Hey everyone - I’m considering making the leap to start purchasing Japanese cards via Buyee. Since it’s virtually impossible to find this information online, I was hoping someone experienced in buying from Japan could tell me what they are typically charged for import fees. I am mostly looking at cards/lots in the $300-2500 range if that makes a difference. Any other “hidden” fees (other than Buyee fees, exchange rate) to consider when assessing pricing? Thanks 
What country are you in?
Buying a card and seeing how it goes will be well worth the cost in experience gained on the process and what to expect.
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Oh sorry, I definitely should have specified that. I’m in the U.S.
The US doesn’t have import charges on items like cards (and other printed materials I believe). There is sometimes a customs processing fee by the shipping carrier if your package is over a certain value (somewhere around 200k JPY or $2,500 USD; I’m not sure exactly) that is usually around $40. The only other fees are generally middleman fees, which if you’re using Buyee, is mainly the consolidation fee ($5 for 2 packages, $10 for 3+ packages), the flat purchase fee (500 yen from mercari or YAJ, 300 yen from most other stores), shipping fees (domestic within Japan and international), and any additional service fees (protective packaging which most of the time isn’t necessary for cards, insurance which also most of the time isn’t worth it, and any photos of the items). There’s also a hidden currency conversion fee they tack onto the US price they charge you for items (it’s somewhere around 3-4%).
Bottom line, buying from Japan is still often going to be cheaper for most things than buying from a place like Ebay, but there are more steps involved and sometimes mistakes are made that can take some time to sort out (I’ve had a couple issues with missing cards from large orders or incorrect invoices, but nothing particularly major). It’s also important to be aware that there is zero buyer protection (unless you want to open a paypal dispute and be forever banned from using Buyee), so what you get is what you’re stuck with.
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@odnihs, very helpful thank you. It’s always seemed like a higher risk but potentially higher reward option. I’ll keep all that in mind.
It’s easy to get scammed on Yahoo Auctions Japan. Be careful. Read everything. Review seller history.
There’s no buyer protection. You could have a missing card or swapped cards and Buyee or whoever middleman you use will say eh, that sucks.
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In addition to fees already mentioned. There is shipping fee from the seller to Buyee’s warehouse if the seller does not cover the shipping cost. This will be stated on the sales page. Although shipping internally in Japan is not that much there can be a situation that a large item/parcel is being shipped from an outline Island and could add some cost. Doesn’t normally happen but it is a possibility. Unfortunately Buyee cannot inform you of any internal shipping cost until the item arrives at the warehouse.
Another thing to keep in mind when placing a bid on an auction is if you win there is NO guarantee the seller will honor the auction and has the right to cancel the sale and relist. It has happened to me several times and it f’n annoying.
And one more thing with auctions. Unlike Ebay, auctions can have time extensions applied, meaning if someone places a bid within the last 5 minutes the ending time will be extended for another 5 mins. A bit annoying but there is a hidden danger to this. Although it’s illegal in Japan just like the US/UK and other countries, you cannot bid on your own listings. But the seller can cancel/remove any bid they seem fit. What this means is the seller can get their mate or use another account they have and bid, find the max value people are willing to pay then remove their bid thus falling back to the second highest bid. And yes this has happened to me. I was bidding on an item, received notification that my max bid has been outbid. Five seconds before the auction ended I suddenly became the highest bidder and Yahoo will take your max bid amount. Although I was willing to pay this it’s still a bit sneaky from the seller to artificially push the price up but in the end I got what I wanted for the price I was willing to pay.
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Is anyone on here buying from the uk? Have a question about import fees if there’s anyone with any expierience here would be great.
Go for it, i’ll try and answer
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I made an account for Buyee but it’s telling me incorrect password after just creating the account and typing it in. Is there any reason it wouldn’t let me on the site? From US
So I have made a fair few orders recently and am aware you can ship it all at the same time if you wait for it all to arrive in the warehouse, my main concern is I have no way of knowing what kind of import fees or other charges there maybe especially since it’s around 3000 gbp, is there anyway to work these fees out?.
You’re going to have roughly 20% of the cost of goods + the shipping costs. There will almost certainly also be some sort of distribution fee, especially if its with fedex, that is another £20~ or so.
I often use this Import Duty Calculator - SimplyDuty to get a rough guess, but tbh normally just going with 20% of the declared value + £20-30 or so for extra fees
Appriciate the info bud I really have no clue about these fees or how they work i done a calculation just then an it came up with 37000 gbp for the fees so I know I must be doing something wrong lol
I believe it would be £6-700 in fees roughly
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Thanks for the response do you think I’d get lower fees if i shipped the items separately rather then all together?, I have 3 orders 1 for 1100 one for 1280 and another for 200, maybe that’s dumb but ive really got no clue would you just ship it all together?
the only way to lower fees would be to somehow make it so each individual package is under £150 gbp, which doesn’t seem possible for your scenario. Even if you could do that, you have to consider the extra shipping costs etc. For your case, I think splitting them up would just result in extra handling fee charges. I’d just send it all in one
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Fair play that does sound like alot of effort I’ll just stick with it and keep my fingers crossed it’s not a crazy amount lol
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Only way i can think of is if the package was sent to the US in small enough chunk to avoid import probably under 1500 usd per package then have a middleman there reship to you all together.
So youd pay double shipping have extra shipping risk and probsbly no insurance on the middleman sending to you but thats probably the only way of not paying import.
Not really worth the headaches risk etc