Yahoo! Japan - Experience? Best proxy?

[w8kbrder]

Curious if any of you have made any transactions on Yahoo Japan? I thought about bidding on something but do not have any experience using it.

 

Anything to look out for? Easy to use? Not easy to use?

 

thanks!

[jvmacross]

Works almost like eBay.  YJA allows auctions to continue past the original listed closing time so they are more like live auctions that do not end until all bidders are done bidding.

You will need to use a proxy to place your bids.

The official proxy bidding company is Buyee.  Buyee is very easy to use and their fees are among the lowest.

I have yet to have a bad experience with either YJA or Buyee.  YMMV.

Good luck and don't bid on any of my auctions! 

 

[spacemanoeuvres]

20 minutes ago, jvmacross said:

Works almost like eBay.  YJA allows auctions to continue past the original listed closing time so they are more like live auctions that do not end until all bidders are done bidding.

You will need to use a proxy to place your bids.

The official proxy bidding company is Buyee.  Buyee is very easy to use and their fees are among the lowest.

I have yet to have a bad experience with either YJA or Buyee.  YMMV.

I've used buyee for 5 or 6 items and it's worked well as long as you understand the fees. 

I've learned it's best to use a cc with no foreign transaction fee and sometimes it's best to leave items at their warehouse for a few weeks just in case you make additional purchases that may be cheaper to ship when combined. Your mileage may vary. 

21 minutes ago, jvmacross said:

Good luck and don't bid on any of my auctions! 

 

x2, get off my sh!t lol jk

[w8kbrder]

30 minutes ago, jvmacross said:

Works almost like eBay.  YJA allows auctions to continue past the original listed closing time so they are more like live auctions that do not end until all bidders are done bidding.

You will need to use a proxy to place your bids.

The official proxy bidding company is Buyee.  Buyee is very easy to use and their fees are among the lowest.

I have yet to have a bad experience with either YJA or Buyee.  YMMV.

Good luck and don't bid on any of my auctions! 

 

Awesome thank you so much. So I need to go through Buyee.  Hah. I'll make sure not to bid on anything of yours unless it has to do with Macross Zero.

 

Do you need to look for specifics on shipping? What is a good average price to ship to the US?

Edited April 18, 2017 by w8kbrder

[spacemanoeuvres]

Shipping cost from buyee to you is what you would normally pay for ems, sal etc by weight. However you will have to pay shipping from seller to buyee warehouse as well which is typically 500-1200 yen. 

There are a few fees that you pay for a successful bid too. They are typically 700-2500 yen depending on the auction amount. 

[Boobytrap]

I've only just recently started using YJA with Buyee as the proxy and I am kicking myself for not doing it sooner. It's super easy to use. The little extra you pay in fees and shipping to the proxy is nothing compared to the savings that can be had compared to any other retailer I have used (mandarake, jungle, ebay, etc...).

If you are patient and keep your bids low you can walk away with some great deals.

[spacemanoeuvres]

19 minutes ago, Boobytrap said:

If you are patient and keep your bids low you can walk away with some great deals.

Ah man, I've been doing it wrong hahaha

[Boobytrap]

You'd think it would be captain obvious type knowledge but all too often I see people get caught up in the bidding and not follow that formula. All I can do is shake my head and hope that the dopamine high they got off of being the winner was worth the sledge hammer to the wallet.

[Sandman]

21 hours ago, Boobytrap said:

I've only just recently started using YJA with Buyee as the proxy and I am kicking myself for not doing it sooner. It's super easy to use. The little extra you pay in fees and shipping to the proxy is nothing compared to the savings that can be had compared to any other retailer I have used (mandarake, jungle, ebay, etc...).

If you are patient and keep your bids low you can walk away with some great deals.

Do you really get deals? With all those fees and paying shipping twice it seems unlikely to get anything cheaper than on say manadrake.

[jvmacross]

It depends on what you value more in life....your time or your money...

Sure you can grab a slightly better deal on Mandarake.....but the odds are you won't, especially now a days.....Mandarake undervalues their stock because they pay "peanuts" to the poor schmucks bringing in their stuff to sell at their stores....think pawn shops....and you have to be "in the right place at the right time" to catch those "deals"....

On YJA, only your will-power will stand in your way of buying and acquiring anything you want, when you want it, at current market prices....and like any commodity, the price will fluctuate up or down, depending on who is "in the market" for the same thing you are looking to buy at any given moment.....sometime you get lucky and find a "good deal", but you will never pay more than what it's worth, as long as you don't get carried away in a "bidding war"............to some....that's a pretty good deal

[Sandman]

Ok but minus all the fees and the extra shipping is there stuff listed at dramatically lower price than online retailers. From my quick search just now everything I saw was right around where I expect the prices to be. Sure there are some that are listed low but have 5 days remaining to the auction. You know bidding is going to bring the price up to where the others are at by the last day. Not criticizing just genuinely curious if there are deals to be had here or if it's just like eBay where I feel there are no deals anymore.  

