goods," said founder and President Yasushi Kobayashi.

He came up with a system that gives clients a rough estimate on goods they intend to sell, either by phone or online. Generally, companies only offer such estimates after evaluating the goods.

Tau, SynaBiz and MarketEnterprise all realized the same thing -- that the "used in Japan" label carries global cachet -- and they are finding their own ways to cash in.

(Nikkei)