Japan proxy question...

[kishy]

Hey folks.
I'm looking at purchasing a used item from Japan, listed on Yahoo Auctions, via a proxy service. I know other folks here have done the same before, and I have two questions:

1. The shipping details for this item appear to suggest the seller is shipping it "cash on delivery"...that is, the proxy will receive the shipping bill at time of delivery, instead of shipping being prepaid. Is this common in Japanese auctions? In other words, is it a scenario the proxy will be familiar with?

2. I am currently looking at either Buyee or (leaning towards) ZenMarket as the proxy of choice. Can anyone suggest a better or preferred choice?

Your thoughts are much appreciated.

[Blaise170]

Not sure if a week later you are still looking for the answers to this but I use J-Subculture. COD is pretty common in Japan but domestic shipping is usually extremely cheap even for very heavy items. Someone shipped 10KG worth of goods to J-S for about $11. I also proxy myself through them and did so for Orihalcon about a year ago.

[kishy]

Not sure if a week later you are still looking for the answers to this but I use J-Subculture. COD is pretty common in Japan but domestic shipping is usually extremely cheap even for very heavy items. Someone shipped 10KG worth of goods to J-S for about $11. I also proxy myself through them and did so for Orihalcon about a year ago.

The item I was looking at is gone, but it went for a higher price than I wanted to pay, so no loss there. The COD thing, as you said, looks to be fairly common so any service proxying used items from Yahoo Auctions should be equipped to handle it.

I'll look into J-Subculture, I hadn't seen that one yet.

[jdcarpe]

I use Tenso.com personally, but most of what I have used it for were Amazon.co.jp orders...

[kishy]

As somewhat of a followup, I have now purchased 5 items from Yahoo Auctions sellers using Buyee (which is a sub-service of Tenso).

One of them, I will never receive, due to a massive error on my part (Lithium ion batteries cannot be shipped outside of Japan unless contained within the device they are used for - this is a Japan Post regulation, not Buyee's).

Two of the others have arrived and I've been super pleased with the process. The other two should be showing up in the next couple days. Buyee does offer package consolidation but I wanted them separate for taxation values: doing so saved me more in tax than the shipping savings would have been.

I can definitely recommend Buyee. The fees get a little stupid (like really, 300Y to take a couple pics to prove you're handling the right item and it isn't destroyed?) but ultimately they get to call the shots because my other options are limited. I particularly like that Buyee does not need to "hold a balance" on your behalf and just takes the money you actually owe at the time that you owe it.