[spacemanoeuvres]

In my experience you have to search, do the math, and wait. 

I use the service to find things that are not widely available, or outrageously expensive at most online retailers. If something is ending in a week then I'll add it to my watchlist and keep tabs on the bidding. Most of the time the bidding goes above and beyond what I want to spend but sometimes you can get lucky.

If you monitor closed auctions and have a good sense of the value of what you're looking for then you can make some reasonable purchases. But you have to dig, do the math, and be patient. Not wildly different from eBay. 

[Boobytrap]

All of the deals I have received are from those items you indicated with low prices but multiple days left to bid. I usually put them on a watch list and keep an eye on how many bids have been placed and what the price is. If on the last day it's still at a low price with only a few people bidding I'll put in a single max bid and hope for the best. If i'm lucky I come in the next day with a nice surprise. If I don't win I just move on and wait for the next opportunity. The great thing with YJA is that they have a pretty good selection of items. You are pretty much guaranteed to get another shot at what you are looking for without waiting too long.

Recently got a YF-29 30th,  1/60 super/strike parts, YF-29 isamu, and DYRL hikaru VF-1A for prices that were far less than anything I could find them for through other channels, even with the additional fees.

[ridgebacks]

Bingo. There's great deal to be had on YJA through buyee if you bid cleverly. I saw an Isamu 29 with super pack at 20k JPY yesterday with 0 bid and couple hours left. Was really grinding my teeth to will myself not to get it because I need that money else where.

 

Then there's the problem with trying to get things that are out of print for at least a decade and really hard to find. I got a first print limited edition BattleFairy Yukikaze bluray set (with bonus stuff, really hard to find) last year for 30k final bid, while the starting bid was like 9k...

[Bobby]

I use zenmarket.jp. I purchased lots of items through Buyee in the past and never ever had a problem. But over time, the fees kind of got to me (high service and packing fee in particular). After researching I found zen...they don't charge anything for packaging your items and they have a straight service fee of 300¥ per transaction no matter what you buy. They also have a built in sniper system (but you still do have to honor YJA platform of waiting until all bidding is done for). The main difference is that you have to pay upfront to load your account while buyee just charges as you go along if I remember correctly since it's been awhile. You can buy credits when the yen is weak as well so market behavior can be in your favor/control instead of just when it happens. I have purchased over a hundred items (lots of books mainly) with zen and again, never had any issues and their contact support always gets back to me within 24hrs.

Edited April 19, 2017 by Bobby

[spacemanoeuvres]

38 minutes ago, Bobby said:

I use zenmarket.jp. ain difference is that you have to pay upfront to load your account while buyee just charges as you go along if I remember correctly since it's been awhile.

Thank you! Checking it out now

[Bobby]

You're welcome!

Btw, if you lose an auction zen gives you the 300¥ commission back and of course the amount you bid. Also, you get options for which carrier you want after everything is packaged and weighed so you can choose the cheapest and/or the fastest method. 

 

[spanner]

I've used YJA through Buyee several times, never had issues. They often send through email discount codes which are handy.

[spacemanoeuvres]

2 hours ago, Bobby said:

You're welcome!

Btw, if you lose an auction zen gives you the 300¥ commission back and of course the amount you bid. Also, you get options for which carrier you want after everything is packaged and weighed so you can choose the cheapest and/or the fastest method. 

 

They do charge a 3.35% fee to add funds to your account from a credit card.  Do you know if they charge a fee to return the monies if you don't win and decide you want the money returned to your credit card?  I read most of the help section but I don't see anything about the fees involved with withdrawal of funds from your zenmarket account.

Edited April 20, 2017 by spacemanoeuvres

[Bobby]

You know, I've never had to do that before so I unfortunately don't have any experience with that. It usually just plays out like this...I use Paypal  (2.9% which is cheaper than one single Buyee handling fee <$300) the money then goes into my account.

I bid x amount which is usually my max bid (sniper) plus 300¥ and the money is no longer accessible because it is "reserved" for my bid until the auction ends (but you can still cancel your still). If I win, great, if I lose, all of that money plus the 300¥ returns into my Zen account and I usually win something else and have the money already there for another item + shipping.

