Shell large (usually between 140 and 190 mm, occasionally up to 237 mm), usually thick and solid, occasionally thin. Colour dark red-brown. Spiral sculpture consisting of many smooth, alternating fine (secondary) and slightly broader (primary) spiral cords on upper spire whorls. Lower spire whorls and body whorl covered with rather fine, rounded primary spiral cords. Interspaces usually with 3-5 (occasionally 1 or 7) rather broad, smooth secondary spiral cords.

Neptunea vladivostokensis has a characteristic sculpture and colour. The aperture is occasionally orange. The species is highly polymorphic. Broad and slender forms, axial sculptured and smooth specimens, heavy and thin shells all occur together. Neptunea eulimata is almost identical but differs in having big axial ribs on the upper spire whorls and a larger number of spiral cords, which are finer. The upper whorls of (sub-)adult specimens however are almost always eroded but are still distinguishable by the axial ribs and the interspaces with more and finer secondary spiral ribs. Neptunea constricta differs in having a larger number of spiral cords and usually a thinner shell.

Neptunea vladivostokensis lives in the western and northern Sea of Japan and is known mainly from Peter the Great Bay in the southwest, off Vladivostok, along the Russian coast of the Sea of Japan to the Strait of Tartary in the northeast. Bathymetric range rather shallow, between 25 and 120 m. Sympatrically with Neptunea eulimata in the southern Strait of Tartary.
Type locality: Russia. Vladivostok.