What is the best value Yahoo! Auctions Japan redirection service?

Late update.

So the box arrived and as expected I only got charged VAT and the €10 for admin.
FromJapan were kind enough to specify on the required paperwork that it was second hand video game consoles as it's exempt of duty were I live. I thought it was worth asking as I am not sure if the name of the consoles themselves would have been useful for the customs.

Looking back at this experiment, I have mixed feelings. While I am super happy with what I got and the exceptional state of the consoles, if I add up all the FromJapan fees, the bank currency conversion fees and the VAT, this is basically the same as Ebay auctions (and I mean auctions, not the nonsensical Buy-it-Now inflated prices). The main advantage in the end is the fact that you can quickly find good deals right away by importing with a proxy, instead of waiting and monitoring Ebay day and night. Price wise it's the same, at least for what I ordered.

 

Please recommend proxy service for auction.

I've been using Fromjapan before but lately their service has becoming shitty, the third time they try to swindle me and I just cant have it anymore. Need new proxy service.

 

Try Celga.com! I just got a few things from there for the first time and the system is pretty straight forward. Check it out

 

X2, FromJapan has really gone downhill. I'm guessing their volume picked or something bc they have been pretty bad recently. I received items that weren't mine. (They accidentally sent me someones shipment.) Then proceeded to lose half the stuff I ordered.... It was a big mess. :/

Also if something breaks via transit, the insurance you pay for... doesn't work. I'm 5 weeks waiting for a $60 claim to go through. (A small claim considering I had $500 worth of insurance on the package.)

 

Only one I've tried is Jauce.com, never had an issue.

 

Buyee.

 

Celga deal in USD not favourable to me because everything will be convert twice. My currentcy is not USD

I think it's the volume. The first time they messed up my order which cost me double domestic fee (which isn't cheap!) their excuse was because they have large number of order each day and therefore cannot pay attention to every single one. That excuse alone deserve an Oscar.

 

Buyee was the best until they made the new "you can't change the packet value in international shipping" policy. After that, customs screwed me so hard in my country with the last packet that I sent me from their warehouse that whenever I read Buyee I want to sink them.

 

Probably because changing value is somewhat fraud?

 

Anyone used Tenso before and don't mind to do some review?

 

Buyee is part of Tenso, if you want to buy from YHJ, their customer service will tell you to use Buyee. How I found out about Buyee in the first place.

 

I wanted to use Tenso because Toranoana parther with them.

I checked out buyee website and the consolation fee is a real killer.
Plus, Google result of "buyee" doesn't really encourage me.

 

Well I'm someone who uses them all the time, yes they can be a rather premium price. However the service is there, I've sent emails and always gotten replies.

Usually when you go cheap you get cheap, and not all of these services have really good english either. Buyee isn't perfect, and no services will be. Their responses are pretty good though, easy to understand.

The only issue I had is where a 500g package cost me $50 to ship over. I questioned them and they sent me photos of the packaging, as it was a plastic dressup plate for the Xbox they packed it extremely well.

I think their consolidation fees are pretty good $5~ for 1-3 packages, and it's $10 for above 4+. Considering they throw protective stuff in (not much of it) but they do and in a sturdy box, it's good that you'll know it won't show up broken.

Also, their site is pretty good, being real-time and all, free sniper use. You could give it ago, and if it's not what you're looking for then all I can suggest is you start making friends in Japan.
Bottom line, remember no service will be perfect, and of course if Buyee shafts me I'll make a good note of it, but after 10+ packages everything has gone well.

 

GP's was

 

It's a shame we don't have any users in Japan on our contact a local for help thread.

If anyone in Japan wants to be added, feel free to contact me. I'd ask that you have 50 posts / have been a member for 3 months and log in fairly regularly - maybe once a week - or have your PM e-mail notifications on. Thanks!

 

Yeah, it was fun while it lasted. It's indeed a lot of work, and unfortunately there's a lot of room for human error (even if you pay attention).

 

I'm trying zen market right now, have placed some orders but none has been shipped to me yet.

 

Well I came to look for an alternative to FromJapan. I used them a lot for quite a while and am now tired of what the service has become. From throwing away a box for a PSP Tool. To using pristine complete Super Famicom games to pad heavy arcade boards this is my final straw.