So in addition to the 300¥ service fee and 2.9% to load my account, the only other thing is the shipping costs (ex. of my latest shipments):

size: 35 x 35 x 8 (14" x 14" x 3")

weight: 2345g (5.2 lbs)

fedex: ¥3,783 ($34 USD)

--

size: 33 x 24 x 13 (13" x 9.5" x 5")

weight: 3430g (7.6 lbs)

fedex: ¥5,148 ($47 USD)

As you can see, that seems very reasonable for that size and weight. Even though the yen has been getting stronger in the last few weeks, this ended up being much cheaper than Buyee as well because at Buyee they won't take your items out of the packaging they received it in. So if you win multiple items, the box just keeps getting bigger and bigger and heavier and heavier because it has to hold all these other boxes/envelopes and all this wasted space (another thing that bothered me). For the most part, I've seen that Zen unpacks and then packs more efficiently (at no charge) and can even send you pics of your items for inspection (for a small fee). It might depend on the packer or the item though because I do recall having received a few items before that were still in their originally shipped box (from the YJA seller to Zen).

If you've ever wanted an item from Amazon Japan but saw they are unable to ship to your stateside address, Zen has a tab (just like Buyee) where you just click the Amazon tab and buy it. And for that matter, technically ANY website in Japan that will not ship to the USA (just click the "Other Shops" tab) can be bought from by simply adding the shops URL to the shopping cart and then buying the items which I've done as well and was very happy. My point being that there are SO MANY ITEMS in Japan that you are bound to find something! At least that's why I've never needed to get my money put back on my card 

About getting your money back: With all that said, it might just come down to this...if I recall correctly, Buyee doesn't charge unless you win...so that's definitely a great value proposition and eliminates this whole issue and might be the way to go for single items and infrequent overseas shopping vs. if you are a regular overseas Japan shopper and purchase multiple items on a fairly regular basis.

Edited April 20, 2017 by Bobby

[sh9000]

With the stuff you can find there, YJA is addicting at times.

[Bobby]

I know, the moment I discovered Japanese buying services it was like opening Pandora's Box!

[Boobytrap]

Same. The first week I was on it was very overwhelming to me and my wallet. I was like 'oooh they have that', 'they have that too', 'oh wow they also have that'. Bid bid bid. 

[ridgebacks]

Ok, first time using the Zenmarket, a question thou. After I won an auction, the bid status shows as “awaiting buying”, and has been like that for 8 hours. Will it be updated during their working hours or something? My bid ended at 5pm Japanese time so I assume no one in Zenmarket is working on paying for my item?

Edited April 20, 2017 by ridgebacks

[Major Focker]

zenmarket seems like shoppingmalljapan, ie. deposit prior to purchase.

i want to give ZM a try, but based on my experience with SMJ, i have some reservations about the deposit mechanic, specifically about getting it back after a failed bid/purchase.

when you make a deposit, you lose about 1-2% on the forex conversion (and another 1-3% if your CC or bank charges a foreign transaction fee). but the forex loss is fine, since you would incur this anyway with any foreign purchase that isn't denominated in your home currency.

the problem is that when the deposit is refunded, the likes of ZM and SMJ will likely refund the yen amount they received ( which is already net of the 1-2% extra you already paid upon making the deposit) and that yen refund will incur another 1-2% loss when it's converted back to your home currency. this can of course be avoided by simply keeping the deposit with ZM and using it for future purchases. this works out fine if you make frequent purchases and the deposit balance is small. but a failed bid on a 100,000 yen auction might still take a while to consume.

ZM says they use STRIPE, which is 2% on forex conversion. Mastercard and Visa are typically 1.xx%. per ZM, deposits via CC will use STRIPE rates.

if you use Paypal for the deposit, Paypal can auto-convert to yen, but Paypal forex rates are worse than CC, and likely worse than STRIPE. so the workaround is to make a yen denominated deposit via Paypal but turn off the Paypal auto-conversion and use CC conversion instead. however, when the deposit is refunded (and it will be refunded in yen), Paypal gets to apply their worse forex rates on the back conversion.

