Purchasing from Yahoo Japan Auctions

I was looking at a few different ways to purchase DDs and related items, and a lot of sources seem to recommend Yahoo Japan Auctions, however every auction I see listed there will not ship overseas. I was wondering if you guys have any advice on utilising the Yahoo Auctions, re-mailing companies and more general etiquette for corresponding with sellers.

 

Thinking about getting the Sakura Shinguji DD since Sakura Taisen has been a favourite of mine for a looooooooong time now, and the battle uniform as well. Yahoo Auctions seems the only place where the extra uniform set is available.

you can use a shipping thingy or proxy. they receive the items in japan and then repackage it and sen it to you. i use shopping mall japan and i think the service is gut

Yokatta is a good Japanese proxy. It's super easy to use, just send them an email with the item you want; you don't even need to bother with signing up or anything.

 

Three things to keep in mind:

-Currency exchange rate between USD and JPY; prices can get quite high after you after this in. PayPal takes a fee for exchanging currencies.

-Deposit amount. All proxies require half or full payment when bidding on an auction. This amount gets refunded if you lose the auction.

-Shipping fees. The bane of all collectors looking to buy overseas.

 

Carefully consider these factors before immediately thinking "omg jp aucs so cheap!" It's not always rosy on the other side.

Thanks for the advice. The currency conversion fees are something I have to pay pretty much regardless, since I'm in Australia, same with international posting, so they don't throw my math out.

Yokatta isn't really one I would would recommend with auctions of larger value, but they are good for smaller items or buying through stores hosted on Y!J, or any stores located in Japan. Great shopping service for those.

 

I'd recommend Noppin when buying dolls as the fee is discounted once you go over 40K JPY. It is quite nice (I take advantage of that discount on a regular basis!) But from my understanding From-Japan is even cheaper than Noppin. I simply use Noppin because you aren't required to do the full deposit amount. I like to keep some money in my bank in case I don't in fact win.

I have a question regarding YJ auctions that I'll just post here!

 

Is it possible to ask a shopping service to contact a YJ seller before purchasing? For instance, to make an offer?

I have a question regarding YJ auctions that I'll just post here!

 

Is it possible to ask a shopping service to contact a YJ seller before purchasing? For instance, to make an offer?

 

I remember Celga could do something like that, I asked about a dakimakura of a female crusader from Ragnarok Online once.

Moved this to the Q&A section

The biggest advantage of Noppin is that you are actually in control of the bidding using their system instead of sending a request to the proxy to bid which is a really nice feature!

Has anyone used "buyee"? Was watching a doll on y!j and noticed a banner to the service on the auction page itself, signed up and started bidding and it seemed to be somehow integrated to y!j itself, bids I placed on buyee automatically went to the auction under a "buy*****" account.

 

Well, the price went over what I was willing to pay so nothing came out of that auction, but I noticed (if I was able to interpret the item descriptions correct..) that most sellers won't sell items to accounts that don't have any positive feedback.

 

Any idea how strict they are with that, if I happened to win something with that 0 feedback account wonder what'd happen? I'll probably look into other shopping services as well if Volks doesn't restock anything nice anytime soon, but I did like the usability of buyee since the bids could be manually placed and they didn't require a deposit beforehand.

 

edit: bit of an anti-recommendation towards buyee :I apparently the bid took a ~$250 deposit from my card even though I didn't win. Contacted them about when it'll be refunded but haven't heard anything yet, dunno if they're even open around new years.

 

edit2: the deposit was apparently just a cover reservation so I was able to cancel it from my bank myself without any troubles and it would have expired next week anyways so no problem there.

Today I got my package using buyee proxy that I paid on y!j on the 5th of January. The biggest delay was getting the package from the original seller to the proxy warehouse, after that a couple days for additional protective packaging, and the shipping from Japan to where I live was super fast, just a day, and then it got stuck in customs over the weekend

 

It was fairly expensive, mainly the shipping - 6000 jpy with protective packaging. Then again, a DD body is pretty large. The shopping service fee was 10% I think, and the best thing about the system is that using the service you can place bids in real time, so it's just like using y!j just in english. Their customer service works pretty nicely too, got a reply to my question about those cover reservation charges pretty quickly.

