I’m new to Yahoo Japan… in fact I’m still trying ti figure it out so I’m not even new.
Do you have to use a proxie with Yahoo Japan and if so, which one is the best? (below is what I could find online but I really have no idea which one is safest, reliable, not-annoying and a pain in the butt , etc.
White Rabbit Express: $4 per item + 9.9 percent of item total (or $8 if total isn’t higher)
Stylistics Japan: 10 percent or $19 (whichever is higher)
Zen Market: $3 per item
Buyee Japan: $2 + 5 percent of item fee
Thoughts?
This isn’t accurate any more (and hasn’t been for over a year). Buyee now charge a flat 300 JPY service fee and 200 JPY payment fee (which I think is if you use PayPal). They then have a few extra options like 300 JPY inspection or 500 JPY inspection and insurance.
The most you pay with Buyee now is 1,000 JPY on top of the final price, regardless of whether it’s a 50 JPY item or a 300,000 JPY item.
Out of those you listed I prefer Buyee personally. Never had issues with it myself. White Rabbit Express was fine but its a lot of extra fees and the shipping can get expensive since I am not in America. Zen Market is also fine like Buyee but you have to transfer the money to your account before purchasing things so you will have to really want/know you will win/buy the items.
My personal favourite not mentioned is FromJapan. Nothing special really and I find them comparable to Buyee, but their interface for tracking watched items is something I personally love. They also actually answer messages from me sometimes compared to never from all the other places lol. Consolidation is free compared to Buyee where I think its like 1,000 yen. Also fees per item are ~500 yen not including shipping charges.
I also want to throw in for FromJapan, which is the service I use. I have not used another site so I can’t compare the experience directly but I am satisfied with the functionality and flexibility of their service. It seems Buyee is where most people start, but I ended up starting with FJ due to a recommendation from a seasoned importer who seemed to strongly prefer FJ over the others.
I’ve not used Stylistics Japan but here’s my thoughts on the other 3
Buyee - I use buyee for the vast majority of my purchases from Japan, their fees are good and they’re an official partner of Mercari Jp so you can also easily buy from mercari, which I probably use more than yahoo jp. You also do not need to pay until you win the auction. I’ve heard people complain about them and their customer service in the past but i’ve personally never had any problems.
Zen Market - I started off using Zen Market. They have a great website/Ui; their fees are good and they had a long 45 day storage time. The problem I had with them though was that you needed to fill up a wallet in advance and for more expensive auctions I didn’t want to put all this money into the site wallet when I may not win the auction. I haven’t used fo a while though so not sure if things have changed.
White Rabbit Express - I’ve only used these guys for Mercari purchases, but they’re definitely useful. The fees are steep but their communication is really good and they are willing to communicate with the Japanese sellers or answer questions you might have. Also there is the rare occasion that sometimes JP sellers don’t want to sell to buyee/proxy services, but white rabbit seem to also get around this somehow. Mercari also doesn’t allow buyee to buy newly listed items for a couple of days, so if there’s something newly listed that I think will get bought i’ll use white rabbit to try to buy it early.
I’ve personally used Noppin the most, 20+ times thus far I think. They can be pretty expensive unfortunately, but I never had any issues. They package very well; I can combine orders for up to 60 days; won’t have to pay anything unless I win an auction; and the few times I used their customer service they were very helpful. Unfortunately Noppin has been closed since mid last year. At first it was due to the pandemic, but it seems they’ve taken this opportunity to update their website which is still ongoing apparently. The website mentions it will open again on June 1st, but I would take that with a grain of salt, considering it originally stated February and has been postponed 2-4 weeks into the future each time they’ve reached that deadline. My experience with Noppin thus far can be found here.
For the past few months I’ve been using Buyee, since it’s integrated within YJ. Thus far I’m not too much of a fan in comparison to Noppin, although it’s a nice alternative nonetheless. If I compare the two, the main two pros of Buyee over Noppin are: they’re currently open and Noppin is closed , and Buyee has cheaper middleman fees (for both it’s 500 per product, but with Noppin you pay an additional percentage for everything over 5,500 JpYen). Shipping fees are the same; ease of use is roughly the same; and you only pay after you’ve won on both Buyee and Noppin, so that’s the same as well. Buyee’s packaging is ok, but nothing too write home about, unlike Noppin’s amazing packaging job. And one huge disadvantage of Buyee in comparison to Noppin I’ve experienced: your max bid is 300,000 JpYen.
Since Noppin is still closed, I might try FromJapan in the near future if I want to buy something from YJ, since two people above recommend it.
PS: I know this is about Japanese middleman services, but harum.io for Korean webshops (i.e. tcgbox.co.kr) and superbuy.com for Chinese webshops (i.e. beehivetcg.com) I can also recommend.
I have not bid anything over 300.000 yen ever, but I think the maximum of buyee is 900.000 yen. That is what was in my introduction to buyee at least, could be that they chanched is since then. Maybe a veteran buyee user could bid up to 900.000 yen?
Not sure about the second part, which is plausible, since I’ve only been using Buyee since recently after Noppin was closed.
The max for me is definitely 300,000 Japanese Yen, though. I recently lost an auction for an unlimited edition E1 Pikachu because I couldn’t bid any higher on Buyee. (Not sure if I would have won it if I did go higher, since it was already a lot higher than I was expecting considering it was in heavy played condition. But I was willing to try at least a little higher if I could have…) It ended at 300,001.
@celestialdragon Yea sounds like you’re using the buyee points payment system, when on the order page select PayPal and you’ll be charged when you win the auction via that
, and Buyee has cheaper middleman fees (for both it’s 500 per product, but with Noppin you pay an additional percentage for everything over 5,500 JpYen). Shipping fees are the same; ease of use is roughly the same; and you only pay after you’ve won on both Buyee and Noppin, so that’s the same as well. Buyee’s packaging is ok, but nothing too write home about, unlike Noppin’s amazing packaging job. And one huge disadvantage of Buyee in comparison to Noppin I’ve experienced: your max bid is 300,000 JpYen.