ZM's payment fee (3.35%) is essentially the same nature as other proxies' commission/service fees. they just attached it to deposit payments rather than to the purchase transactions. other proxies do this as well, so they can claim they only charge a minimal flat fee on purchases. 

still, ZM's 3.35% + 300 yen is a very good rate, and better than buyee's 5% + 200 yen. at least for YAJ purchases >5,000 yen.

what is hard to beat is that amazon and rakuten purchases via buyee are 0% service fee.

on the other hand ZM's free consolidation beats buyee's 1000 yen consolidation fee.

what i noticed in my consolidated packages of YAJ purchases, is that most YAJ sellers use very light packing materials when shipping domestically. some are in paper bags/mailing envelopes, or the item box is just covered with bubblewrap and thick paper. so the increase in size/weight of the consolidated shipment due to domestic shipping boxes has not been much of an issue for me. for sure, they can be consolidated more efficiently if the items were unpacked then repacked, but YMMV if the final box will be materially smaller and lighter.

for amazon and rakuten purchases, i place multiple items into a big order, and from as few sellers as possible. this way, my purchases are already pre-consolidated (for free) into as few boxes as possible before they're sent to the buyee warehouse. often, they are already sufficiently consolidated and big enough by themselves that i don't bother having buyee consolidate them further and just have them shipped out on their own.

i guess for me, i will try out ZM only for high-value "buy it now" items on YAJ, so i won't have to deal with deposit refunds and/or maintaining a balance. 

 

[spacemanoeuvres]

I asked about returning funds to cc. Here is their response:

Thank you for contacing. 
During a withdrawal, no ZenMarket commission fee is taken. However, in some rare cases, the amount of the withdrawal might slightly differ from the amount that you payed when charging funds into your ZenMarket account. This may happen due to currency fluctuation, your bank or gateway payment system fees, or other various factors that aren't related to ZenMarket. 

Edited April 20, 2017 by spacemanoeuvres

[spacemanoeuvres]

I did the math on a couple of large items and it would be about 2-3% cheaper using ZM. The savings would increase if you bought multiple items and combined shipping because they don't charge a consolidation fee and have lower per auction fees.

If you know you are going to buy multiple items within 45 days then it makes sense to try it out. 

Im going to stick with buyee for now even thought it's more expensive because I have an item in their warehouse already and I still don't understand how the numbers will work with ZM if I load up $500 and decide I'm not going to use it.

[Bobby]

1 hour ago, ridgebacks said:

Ok, first time using the Zenmarket, a question thou. After I won an auction, the bid status shows as “awaiting buying”, and has been like that for 8 hours. Will it be updated during their working hours or something? My bid ended at 5pm Japanese time so I assume no one in Zenmarket is working on paying for my item?

Yeah, it will actually remain that way for a bit. What I've concluded is that it's just a poor choice of words for a short phrase. If the auction is over and you won (or did a buy it now) then rest assured, you won plain an simple. Zen calls this entire period where they go through all their customers won auctions and make payment for them plus arrange for shipping, etc. "awaiting buying".  It should be something more like "awaiting acquisition" or "in the payment process", because it's already been "bought" so to speak.

Once it reaches their warehouse you will get a "your items have reached our warehouse" email. It can actually stay in storage for up to 45 days for free. After that it is 50¥ per day. With multiple items (if you had a continuing shopping spree) I usually wait until around day 42 to "make my package". Usually by the next day they provide all the shipping options. Then whichever carrier you choose before you select it you can add that exact amount to your account so you can have a zero balance once the whole thing is complete. Then within the next day or two it will go out. 

[Bobby]

2 hours ago, Boobytrap said:

Same. The first week I was on it was very overwhelming to me and my wallet. I was like 'oooh they have that', 'they have that too', 'oh wow they also have that'. Bid bid bid. 

Indeed...as a matter of fact, it was just like a boobytrap 

[Boobytrap]

 yes it was

[ridgebacks]

Oh thanks for the explanation. I do have another item that should end in 5 days and I will just wait a bit to ship them both in 1 package. Nice to know it's free for 45 days.

[arbit]

I've always used FromJapan. Is Buyee better?

[ntsan]

I just started using buyee and it's been addicting, stuff in yja is much cheaper than eBay.

 I used to use shippingmalljapan before but I kinda like this buy then you pay as I don't want to deposit money for something that I might not use for a while, as the last time I used this proxy service is few years ago

Edited May 13, 2017 by ntsan

[spacemanoeuvres]

I really like zenmarket except the fact that you have to deposit monies. I haven't withdrawn funds so I don't know how that works. Buyee definitely has a better site and interface but they have fees at every turn, granted many are optional (e.g. insurance and inspection). 

[Shawn]

I've been using Celga.com (http://www.celga.com/) for well over 10 years. They are super nice, and pack everything very well (they aggregate multiple items for shipping).

You can even get something called a 'Gold Account', where you can have your very own Yahoo Japan login/password and bid on anything anytime.

Link the account to your CC and everything just happens auto-magically.

We get all the items we sell each year at the Con to recoup the server costs through them. Their fees are slightly higher ($5-$10) for some tiers, but the convenience of bulk shipping more than makes up for that, at least for me. Tell them MW recommended you if you do try them out.

And don't bid on my stuff either!!!! ha