I'm not sure when this particular change took effect. But I'm used to having an open order on FromJapan almost all the time. typically I will back them into one big shipment and then ship everything together recently I received an error on there side when trying to do this "Non-arrived items are included in your selection. As it is not possible to select non-arrived items in the shipping instructions, it is not possible to perform this action." My first thought is "hmm that's new. Maybe I missed an email explaining this change. I'm waiting for a few more things hopefully they can make an exception for me this time"

So I send an email
ME
"Hi I'm unfortunately having difficulty creating the shipping instructions. I wish to bundle all items that I have won into one shipment. However the system is giving me an error when I try to do this which it never did in the past. It is very important to me to have this all in one shipment instruction."
Probably should have been more clear as I received this back.

FROMJAPAN
"Thank you very much for your email.
Would you please kindly tell us more information
on that error you are experiencing. Please let us know
of the error message or code that appears on the page."


ME
"When I attempt to select all of the items for a shipment I receive the following.

"Non-arrived items are included in your selection.
As it is not possible to select non-arrived items in the shipping instructions, it is not possible to perform this action."


I have always done this in the past and only recently this seems to have been changed. I need this to be sent as one order. Thanks"

FROMJAPAN
"Thank you very much for your email.
Regarding your inquiry, currently we can only instruct a
shipment when the items have all arrived at the warehouse.
As such, please instruct a shipment with only the items that
are in the warehouse.

There is also an option to extend the storage time for the
items that you currently have at the warehouse, and thus,
extend the limit of your shipping instructions. There is a fee
of 100 yen per day per each item that has reached the 30 day
mark of storage. If you want, you can simple reply to us
stating how many days of extra storage you want.

As you only have 1 day before your items in the warehouse get
automatically instructed into a shipment, we would suggest
to either fill the instructions yourself or to reply to us
today before 7pm (JST) with the amount of days you wish to
extend the storage.

If you need further help with this or anything then please let us

know and we would be happy to assist you further. "

Happy to assist me further... as long as it involves a $1 a day in storage. I've bought thousands of dollars in the past. I'm a Shogun Rank member. They have always been helpful and understanding in the past.

ME
"Unfortunately this means i will have to greatly reduce the amount of orders in the future. Also if this is new policy I will have to seriously look at other services in the future."

FROMJAPAN
"Thank you very much for your email.

Our service has worked like this for a long time. This
was actually possible in the past when our company
wasn't as big as today, but we aren't talking about
several years ago, as such this is not a new policy."



Several years!? Am I the only one here that has been doing this recently. Maybe my memory is bad but I remember doing this a few times in 2014 at least. I don't think this has always been policy. At this point I figure they don't value me enough as a customer so it's time to start looking at alternatives. I check this thread and it looks like others have been having a deteriorating experience with FromJapan as well. So here is my most recent email.

ME
"What date did your system begin to refuse packing non-received items with received items? If memory serves me correctly I have done it as recently as 2014. In any case thank you for making my decision easier. I'm not sure what happened to the wonderful polite service I've come to rely on over the past years but you have made it clear to me that service is gone and replaces with a "big company". The more I search it has become obvious that I'm not the only one dissatisfied with your service. I plan to post my most recent experiences here. http://www.assemblergames.com/forums/showthread.php?45785-What-is-the-best-value-Yahoo!-Auctions-Japan-redirection-service Please feel free to visit when your company tries to figure out where your customers went."

Honestly this wouldn't normally make me this mad but with the way things have been going with them recently. I feel like it is time to look for something else. Currently doing some research on what other options exist. I'm hoping to find someone with similarly low fees but I have probably given FromJapan too much credit with there fees as they seem to have creative ways of making them harder to figure out.

 

In regards to shipping of items:

I always use EMS for shipping and I always select the re-package for shipping option. My concerns are the time it takes to get the product to me, and the condition of the product during and after shipping. So using Jauce I've never had a shipping error or shipping damage, I've also received a 75lb package in 3 days!

 

@dot ZenMarket looks really promising let us know how it turns out!

For the first three years I used FromJapan I never had a problem with shipping. Sometime in 2013 the packing quality went down hill. Before when picking between 'Normal' and "Secure". It was a question of how much I cared about the item, but now for FromJapan "Normal" means "Don't give a shit how I pack it" and Secure means "lots of bubble wrap.