 

So yeah, might use this one in the future as well if there's something on y!j I can't pass up on.

Could you post a link to the website please? I've been hunting for a good proxy service for a while.

ShoppingMallJapan seems pretty good. And if you haven't used them before you get your first order for free (meaning, no added fees on their end, you still have to pay for the item of course XD)

 

You have to put your deposit in quite some time before the auction ends, or they won't update until it's too late. But their bidding system is good.

 

Not sure how good Rinkya is. I do use Rinkya to search Y!J easier but never signed up.

I've used ShoppingMallJapan for years and have never had a bad experience. The exchange rate is such a beast now that I haven't bought much. The fees can sometimes creep up on you though.

If I may ask, how long on average do it usually take for YJA auction items to appear in Yokatta's warehouse? Mine is a small little item. They said up to 7 days and it's a few days past that. I already paid while going into the second week of waiting. Now in the "radio silence" stage according to them. I used them before for a Busou Shinki Cradle set but now just waiting on them to receive what I ordered. The last time I ordered I"m pretty sure it was as quick as any other service, just now with everything being a bit more drawn out.

 

Not familiar with how long it takes with YJA so curious with how long it took others on average. I'm confused and highly worried right about now if I screwed up somewhere.

Auctions are from individual sellers. They vary in how long they take just like people vary all over the place here. You did do feedback research on the seller, right? Proxies won't do that for you.

 

I would start asking Yokatta to dispute the transaction with that seller after 3 weeks.

Auctions are from individual sellers. They vary in how long they take just like people vary all over the place here. You did do feedback research on the seller, right? Proxies won't do that for you.

 

I would start asking Yokatta to dispute the transaction with that seller after 3 weeks.

 

He's rated the highest and the most bought from people. I don't jump on things unless I know it works, and for some reason things just broke down or hanging this time around even though both are trustworthy. I've been told ot wait, so I did but now I'm just highly curious as to how long it normally takes with YJA type items to send things at best. I would assume 7 days and another for the actual shipping. Instead I waited 2-3 weeks for the first seven to be done with.

 

I'm at a loss, waiting as people told me to.

 

All clarified now.....It's normal, just me not being able to read Japanese so some confusion was to be had.

I can't access my account with Shopping Mall Japan and to complete the registration they asked for $10 Still I can't login. Is this a scam proxy?

I can't access my account with Shopping Mall Japan and to complete the registration they asked for $10 Still I can't login. Is this a scam proxy?

SMJ is not scam and their user interface is quite comprehensive and you can bid yourself (within deposit limit) thus expensive. I'd suggest using japonicamarket as an alternatives. Commission is the most competitive one I found for all kind of proxy service, not only for Yahoo Japan. Last time I bought Rise for 100k with a 2k commission only. They don't have an auto-cart system like most of other shops but they do snipe bid for you. Updates are done normally but very reliable. There was one time I requested for a bid ending in 2 hours and they still made it. Just bear in mind Japan time zone and everything works just fine

SMJ is not scam and their user interface is quite comprehensive and you can bid yourself (within deposit limit) thus expensive. I'd suggest using japonicamarket as an alternatives. Commission is the most competitive one I found for all kind of proxy service, not only for Yahoo Japan. Last time I bought Rise for 100k with a 2k commission only. They don't have an auto-cart system like most of other shops but they do snipe bid for you. Updates are done normally but very reliable. There was one time I requested for a bid ending in 2 hours and they still made it. Just bear in mind Japan time zone and everything works just fine

 

I still can't login with what emails they sent me with the temporary password, I don't know why but I already sent them an email about it. I've already made a $10 deposit as they are asking of me to complete my registration.

They are a bit slowish on weekend and depending on the time zone (they have office in US and Japan), there might be a bit lag. As I recall, the process is as follow: register > temporary pass to activate send > activation success > request for $10 or $50 deposit > new password sent to confirm bidding ability once deposit received > you can change password to what you want from here and start bidding.

The whole process is done manually I think so just be patient with them a bit