K Car Auction API: Dealer Lot Data Next to K Car Retail Stock

K Car Auction and K Car

K Car describes itself as Korea's No.1 direct used car platform, buying, inspecting and selling cars itself. K Car Auction is its dealer auction, where lots are offered to dealers on auction dates. In KoreaCarsAPI they are separate sources: K Car with is_auction=false and asking prices, K Car Auction with is_auction=true and lot fields.

KoreaCarsAPI is an independent data service and is not affiliated with K Car. It returns data only and does not take part in the auction.

Who compares auction and retail

Seeing one company's auction and retail data together answers questions that neither side answers alone.

• Pricing teams measuring the gap between dealer lot data and retail asking prices for the same model.
• Exporters deciding whether to source a model through a dealer at auction or from retail stock.
• Analysts studying which cars go to auction and which go to retail.
• Developers building a combined view for dealer clients.

What a K Car Auction lot contains

The vehicle part holds year, brand, model, generation, trim, engine volume, fuel, transmission, body type, colour and options. The listing part holds the lot URL and title, odometer, auction_at, condition and damage, photos, and price and current_bid where the auction shows them, as data fields.

created_at, updated_at and last_seen_at track the lot in the data, and the price history keeps any price changes with dates. When the auction publishes an inspection, it comes back in inspections[].

Which fields are filled depends on what the auction shows for each lot. Expect some lots with a price and others without, and design comparisons that skip missing values rather than treating them as zero.

Exporting K Car Auction lots

Use GET /cars with is_auction=true and the K Car Auction entry in domains[]. For the comparison, run a second export for K Car with is_auction=false, or pass both entries and split them by is_auction.

Running the two exports on the same day keeps the comparison fair, since both retail stock and auction lots change over time. Store the date of each run with the results, and compare like with like: lots with a known auction_at next to retail listings that were active on the same day.

# AUCTION_ID: K Car Auction entry from GET /domains
curl --get https://api.auctionsapi.com/cars \
  -d is_auction=true \
  -d "domains[]=AUCTION_ID" \
  -d lang=en \
  -d api_key=$API_KEY

# Retail side: same call with is_auction=false and K Car's entry

Practical tips for an auction and retail comparison

A fair comparison needs like-for-like cars.

• Match on generation, trim, year and a mileage band, not on model alone.
• Compare condition: K Car describes its retail cars as inspected by K Car, while auction lots carry their own condition fields.
• Treat current_bid as a captured field, not as a sale price, and asking prices as asking prices.
• Use VIN lookups to spot a car that appears on both sides over time.
• Never read a missing inspection as a clean car.

K Car Auction among the dealer auctions

K Car Auction shares the lot format with Lotte Auto Auction, Autobell Auction, SK Car Rental Auction, HeyDealer Auction and the Kolon Auto Auction entries. One export with several domains[] values covers them together.

K Car is one of three companies that appear in KoreaCarsAPI with both a retail marketplace and a dealer auction. The others are HeyDealer and Hyundai Glovis, which adds an export channel too, with Autobell, Autobell Global and Autobell Auction.

To run this comparison on your own models first, ask for a demo key.

Questions